Culturally 'Doped' or Not?: On Ethnomethodology, Critical Theory and the Exegesis of Everyday Life Practices

Author: Tom Conroy (Lehman College—CUNY)
Year: c. 2010 (undated in file)
Source type: article
Raw file: raw/articles/conroy-ethnomethodology-critical-theory-everyday.md

Summary

Conroy compares three approaches to the everyday — Michel de Certeau's critical semiotics, Harold Garfinkel's ethnomethodology, and John Fiske's ethnographic cultural studies — to ask whether ordinary actors are "cultural dopes" (Garfinkel's term for the actor who merely complies with pre-established cultural alternatives) or active, creative producers of meaning. He argues that the everyday is a "gloss term" standing in for a wide range of phenomena, and that each theorist captures a different facet: for de Certeau the everyday is itself a practice (tactics against strategies, space against place); for Garfinkel and Fiske it is more a context for practices. He concludes by advocating a methodological eclecticism — combining semiotic, ethnomethodological, and ethnographic approaches — and by affirming that actors, if ever "doped," can emerge from that stupor to act in creative and culturally meaningful ways.

Key Claims

• The everyday as a "gloss term": the expression "everyday life" is, like "reality," a glass/gloss term standing in for a wide range of phenomena — familiar and yet taken-for-granted, mysterious. It is "a signifier, loaded with a multitude of possibly overlapping meanings."
• De Certeau — the everyday as practice: the everyday is itself a practice. Society is organized into power-holding, strategically oriented institutions that regulate everyday life (through repetition), while ordinary individuals act "tactically" and creatively, appropriating elements of culture for their own use. The key distinctions are place (an organized product of the dominant order) vs. space (a practiced, liberated space "produced by the creativity of the people using the resources of the other"), and strategy vs. tactic. Street vendors, rooftop graffiti, and protest burlesque are offered as visual examples of the reappropriation of urban space.
• Garfinkel — the rejection of the "cultural dope": ethnomethodology rejects the "cultural dope" — the actor who produces society's stable features by complying with the common culture's "pre-established and legitimate alternatives of action." Garfinkel instead studies the "organized artful practices of everyday life," problematizing the "seen-but-unnoticed, taken-for-granted background expectancies" of everyday practice. The practical actor operates as a "lay sociologist." Garfinkel's critique, though aimed at Parsonian mainstream sociology, "might just as easily be directed toward critical theory," which remains tied to dualistic pairings of action/structure and rulers/ruled.
• Fiske — the ethnography of everyday life: Fiske links the everyday to culture, focusing on "the everyday culture of the people in capitalist societies." Drawing on Bourdieu's habitus, he treats the everyday as "textured" — a "densely textured symbolic environment" (e.g., the objects placed around a TV set in a Brazilian peasant household). Fiske retains the place/space distinction and the duality of historically determined culture vs. everyday life that ethnomethodology would reject.
• Methodological eclecticism: Conroy advocates combining semiotic, ethnomethodological, and ethnographic approaches. The everyday is "less of a reification and more of a reminder of the lush, textured ordinariness of social practices."
• Are we cultural dopes? Garfinkel says no, for methodological reasons; critical/cultural theorists (Fiske, Bourdieu, de Certeau) lean toward actors being able to emerge from the "stupor" to act creatively and meaningfully — though Conroy notes this may be "more of an ethical and even aesthetic judgment than a purely methodological one."

Connections

Concepts: Strategy and Tactic · Everyday Life · Everyday Architecture
Authors: Michel de Certeau · Henri Lefebvre · Dell Upton
Debates: Theories of the Everyday
Related source notes: The Practice of Everyday Life (de Certeau) · Architecture in Everyday Life (Upton) · The Moving Ground: Locating Everyday Life (Driscoll)

Direct Quotes

"By 'cultural dope,' I refer to the man-in-the-sociologist's society who produces the stable features of the society by acting in compliance with preestablished and legitimate alternatives of action that the common culture provides." (Garfinkel, quoted)

"So cities are places built to organize and control the lives and movements of their 'city subjects' in the interests of the dominant... But within and against them, the various formations of the people construct their spaces by the practices of living." (Fiske, quoted)

"The everyday is, as a signifier, loaded with a multitude of possibly overlapping meanings. It is, indeed, familiar and yet mysterious." (Conroy)

Open Questions

• Conroy's "cultural dope" question — are ordinary actors compliant or creative? — maps onto the wiki's Theories of the Everyday debate (de Certeau's tactics vs. Lefebvre's alienation vs. Felski's affirmation). Does Garfinkel's ethnomethodology offer a third way that avoids both the critical theorists' dualism and the cultural-studies celebration of resistance?
• The "habitus" reading of Fiske (via Bourdieu) connects to Upton's materialist account of the everyday — is the everyday best understood as practice (de Certeau), context (Garfinkel/Fiske), or habitus (Bourdieu/Upton)?