Discuss subjectivity and reflexivity in terms of gender, class, ideology and ethics
Garfinkel argues that members employ the ‘documentary method’ to make sense and account for the social world and to give it an appearance of order. This method consists of selecting certain aspects of the infinite number of features contained in any situation or context , of defining them in a particular way and seeing them as evidence of an underlying pattern. The process is then reversed and particular instances of the underlying pattern are then used as evidence for the existence of the pattern. In
Graginkel’s words, the documentary method ‘consists of treating and actual appearance as “the document of as “pointing to” as “standing on behalf of’ a presupposed underlying pattern. Not only is the underlying pattern derived from its individual
documentary evidence, but the individual documentary evidences, in their turn, are interpreted on the basis of “what is known” about the underlying pattern. Each is used to elaborate the other’. For example, in the cases of Atkinson’s study of coroners, those deaths defined as suicide were seen as such by reference to an underlying pattern. This patterns is the coroner’s commonsense theory of suicide. However, at the same time, those deaths defined as suicide were seen as evidence for the existence of the underlying pattern. In this way particular instances of the pattern and the pattern itself are mutually reinforcing and are used to elaborate each other. Thus the documentary method can be seen as ‘reflexive3. The particular instance is seen as a reflection of the underlying pattern and vice versa. Garfinkel argues that social life is ‘essentially reflective’. Members of society are constantly referring aspects of activities and situations to presumed underlying patterns and confirming the existence of those patterns by reference to particular instances of their expression. In this way members produce account of the social world which not only make sense of and explain but actually constitute that world.
Thus in providing accounts of suicide, coroners are actually producing suicide. Their accounts of suicide constitute suicide in the social world. In this respect accounts are a part of the things they describe and explain. The social world is therefore constituted by the methods and accounting procedures in -terms of which it is identified, described and
explained. Thus the social world is constructed by its members by the use of the documentary method. This is what Garfinkel means-when be describes social relatively as ‘essentially reflective.
Garfinkel claims to have demonstrated the documentary methods and its reflexive nature by his experiment conducted in a university department of psychiatry. Students were invited \o take part in what was describes as a new form of psychotherapy. They were asked to summaries a personal problem on which they required advice and then ask a counsellor a series of questions. The counsellor sat in a room adjoining the student; they could not see each other and communicated via an intercom. The counsellor was limited to responses of either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Unknown to the student, his advisor was not a
counsellor and the answers he received were evenly divided between ‘yes’ or ‘no their sequence being predetermined in accordance with a table of random numbers.
In one case a student was worried about his relationship with his girlfriend . He was Jewish and she was a Gentile. He was worried about his parents’ reaction to the relationship and the problems that might result from marriage and children. His questions were addressed to these concerns. Despite the fact that the answers he received were random , given without reference to the content of questions and sometimes contradicted previous answers, the student found them helpful, reasonable and sensible. Similar assessments of the counselling sessions were made by the other students in the experiment. From comments made by the students on each of the answers they received, Garfinkel draws the following conclusions. Students made sense of the answers where no sense existed; they imposed and order on the answers where no order was present. When answers appeared contradictory or surprising, the students order was present. When answers appeared contradictory or surprising, the students assumed that he counsellor was unaware of the full facts of their case. The students constructed and appearance of order by using the documentary method. From the first answer they perceived an
underlying pattern in the counsellor’s advice. The students constructed an appearance of order by using the documentary method. From the first answer they perceived and underlying pattern in the counsellor’s advice. The sense of each following answer was interpreted in terms of the pattern and at the same time each answer was seen as evidence .
for the existence of the pattern. Thus the students’ method of interpretation was reflexive.
Not only did they produce and account of the counselling session but the account became a part of and so constituted the session. In this way the accounting procedure described and explained and also constructed and constituted social reality at one and the same time. Garfinkel claims that the counselling experiments highlights and captures the procedures that members are constantly using in their everyday lives to construct the social world.
This experiment can also be used to illustrate the idea of indexicality, a centre concept employed by Garfinkel and other ethno methodologists. Indexicality means that the sense of any object or activity is derived from its context it is ‘indexed’ in a particular situation.
As a result any interpretation explanation or account made by members in their everyday lives is made with reference to particular circumstances and situations. Thus the students’ sense of the counsetlor’s answers was derived from the context of the interaction. From the setting- a psychiatry department-and the information they were given, the students believed that the counsellor was what he claimed to be and that he was doing his best to give honest and sound advice. His answers were interpreted within the framework of this context . If identical answers were received to the same set of questions from a fellow
student in a coffee bdf. the change of context would probably result in a very different interpretation. Such responses from a fellow student may be seen as evidence that he had temporarily taken leave of his sense or was having a joke at his friend’s expense or was under the influence of alcohol and so on. Garfinke! argues that the sense of any action is achieved by reference to its context. Members5 sense of what is happening or going on depends on the way they interpret are indexical: they make sense in terms of particular settings.
Degree of Subjectivity; With this basis the scale data may be based on whether we measure subjective personal preferences or simply make non-preference judgements. In the former case, the respondent is asked to choose which person he favours or which solution he would like to see employed, whereas in the latter case he is simply asked to judge which person is more effective in some aspects or which solution will take fewer resources without reflecting any personal preference