Garfinkel’s Ethnomethodology perspective created much discussion in the early 1970s; it was seen as a threat to the more traditional sociological perspectives and a welcome development by theorists who were keen to see a move away from the positivist paradigms. Ethnomethodology appeared on the surface to turn traditional perspectives almost upside down and inside out; as Garfinkel and other Ethnomethodology followers believe that the meanings people attribute to things are in fact explanations of the social world, its structure and order. It is for this reason that some traditional sociologists felt threatened. They felt that what was being suggested was that their own theories of social structure and order were in fact illusionary, that they had used their own commonsense to organize the data they had collected.
Conversely, the Conflict Theory is an example of a traditional sociological perspective; it was largely born from Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) and Freidrich Engels (1820 – 1895) in their works The German Ideology (1845). Marx and Engels believed that society was divided primarily into two classes: the ruling class and the lower class. They believed this division to be a result of ownership and non-ownership, the ruling class owning everything that was capable of production and the lower class being the producers for very little in return. Marx and Engels theorised that the relationship between the ruling class and lower class created the foundations, infrastructure, of society. Built upon this infrastructure was the superstructure which produced nothing of economic value.
Marx and Engels put forward that the superstructure merely served the purpose of legitimating the ruling classes’ existence, in so far as they could manipulate it in such a way to fit their own personal agenda, that being primarily the retaining of power and wealth. Marx and Engels believed that a violent revolt was inevitable, that eventually the ruling class would be overthrown by the lower class leading to communism; where everything would be evenly and fairly owned and all class differences would disappear. The Conflict Theory has been further developed over the years, notably by Max Weber (1864 – 1920). Weber identified conflict as arising from not only economic class but through religion too, whereby collective groups would seek to gain control of society in order to reshape it to fit their own agenda. Contemporary adaptations of Marx and Engels Conflict Theory see the inclusion of race, gender and sexuality, amongst others.
It appears that Ethnomethodology and the Conflict Theory contrast starkly; the latter takes social order for granted in society, it does not question it, focusing instead on the conflict that arises between the subordinate and dominate groups. The former however questions those taken for granted social orders, by focusing on uncovering the procedures that take place to enable their establishment in the first instance. Furthermore, the Conflict Theory approaches society largely from a macro-level, although later advances saw the inclusion of micro-level; Ethnomethodology approaches at a micro-level. Ethnomethodologists put forward that all social Structures and orders are identical to those that individual social actors use to create and control their everyday order of affairs. Moreover, it is suggested that the descriptions of social structure and order that many conflict theorists put forward often rival with descriptions given from individuals who are party to those social settings.
However, upon further investigation there do appear to be some similarities between the Ethnomethodology and Conflict Theory. Both see that conflict can arise from within society as a direct result of structure and order. Marx and Engels saw this conflict arising on a large scale, identifying the subordinate class as being the main instigators. Garfinkel saw the conflict arising through the disruption of an individual’s everyday order and structure, temporarily placing it into chaos; this being demonstrated in the results of his famous breach experiments, which are well documented in his works Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967). Garfinkel discovered that when a person was faced with a situation where utterances and actions were incompatible within the context of where they were taking place, it would lead to internal chaos. Initially this could lead to anxiety, confusion and even aggression, both internally and externally. The eventual outcome however would be the individual repairing their indexicality, through a process termed glossing, in order to make sense of what had taken place; thus they changed their everyday social structure and order.
If this process is viewed at macro-level it can be seen as somewhat similar to the Conflict Theory. The lower class revolts against the structure and order in place between themselves and the ruling class, this leads to temporary chaos. The ruling class need to make sense of what has happened, as do the lower class; thus at a micro-level reconstructing actions and utterances and the context in which they occurred, this leading to change in social order and structure. An example of this similarity can be found at both macro and micro levels in the US Civil Right Movement, 1955 – 1968 (Cozzens, L. 1998). Rosa Parks (1913 – 2005) is deemed the mother of the Civil Rights Movement by her refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white male in 1955. When Parks refused to give up her seat she placed the individual’s everyday social order and structure into temporary chaos, as her utterances and actions were conflicting with the context of the situation that he found himself in. In this respect Parks could be seen as breaching the individual’s own social order and structure, as could the black Americans in the 381 day Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955).
Black Americans were seen as the subordinate class, the whites as the superior class; although it was legislated that black Americans should give up their seats it was also, for many, taken for granted. Consequently it was part of individual everyday social structure and order. The result of the 381 day Montgomery Bus Boycott led to the Supreme Courts ruling in November 1956 that segregation on transportation was unconstitutional. Although this change was legislative, therefore at macro-level, it must have involved the repairing of individual indexicality for the amendment of legislation to have happened first of all. Moreover, this repairing of indexicality would need to take place at micro-level for it to be understood and rationalised, so as to become part of an individual’s everyday social structure and order.
It can be seen that Ethnomethodology and the classical Conflict Theory are markedly different. Ethnomethodology focuses on discovering the procedures that take place in creating individual everyday order of affairs. Believing that individuals do this by continually working at establishing the meanings of actions and utterances and their relation to the context in which they take place. Furthermore, that everyday social structure and order is how society is structured and ordered itself. On the other hand the classical Conflict Theory is perhaps almost reductionist in its approach; believing that economics is the essence, that it alone determines societal structure and order. However, it can be seen through further investigation that there are similarities and connections between the two perspectives; those being conflict, discrimination, restructuring and change.
