ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the differences between 'sociological' treatments of work and organisation and ethnomethodological approaches. The requirement of 'unique adequacy' demands that the sociological researcher acquire the same skills as those owned by members in the activity under study or Eric Livingston was trained in mathematics. Ethnomethodology's elections enable it to access 'the problem of social order' in a completely different way to that available to other kinds of sociology, investigating social order as a real time production through the performance of everyday activities. Ethnomethodology's incursion into the standard assumptions was formed with its insistence that there is 'lay' as well as 'professional' sociology, and that amongst the otherwise unremarkable competences of members are those of 'practical sociological reasoning'. The sociologist stands in relation to society as the movie critic is in relation to the movie for them the observable affairs of society do not give a sight of society 'in production' but can be treated as the finished product.
