Ethnigraphy, Ethnomethodology and Interaction Analysis

This paper addresses the problematic status of ethnographic enquiry in a specific interdisciplinary context, that of H.C.I. and C.S.C.W. related study. In particular, the paper raises issues that relate to analytic relevance, and specifically how analytic ‘problems’ are translated into methodological procedures in interdisciplinary work. It deals specifically with the varying analytic auspices under which ethnographic study can take place, and in detail with Nardi’s (1996) accusation that ‘situated action models’ fail in some important ways to provide design-related conclusions, owing in part at least to their ‘slightly behaviourist’ leanings. It seeks to examine whether these alleged failings can or should be remedied, and suggests that the ‘problems’ that Nardi identifies largely disappear if and when we take the relationship between Interaction Analysis (IA) and ‘ethnography’ seriously, as advocated in outline by Jordan and Henderson (1995); Blomberg (1993), Heath et al (1993) and others. Nevertheless, we find that some central differences between ‘behaviourist’ and ‘behavioural’ approaches to the study of work are in practice elided in the IA stance, differences which allow Nardi to make the claims she does. Recovering behaviour as sense making procedure is, for us, a matter of finding ways of explicating notions of ‘skill’, ‘knowledge’, ‘memory’ and so on as interactions-in-the-organization. These issues, we believe, might prove central to the problem of what workplace studies are ‘for’ (Plowman et al, 1995). Analytic Choices in Ethnography and Design