Context and detail in studies of the witnessable social order: Puzzles, maps, checkers, and geometry

Abstract

"Context" is typically treated as a resource for the analysis of interactional settings. In this paper, the specification and characterisation of context itself, in and as situated action and reasoning, are seen as a focal point of research. The paper is framed by practical and theoretical problems currently facing ethnomethodology. It then discusses organisational thematics, situated analytics, and new research directions, particularly in the study of natural logics endemic to domains of expertise. The methodological and substantive findings of the paper are summarised in terms of the development of new sociologies of a witnessable, as opposed to a hidden, social order.