title: Methodological troubles as problems and phenomena: ethnomethodology and the question of 'method' in the social sciences.
abstract: Across the disciplinary frontiers of the social sciences, studies by social scientists treating their own investigative practices as sites of empirical inquiry have proliferated. Most of these studies have been retrospective, historical, after-the-fact reconstructions of social scientific studies mixing interview data with the (predominantly textual) traces that investigations leave behind. Observational studies of in situ work in social science research are, however, relatively scarce. Ethnomethodology was an early and prominent attempt to treat social science methodology as a topic for sociological investigations and, in this paper, we draw out what we see as its distinctive contribution: namely, a focus on troubles as features of the in situ, practical accomplishment of method, in particular, the way that research outcomes are shaped by the local practices of investigators in response to the troubles they encounter along the way. Based on two case studies, we distinguish methodological troubles as problems and methodological troubles as phenomena to be studied, and suggest the latter orientation provides an alternate starting point for addressing social scientists' investigative practices.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University and Department of Sociology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Greiffenhagen
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology, University of Liverpool.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mair
authors.affiliation: School of Social Science, University of Manchester.
authors.forename: Wes
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Sharrock
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D064887:Observational Studies as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D012107:Research Design; D012942:Social Sciences / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Methodology; ethnomethodology; method; qualitative; quantitative; science and technology studies