ABSTRACT
Ethnomethodological work on matters of identity has proliferated since the pioneering studies of Harold Garfinkel and Harvey Sacks in the 1960s. As has been pointed out on a previous occasion (Hester and Eglin 1997), ethnomethodology has now developed into a discipline characterised by a diversity of forms and directions of inquiry (Maynard and dayman 1991), such ‘there now exists a family of overlapping strands of inquiry among which resemblances and differences obtain’ (Hester and Eglin 1997: 2). These strands include (sequential) conversation analysis, membership categorisation analysis, the studies of work programme, post-analytic ethnomethodology, amongst others. In each identity has been conceived as crucially significant, and yet it is also clear that much research remains to be done. According to Williams (2000: 145), speaking of ethnomethodological work on identity,
… [this] family of work … seeks to show – in fine detail – how and why identity matters to real individuals in their joint actions …. the internal differences that have arisen amongst members of this family … show that there is more than one developing tradition of investigation that is worthy of consideration. Much of this work remains in its early stages and we are only just beginning to appreciate the complexity and power of many of those features of the close organisation of coordinated interaction that need too be taken into account to expand this understanding of identity matters.
