week 9 - comment on another blog

Here's the link....

http://sociologysteph2012.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/the-great-australian-adjective.html?showComment=1348138519188#c5836629695867825032

data discussion

Here's a link to the dataset that I'm going to be using for my data presentation tomorrow....contrary to what one might think, when stumbling across this, I'm not actually a big brother fan. I was trawling youtube (as I do from time to time...come on...you do too...I know it!) looking for live tv fails and came across this and thought that it kinda fit what I needed to do for Sociology. So here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H11qJhfPU1Q

Simon and Garfinkle...funkel? Gross name nonetheless

I was thinking today about Garfinkle’s notion of challenging the 'institutionalised norms of conduct' and was reminded of an incident whereby a friend of mine told me he was punched in the face while trying to challenge one such norm. Basically he stood the wrong way in an elevator and decided to smile and stare at those who shared the elevator with him (the office building had 80 floors....it was a pretty long journey). It’s pretty extreme but yeah….Garfinkle would say that he caused an ‘interactional breakdown’.

Though I reckon it is an interesting point to ponder how strong institutionalised norms of conduct are (strong enough to get a punch in the face if you don’t abide by them) I think that it's also another thing altogether to ask why are they there, and to also look at whether or not they serve a useful purpose. Recently I've been commuting to and from my workplace on a train that takes about 20 minutes. I quite like the time that I have to myself and find that there is certainly 'train etiquette' that people adhere to....one being that it is not following train etiquette to come and join someone else's seat and suddenly strike up a conversation…especially when that conversation is one that requires quite a level of emotional concentration.

While I do think that challenging what is considered an institutional norm of conduct is a pretty good thing, I also wonder whether there is merit to some of the norms being in place for a reason that is worthy. And in many of these social situations (trains and public transport in general, elevators etc.) there are social rules that are there to help things run smoothly and efficiently. Without them people wouldn’t know quite how to conduct themselves and would be constantly having awkward moments of indecision of whether to devote time to someone or ignore them because they don’t feel like engaging with others at that time. Anyway…food for thought.

Heritage, J 1984, ‘The morality of cognition’, in Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology, Polity Press, Cambridge, pp75-102.