‘The very act of cutting’: Ethnomethodology, Interaction and the Emic-Etic Debate

Mostowlansky, Till (2016). ‘The very act of cutting’: Ethnomethodology, Interaction and the Emic-Etic Debate. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 28(4-5), pp. 400-420. Brill 10.1163/15700682-12341366

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In the course of the emic–etic debate in the scientific study of religion\s, two complexes—insider–outsider and emic–etic—have increasingly become entangled. Taken against this backdrop, this article argues that ethnomethodology provides a methodological and epistemological outlook on these two complexes that can support efforts to disentangle them. Based on the discussion of ethnomethodological studies, I trace this outlook back to ethnomethodology’s focus on observable social interaction as dynamic, situational, and directed toward the public. This focus rejects the preoccupation with what is going on “inside people’s heads,” and thus underlines the methodological and epistemological redundancy of the insider–outsider distinction. Finally, I maintain that ethnomethodology and the majority of strands within the scientific study of religion\s are jointly rooted in an emic standpoint that concentrates on the study of specific contexts and interactions, and seeks to avoid generalized a priori classifications.

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