ABSTRACT
This is the first of a series of five seminars presented in edited and abridged form. The overall topic, which runs through the other four seminars as well, is what Garfinkel calls “discovering work” in the natural sciences. By this is meant, the practices involving researchers, technicians and other staff, performed in a laboratory, observatory, or other work setting, with the aim of producing and reproducing evidence of novel phenomena. Garfinkel’s particular interest is in how scientists constitute relevant practices while they work on the materials at hand: that is, they simultaneously produce “sciences of practical actions” while mobilizes such actions to demonstrate substantive discoveries of interest to others in and beyond their specialized fields. This seminar begins with a lecture on alchemy and its relevance to modern chemistry. Other themes that are introduced, which run through the series of seminars, include comparisons between the social and natural sciences and the relevance of gestalt themes to embodied practices.
