ABSTRACT
Sociological work is a craft that rests fundamentally on that which we know from face-to-face encounters: knowledge-gathering work done while we are embedded in the interaction order itself (Goffman, 1983). This knowledge, which might be called “common-sense” knowledge following Schutz (1962), is the source of the most relevant facts in the sociological enterprise. It is what is taken for granted, the important ordering of ideas that are often out of sight and not verbally expressed. All is not well. The drift of social sciences in the direction of models, predictions, and presuppositions about the sources of consensus or order has given us an ironic gift. If we are not careful, as Goffman writes (1983, p. 2), “we have undiminished opportunity to overlook the relevant facts with our very own eyes.”
