What is "ethnomethodology"

n. An academic discipline that attempts to understand the social orders people use to make sense of the world through analyse their accounts and descriptions of their day-to-day experiences.

Ethnomethodology is the study of methods people use for understanding and producing the social order in which they live. It generally seeks to provide an alternative to mainstream sociological approaches. In its most radical form, it poses a challenge to the social sciences as a whole. On the other hand, its early investigations led to the founding of conversation analysis, which has found its own place as an accepted discipline within the academy. According to Psathas, it is possible to distinguish five major approaches within the ethnomethodological family of disciplines.

Ethnomethodology provides methods which have been used in ethnographic studies to produce accounts of people's methods for negotiating everyday situations. It is a fundamentally descriptive discipline which does not engage in the explanation or evaluation of the particular social order undertaken as a topic of study. However, applications have been found within many applied disciplines, such as software design and management studies.