Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009
Ethnomethodology and History: Documents and the Production of History
Michael Lynch, Cornell University
Introduction When directed to methods that have pride of place in the social sciences and When Harold Garfinkel coined the word humanities – survey analysis, ethnomethodology, he drew an analogy interviewing, documentary with the ‘ethnosciences’ in social interpretation, and so forth – anthropology (studies of native language ethnomethodology treats these methods and practice that are likened to, and as constitutive phenomena (Garfinkel, often compared with, the disciplines of 1967: Ch. 1). This does not preclude the botany, mathematics, musicology, etc.).1 practical use of such methods, but it does However, unlike other ethnosciences, orient us to questions about how they are ethnomethodology is not focused on a tied to the production of orderly results specific subject area, but on ways of and applications. There is superficial doing things and conceptions of doing affinity with constructivism in the those things in every imaginable walk of human sciences, but also some key life. In other words, ethnomethodology differences (see Button & Sharrock, is the study of practical actions and 1993). practical reasoning, and thus far more comprehensive in its scope than any Despite its broad scope – potentially study of ‘lay’ or ‘native’ variants and covering practices of all kinds – analogs of modern disciplines. It aims ethnomethodology is most developed for rigor and systematicity, but it does and best known for studies of not use modern scientific (or other contemporaneous activities: directly academic) understandings of the world observed and/or recorded sequences of as a normative or comparative basis for practical and communicative activities in identifying distinctive properties of homes, workplaces, and other settings. untutored, everyday practices and The detailed records of moment-to- understandings. When moment activities yielded by video and ethnomethodologists turn attention to audio taping of such activities greatly work credited with scientific standing, exceeds the schematic records used or they do not perform an underlaborer’s constructed (and often preferred) in task, but instead aim to examine the almost all other social science routine research practices conducted investigations. The origin and with materials in real time settings of development of conversation analysis, conduct (Garfinkel, 2002, Ch. 9; which developed from and is still Garfinkel et al. 1981; Lynch, 1993). associated with ethnomethodology, is strongly indebted to the possibility of repeated playback, transcription and
1 analysis of tape recordings of “naturally For accounts of the origins of occurring” (not contrived for ethnomethodology, see Garfinkel (1974); Lynch (1993, 3ff.; p. 2007). 87 Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009 experimental purposes) activities (Sacks, Given the nominal affinity with the 1984). ethnosciences, ethnomethodology could perhaps align with the Although ethnomethodology continues anthropological/historical specialty of to include a variety of methods and ethnohistory, which uses written and oral investigative tendencies, the most materials to explore and reconstruct common type of investigation examines histories of particular indigenous orders of activity that can be peoples. This subfield has its own documented with relatively brief extracts association and quarterly journal, and and collections of extracts from tape- appears to be more established recorded and transcribed sequences of professionally than ethnomethodology conversational interaction. Given this ever has been.2 However, like the other predominant tendency, ethnosciences, its substantive ethnomethodological studies might seem reconstructive aims and methods differ to have little to say about history. from those of ethnomethodology. Like Conversely, the materials that historians ethnohistorians, ethnomethodologists typically use (records, often collected in have an interest in people’s histories, but archives, and oral testimonies about past not in order to represent cultural events) might seem too ‘thin’ to permit histories or to reconstruct how such analyses of moment-to-moment conduct histories relate to an actual past. Instead, of the kind produced in the interest is in how histories – whether ethnomethodology and conversation professionally accredited or not – are analysis. Even a tape recording of an assembled through concerted, and event of historical importance, such as a sometimes contentious, actions. There is recording of voices during what was some affinity with analyses of narrative later credited with being a significant and stories, especially the lectures on the scientific discovery, presents limited subject in Sacks (1992), which delve resources for analyzing the “local into the interactionally contingent historicity” of the documented actions in production and reception of stories. the absence of more direct access to the However, of particular interest in this original scene (Garfinkel et al., 1991). paper are histories for which what Further, ethnomethodologists and actually happened is explicitly at stake conversation analysts often profess for the parties to their production and indifference to such momentous events, reception. Documents as well as stories preferring instead to document a more have a crucial place in histories; relentless production of mundane, documents are collated, checked against everyday activities (Schegloff, 1987). It one another, and used to confirm or is thus not surprising that there has been question stories. Documents themselves very little discussion or use of can be questioned, found wanting in ethnomethodology among professional detail, and subject to contested readings, historians. Nevertheless, in this article, I but they are both raw materials and will briefly suggest at least one way in repositories for history. which history can be of interest for ethnomethodological investigations. No doubt there are others. 2 See the website for the American Society for Ethnohistory, available at: http://www.ethnohistory.org/ 88 Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009
this instance, I’ll be re-specifying a What follows, will start with a well- couple of key topics – one is history and known landmark in ethnomethodology – the other memory. Garfinkel’s respecification of Mannheim’s “documentary method of Much earlier, in chapter three of Studies interpretation.” Casually read, in Ethnomethodology (1967), Garfinkel Garfinkel’s demonstrations appear to elucidated one such ‘method’ - the undermine the historiographic utility of documentary method of interpretation. Mannheim’s hermeneutic method by This method was introduced by Karl showing that it is much too powerful in Mannheim (1952) in a collection of its relentless construction of narrative essays on the sociology of knowledge. coherency; too powerful in projecting Mannheim presented it as an historical sense on to the most unpromising method – an instance of the hermeneutic materials to be a reliable arbiter of what circle through which the historian actually happened. However, rather examines archival documents and than settling for a deconstructive discerns coherences – underlying approach to historical ‘method’, I will patterns that the fragmentary writings suggest that Garfinkel’s treatment and traces document, and which further provides a powerful analytical treatment become intelligible and meaningful in for investigating the substantive light of the emergent patterns.” production of history. Mannheim is respectful of the method, and appears to recommend it for scholars The Documentary Method – though he recognizes that it is an account of what scholars already do. In some of his writings in the late 1980s Garfinkel takes up this theme – the and early 1990s, Garfinkel used the term documentary method of interpretation – “respecification” to signal a re- in a startling way. First, he observes that orientation to the familiar the method is ubiquitous. Second, he methodological topics of a social science devises some ‘experiments’ of sorts to (see, for example, Garfinkel [1991]). elucidate and demonstrate its operation. These include a roster of basic themes And, third, he uses the experiments to such as meanings, standards, raise some deep and disturbing questions measurements, intelligibility, and many about the validity of the ‘underlying others. These terms are patterns’ discerned through the use of “methodological” in the broader sense this method. often associated with social theory and epistemology rather than analytical Perhaps the most famous of these technique. I once called these experiments was one in which students ‘epistopics’ (Lynch, 1993: 280ff.).3 In were asked to volunteer for a novel counseling program in which they would ask a series of questions to an unseen counselor, who would relay advice in the 3 My neologism is a ‘vulgarism’ according to my form of yes-or-no answers (Garfinkel, colleague Peter Dear, because (like the word 1967: 79ff.). Of course, in line with the sociology) it mixes Latin & Greek. Dear (1991) prefers ‘epistemography’, to suggest an classic social psychology experiments of ethnographic or historiographic approach to the that era, the ‘counselor’ was a fake, and topics of epistemology. 89 Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009 the answers were selected at random. can we believe when reading historical Nevertheless, most of the students found accounts? Garfinkel’s account of the ways to rationalize their way through the documentary method of analysis seems series of answers, though often puzzling to support a relentless skepticism about aloud over the unexpected answers they established historical narratives, of the were given. Garfinkel noted that the sort that became familiar in social students heard the counselor’s yes’s and studies of science after the mid-1970s.4 no’s as ‘answers to questions’ and they Mannheim’s method might describe how wove narrative threads that assimilated a scholar grows increasingly confident those answers into a coherent underlying about an emergent underlying pattern, pattern. Lucy Suchman (1987) points but Garfinkel’s confidence trick can lead out that the reactions to Joseph us to be suspicious about the origins of Weizenbaum’s (1976) Eliza program any history. The second question is: worked with a similar logic; a logic that How could anyone do shifts the locus of ‘intelligence’ from the ethnomethodological history? How artificial counselor to the artful could one ever write about the “big interpretative work of the person structures”, “huge comparisons” and consulting the device. long stretches of history that Charles Tilly (1984) wanted sociologists to These experiments are far-removed from address? It would seem that an historical research, but one could easily ethnomethodologist who followed conclude that Garfinkel demonstrates Garfinkel’s lead would tend to how any historical account dissolves into deconstruct large historical narratives a seemingly arbitrary piecing together of into analyses of how lay and fragmentary evidence into a coherent professional historians piece together story. Far from being a method that such stories from fragmentary privileges any single account of an documents. Such research might be of historical sequence, the “documentary critical interest to historians, but it might method” appears to be a method for just as easily be viewed as a nagging constructing an endless series of annoyance, because it would offer no potentially incommensurable stories out remedy for underdetermination and of initial documentary materials. It possible arbitrariness. Worse, remains an open question as to how Garfinkel’s orientation to the closely this lesson applies to documentary method offers no reconstructions from the archival normative basis for distinguishing materials that historians typically official histories, politically motivated examine, which are usually vastly more rewritings of history, and popular extensive, and presumably more congruent, than a random sequence of “yes” and “no” answers. 4 In an early paper, Woolgar (1976) analyzed different accounts of the discovery of radio If we were to stop here, we could raise pulsars by Anthony Hewish’s group at two puzzling questions about what Cambridge, and raised skeptical questions about ethnomethodology might have to do histories of discovery. Also see Ashmore (1993) for a similar question-raising re-telling of the with history. These are familiar familiar historical episode in which Blondlot’s questions. The first question is: What N-Ray ‘discovery’ was (supposedly) debunked by Robert Wood. 90 Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009 historical mythologies from scholarly assistants analyzed the dossiers and histories. And, in the narrower domain coded their contents in order to trace the of academic history, it offers no set of processes and decisions that suggestion on how to resolve factual and defined a patient’s ‘case’ from point of interpretative disputes among historians. entry to final disposition. Rather than giving a straightforward report of results, These are serious questions, and however, Garfinkel uses this study as an Garfinkel and other ethnomethodologists occasion for turning attention to offer historians no comfort or useful problems that arose for the researchers: advice on how to develop valid (or, at file folders were incomplete, the least, defensible) historical narratives information recorded in them was not from archival materials. This task is left standardized or systematic, and key for historians to work out as best they information of interest to the researchers can. However, I think there is at least was missing. It is well known to one way that ethnomethodologists can sociologists that official organizational address history; a way that differs from records have dubious value for literary analysis of historical writing, or sociological research, because such a hermeneutic account of how historians records can systematically disguise as write history. To develop this, I shall much as they reveal. Rather than simply refer to work that David Bogen and I making the best of such records, trying published more than a decade ago to supplement them with other sources (Lynch & Bogen, 1996; Bogen & Lynch, of data, or abandoning the study because 1989) about an event that occurred more the records were worthless, Garfinkel than two decades ago. This was our turned attention to the “good study of testimony at the Iran-contra organizational reasons” for their affair, which we used to address the incompleteness. These reasons had to production (and, at least as significantly, do with the nursing staff members’ the erasure) of history-in-the-making. orientations to records as documents that could be used in the future to constrain Organizational Records and their discretion and assess the adequacy Prospective Histories of their actions. In a preliminary remark about the matter, Garfinkel Before going into our study, let me observes: return briefly to Garfinkel’s 1967 book – in this case to chapter six, which has the That the investigator “does” a report is thereby made a matter for public record endearing title of “Good organizational for the use of only partially identified reasons for ‘bad’ clinic records.” This other persons. . . . Not only for chapter reflected on a sociological study investigators, but on all sides there is the in which Garfinkel participated. The relevance of “What was really found out original study aimed to develop a for-all-practical-purposes?” which systematic empirical account of patient consists unavoidably of how much can pathways through a medical clinic, using you find out, how much can you disclose, clinic records as primary sources of data. how much can you gloss, how much can These records were files the nursing staff you conceal, how much can you hold as compiled for individual patients treated none of the business of some important by the clinic. Garfinkel’s research persons, investigators included. (Garfinkel, 1967, p. 16) 91 Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009
including their own readings. For This remark nicely complements what Garfinkel, the fact that the historian or Garfinkel says about the documentary sociologist faces a daunting task when method of interpretation. Indeed, it trying to use documentary collections to could be said that the clinic study was a reconstruct systematic and coherent specific attempt to perform the temporal or organizational patterns, documentary method; initially, with the becomes less interesting than the naïve aim of deriving an organized constitutive work of assembling pattern from a body of documents, and documentary materials into coherent then as a troubled instance that made historical accounts. This work is not just that method perspicuous as a constitutive a matter of interpreting documentary phenomenon. Rather than simply accounts furnished by an archive – it is a illustrating the interpretative flexibility matter of producing documents, of retrospection, his reflections about withholding details, and collecting them clinic records suggest that such into files before any investigator gets flexibility was anticipated and to some hold of them. extent prospectively managed when the records were written and assembled in Plausible Deniability patient files. This was not simply a way of talking about the hermeneutic circle, David Bogen and I focused on the Iran- because it involved complex, Contra hearings because of certain organizationally distributed, temporally perspicuous aspects of that event. Like articulated, interactions among various millions of others in the late 1980s, we (sometimes unknown) parties. For the spent many hours watching the sociologists investigating them, the raw nationally televised joint House-Senate data (the clinic files) were themselves investigation unfold. At the time, the anticipatory social productions, but just emergent scandal was explicitly likened how they were produced was only to the Watergate affair of the prior partly, and perhaps deceptively, revealed decade, and it seemed possible that it by those data. would result in thoroughly discrediting the Reagan administration. We also Garfinkel’s treatment of the noticed recurrent features of the documentary method transforms the interrogation of key witnesses such as historian’s problem into a substantive, Oliver North and John Poindexter, both constitutive phenomenon. The of whom were civilian employees in the documentary method is retroactive – National Security Council who starting with documents and working apparently had been heavily involved in backwards in time to constitute a the transactions that were under narrative. His remarks on “good investigation5: organizational reasons for bad clinic records” complements that treatment by suggesting that clinic records examined by his research assistants were 5 proactively designed as a local archive North was a Marine Lieutenant Colonel at the time, and famously appeared during the hearings that anticipated and attempted to in full dress uniform bedecked with medals. constrain unknown possible readings, However, in his role in the National Security Council he was appointed as a civilian employee. 92 Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009
• The investigation was massively investigators may maintain a focused on evidential documents, conviction that wrongdoing and evidently hampered by the occurred, but be unable to pursue admitted fact that many legal or other formal sanctions documents (including some that because the evidence is may have been crucial for the insufficient. And, (as we have investigation) had been seen on many occasions) the shredded.6 Others may still have subject of investigation not only existed, but were featured in an takes comfort in having ‘gotten ongoing battle over their away’ with something; he can disclosure. accuse the accusers of a • The missing documents were politically motivated witch-hunt. believed to be crucial for “getting One ends up with uncertainty, to the bottom” of an emerging political division, etc., about the scandal. factual evidence – and also • A term that was popularized suspicions about whether the during the hearings – “plausible uncertainty is a nefarious deniability” – referred to a production. strategy through which a witness • Many of the strategies in Iran- would produce or selectively contra were evidently, sometimes erase elements of a paper trail in explicitly, designed by reference order to enhance “interpretive to Watergate. In addition to the flexibility” in testimony during verbal and thematic analogies adversary investigations. between ‘Watergate’ and ‘Iran- Plausible deniability meant that a gate’, there was the praxiological witness could fend off negative analogy of how to avoid accusations in an actual or another Watergate. potential investigation by • In the late 1980s and early 1990s, denying, professing not to recall, when Bogen and I were working or giving an alternative reading on this project, we found some to, a culpable version of what the interesting parallels between document indicated. If one themes that were prominent in assumes that this strategy was in literary theory (especially in operation (and North explicitly connection with deconstruction), admitted that it was, in general, and mundane accomplishments albeit not in incriminating implicated by testimony at the particulars), then the hearings. Mundane variants of Foucault’s (1977) question ‘What is an author?’ appeared at 6 The passive voice is indicative here. North many points in questioning, as acknowledged that he shredded and ordered the investigators attempted to elicit shredding of thousands of documents in his from witnesses testimony about possession, but he was not so forthright about specific, unsigned draft records. whether he (or anybody in particular) shredded specific documents that were of particular But, whereas our academic interest to the investigators for assigning colleagues who were enthralled responsibility for transgressions to specific with literary theory emphasized government agents. 93 Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009
the essential undecidability of constructive tension between positivism authorship, textual form, textual and ambiguity, a doctoral thesis of meaning, and so forth, parties to Professor Ayer. . . . The whole of the Iran-contra hearings treated guideline (iii) is magnificent – ‘We these matters as momentary should not in the future sanction any new orders which, in our view, would problems subject to possible significantly enhance the capability of solution. Even North and his either side to prolong or exacerbate the colleagues, who deftly parried conflict.’ It is a brilliant piece of drafting, one after another interrogative because it is far from being restrictive. It effort to ‘get to the bottom’ of is open to argument in respect of the scandal, did so by reference practically every one of its elements. I to the known and unknown regarded the guidelines as being so features of what actually imprecise and so obviously drafted with happened. the objective of flexibility in either direction – elasticity, shall I say – as to A kind of ‘applied deconstruction’ or make them fair game. (Clark, quoted in Norton-Taylor, 1995, pp. 42–3; also see pragmatic constructionism seemed to be Lynch, 1999, p. 69ff.) at work to create and exploit gaps in the records, prospectively and In both the Scott inquiry and the Iran- retrospectively furnishing space and contra hearings, such documentary cover for deniable actions. A remarkably constructions provided material support explicit account along these lines was for the often-remarked-upon inability of given by Alan Clark, one of the key officials to recall events and actions ministers in the Thatcher administration when interrogated about them. During whose actions were investigated in a his testimony at the latter hearings, Lt. British inquiry headed by the Right Col. Oliver North, a key witness who Honourable Sir Richard Scott (1996) on had acknowledged his central role in the another covert arms trade (one involving affair, made relentless use of the missile parts sold to Iraq by British following phrases: corporations, with apparent complicity by the government). Clark gave "I don't recall;" remarkable testimony about a set of "I don't recall at all;" written guidelines that prohibited "I can't recall a specific date;" government officials from sanctioning "I guess- and I don't remember;" arms sales from UK manufacturers to "I don't have a specific recall of that either participant in the Iran–Iraq war: at this time point;" "I don't think so, I mean you may They were high sounding, combining, it refresh my memory;" seemed, both moral and practical considerations, and yet imprecise enough to be overridden in exceptional In our study, we became interested in the circumstances. . . . [They] were an logical role of these avowals of non- extremely useful adjunct to foreign recall in testimony. The following policy offering a form of words elusive sequence, in which North is questioned of definition. . . . I would argue they by House Majority Counsel John Nields, illustrate the – and this is the kind of expresses this point very clearly: thing you could say about them – the
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Morning Session, 7 July 1986 (Joint We were more interested in production Hearings, 1988: 23) issues – specifically, in the contested Nields: Sir, do you remember the production of historical facts in question? testimony. Iconic instances of such North: My memory has been shredded. production were moments when a If you would be so kind as to committee interrogator would produce repeat the question. Nields: You’ve testified that you an exhibit and use it to leverage shredded documents shortly after testimony from a witness. The you heard from Director Casey interrogator and witness would not treat that Furmark had said monies the record as a text with a completely had been used from the Iranian open-texture of meaning, instead, they arms sales for the benefit of the would treat it (in relation to other contras. evidence) as determinate in some North: That is correct. respects and open in others. The Nields: My question to you is--did you adversary struggle was over just how or did you not shred documents open or closed a document was; over that reflected Presidential what it established or did not establish; approval of the diversion? North: I have absolutely no recollection what could be plausibly said about its of destroying any document meaning or import. which gave me an indication that the President had seen the Documents are, of course, ‘memories’ of document or that the President a sort – memoranda, mnemonics, notes, had specifically approved. I and minutes. In a legal, or quasi-legal assumed that the three context, however, they have an transactions which I supervised interesting relation to testimony. There or managed or coordinated— are times when documents (records, whatever word you’re photographs) are treated as privileged – comfortable with, and I can a witness can be put in a tight spot if, accept all three—were approved by the President. I never recall first, he denies having attended an event seeing a single document which and then is shown a manifest or a gave me a clear indication that photograph that documents that he was the President had specifically there. Often, the vagaries of memory approved this action. provide a way to reconcile an initial claim with a contradictory record (‘okay, Much has been written on this subject of so I must have been there’), though it memory and history, often under the sometimes is possible to question the rubric of collective memory. In the record. Although it is complicated, in context of our study, we developed a the history of Anglo-American particular line on memory, that differed jurisprudence, eyewitness testimony from a psychological (or cognitive) often enjoyed privileged status over orientation as well as from a sociological written documents, which were treated orientation of the sort that would treat as hearsay testimony, or in the case of collective memory to be a public, photographs as evidence requiring material, organization of what a culture testimony to confirm what it shows uses to commemorate its history. (Golan, 2004).
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Interrogations at Iran-contra often had an Nields: You spent most of the day on the interesting dynamic: records were twenty-third at the C.I.A. incomplete, and known to be North: Yes. incomplete, and witnesses were asked, Nields: And that was Mist- with Mister not only to confirm what available Clarridge. (2.4) records ‘said’, but also to acknowledge North: Um, I’m sure thet it was with what other records might be available, or Mister Clarridge, perhaps others, what destroyed records might have said. but he certainly did clear me in, In one instance, in which North again is because his signature’s right there. being questioned by Nields, note the Nields: And uh, indeed you returned to way Nields asserts what North in fact the C.I.A. the following day. did. The Committee’s counsel North: On Sundee? (I’ll) take your word apparently had in hand documents with for it. which to leverage North’s assent to a ((North looks through notebook)) series of actions and communications. North: I did. We called this the documentary method (Lynch & Bogen transcript; also see of interrogation (Lynch & Bogen, 1996, Joint Hearings, 1988: 13-14) ch. 7). North calibrates what he recalls to the Morning Session, 7 July 1986 documentation that Nields’ questions Nields: . . .and the other thing that you reveal that he apparently has at hand. did was to involve officials at the But North also does little more than C.I.A. confirm the documented details: he reads (3.8) autobiographical elements from the North: I think we did use documentary record (dates, locations, communications support from the signatures), and while he doesn’t dispute C.I.A., that’s correct.= them, he also comes forth with no Nields: =Well you in fact uh- uh, you further recollections. Although North contacted uh Mister Clarridge allows himself to be implicated in those didn’t you? details, he does so in a dissociated way. (1.6) The details do not prompt his North: I ge- yes I did. Nields: And in fact you, uh went out to recollections; he reads them as though the C.I.A. and spent uh virtually they applied to a hypothetical person all the day Saturday there. who happened to be himself. (1.6) North: What was that date? Televised hearings also accentuate what (3.2) we might call (with apologies to Frances Nields: I believe it’s the twenty-third. Yates [1966]) a “theater of memory”. (Nields): °November eighty-five,° This differs from the idea that the layout (6.0) of the theater provides an organizational Nields: ((throat clear)) You might want matrix for an orator’s recollections; it to check exhibit forty-six. has to do with how an orator like North (26.0) North: °(let’s see, that’s the twenty- is put on stage, asked to recall specific third,)° details from the past, and closely (3.5) examined for any indications that his North: That is correct. ((throat clear)) recollections are false, misleading, or incomplete. Moreover, such
96 Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009 examination is done in the context of • Recollection (‘memories’) were what ‘anyone knows’ about the often expressed grammatically conjunction of recollections with the with conditional, counterfactual events in question. What ‘anyone formulations of what the witness knows’ is not a stable repository of ‘would have done’ under the knowledge, but an emergent and fallible described circumstances. In orientation to questions such as: Would other words, the emergent stories the details he is asked to recall have been developed through the significant enough at the time that he interrogation provided resources should recall them now? Would this for witness and interrogator, and speaker have a clear motive for their audience, to reconstruct ‘forgetting’ what he is asked to recall? what the witness would have How much license for vagueness, done under the circumstances. correctable discrepancy, or withholding • Some conditional formulations of secrets should we allow this speaker? In what the witness ‘would have North’s case, the theater of memory done’ were presented as moral included the visual spectacle of his self- claims; that is, they portrayed the righteous bearing, accentuated by witness as a person who, under military garb and manner, expressed the described circumstances through pauses, poses, and gestures. would have acted in a way that was justifiable. Neither the A Few Remarks about Memory record in question nor the • Memories (individual testimony testimony it was used to elicit about what the witness saw, provided a concrete description remembers, recalls, witnessed) of what the witness actually did do not simply build histories. or remembers doing. Instead, the Written records were used to witness conveys what might be establish the detailed frames for called a ‘personal ideal type’. confirming and elaborating upon But this ‘idealized’ person was recollections. A simple ‘yes’ not presented as an imagined yielded to the account provided action, but rather as an actual by the interrogator’s reading of action the person would have documentary evidence. done under the circumstances. • Failures to recall created • Recollections and non- problems for interrogation – a recollections often were doubted systematic alternative to ‘yes’ or and contested by interrogators ‘no’; in a legal context – the and commentators, but often ‘practical unavailability of the without concrete counter- witness’. evidence. Again, this points to • Recollections and failures of highly specific plausibility recollection were subject to judgments. assessments of plausibility. Such assessments were made and Politics highlighted as part of interrogative sequences. Iran-contra was, of course, a political event, though with its quasi-judicial
97 Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009 structure and the bi-partisan makeup of investigation, and they expressed their the committee, it also expressed an aim opposition, not only after the fact in their to ‘rise above politics’. In popularized minority report, but also during the discourse to be ‘political’ is to be hearings by taking every opportunity to partisan, interested, biased. Even if one show that it was nothing more than a is cynical about legal practitioners’ political event. Unlike Watergate, professions of neutrality, those very opponents in Iran-contra succeeded in professions orient to public expectations diffusing, and even erasing, history, and of neutrality. The design of hearings since then they have effectively re- expresses a delicate balancing of written the history of the Reagan advantage to the majority party, and administration. equivalence between the parties. There is a slightly asymmetric structure, with the majority party having a slightly more Conclusion dominant role.
What I have presented provides one way Popular legacies of congressional to address history investigations such as Watergate exhibit ethnomethodologically – it is not a tension between treating them as comprehensive, and certainly not legitimate exercises that rise above exhaustive. And, it does not disarm the partisan politics, versus dismissing them complaint that ethnomethodology has as ‘merely’ partisan efforts to damage limited value for historical political opponents (Schudson, 1992). investigations. Historians tend to When an investigation is unfolding, such distrust investigations of recent or legacies can be called into play. For the contemporary events, especially the sorts party prosecuting the investigation, the of politically charged events that key is to dramatize non-partisan preoccupy journalists. Although some “higher” legal-rational purpose, whereas historians draw from ethnomethodology, for the party resisting investigation the and I believe there is an affinity between aim is to collapse the hearings into historians’ and ethnomethodologists’ ‘politics’. The latter is similar to a respect for documentary detail and defendant’s aim in a criminal trial to be concern to recover local, contextual found not guilty because of insufficient orientations expressed in and through evidence. Unlike the Watergate documents, what I have discussed in this hearings, where the dissenting faction paper is not meant to be methodological became ever-more-embattled as the advice for professional historians. hearings wore on, a substantial minority Instead, I am suggesting of the Iran-contra committee held its ethnomethodology encourages an ground and the committee eventually orientation to the practical and published a report that included a interactional production, reading, and minority report that largely dismissed establishment of documentary details; an the committee’s effort as political theater orientation that might be of thematic as (Inouye & Hamilton, 1987). Official well as practical interest to historians. history was divided along party lines.
The opponents of the investigation were I think this has distinctive relevance for an integral and resilient part of the a ‘history of the present’, as it addresses
98 Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009 how present-day political actors (and Button, Graham & Wes Sharrock (1993) others) lay down historical tracks (or “A disagreement over agreement and attempt to cover such tracks) in a consensus in constructionist sociology,” prospective-retrospective fashion. This Journal for the Theory of Social is not simply an effort to delve into Behaviour 23: 1-25. phenomenological time-consciousness: the history in question is material, and Dear, Peter (2001) “Science studies as materialized. Nor is it an attempt to epistemography,” in J. Labinger and H. recover the raw data of history. The Collins (eds.), The One Culture? A picture we get is not a simple conspiracy Conversation about Science (Chicago: of interested actors manipulating the University of Chicago Press): 128-41. materials of history, because none of ‘history’s actors’ has complete control, Foucault, Michel (1977) ‘What Is an and they are often at odds with one Author?’, in Language, Counter- another. I wouldn’t want to suggest that memory, Practice: Selected Essays and history always, or even often, is an Interviews by Michel Foucault (Ithaca, intentional production; sometimes it just NY: Cornell University Press): 113–38. happens. But there are times when agents caught up in local historicity Garfinkel, Harold (1967) Studies in grasp, and express, the possibility that Ethnomethodology (Englewood Cliffs, what they are doing has relevance for NJ: Prentice Hall; [2nd edition, what Graham Button once called “big Cambridge: Polity, 1984]). time”.7 Their efforts to piece together, erase, or put a spin on history themselves Garfinkel, Harold (1974) “The origins of make up a rich subject matter for the term ethnomethodology,” in R. sociological study. Turner (ed.) Ethnomethodology: Selected Readings (Harmondsworth, References UK: Penguin): 15-18. Excerpt from R.J. Hill and K.S. Crittenden (eds.) (1968) Ashmore, Malcolm, 1993, 'The theatre of Proceedings of the Purdue Symposium the blind: starring a Promethean prankster, a on Ethnomethodology (Lafayette, IN: phoney phenomenon, a prism, a pocket, and Institute for the Study of Social Change]: a piece of wood', Social Studies of Science 5-11. 23, 67-106. Garfinkel, Harold (1991) Bogen, David and Michael Lynch (1989) “Respecification: Evidence for locally “Taking account of the hostile native: produced, naturally accountable plausible deniability and the production of phenomena of order, logic, reason, conventional history in the Iran-contra meaning, method, etc. in and as of the hearings,” Social Problems 36(3): 197-224. essential haecceity of immortal ordinary society (I) — an announcement of studies,” in G. Button (ed.), Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge 7 Unpublished paper, presented at The Eighth International Ethno/CA Institute, Boston University Press): 10-19. University Conference Center, N. Andover, MA (27-30 August). 99 Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009
Garfinkel, Harold (2002) Ethnomethodology’s Program: Working Lynch, Michael and David Bogen (1996) Out Durkheim’s Aphorism (Lanham, The Spectacle of History: Speech, Text, MD: Rowman & Littlefield). and Memory at the Iran-Contra Hearings (Durham, NC: Duke Garfinkel, Harold, Michael Lynch & University Press). Eric Livingston (1981) Mannheim, Karl (1952) “On the Golan, Tal (2004) ‘The legal and interpretation of Weltanschauung,” in K. medical reception of x-rays in the USA’, Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Social Studies of Science 34: 469-99. Knowledge (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul): 33-83). Inouye, Daniel K. & Lee H. Hamilton (1987) Report of the Congressional Norton-Taylor, Richard (1995) Truth is Committees Investigating the Iran- a Difficult Concept: Inside the Scott contra Affair (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Inquiry (London: Guardian Books). Government Printing Office). Sacks, Harvey (1984) “Notes on Joint Hearings (1988) Joint Hearings methodology”, in J. M. Atkinson and J. Before the Senate Select Committee on C. Heritage (eds.), Structures of Social Secret Military Assistance to Iran and Action: Studies in Conversation the Nicarauguan Opposition and the Analysis (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge House Select Committee to Investigate Univesity Press), 21-27. Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, 100th Congress, 1st Session, H961-34, Sacks, Harvey (1992) Lectures on Testimony of Oliver L. North, part 1 Conversation, 2 Vols. (Oxford: Basil (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Blackwell). Printing Office). Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1987) ”Between Lynch, Michael (1993) Scientific micro and macro: Contexts and other Practice and Ordinary Action: connections”, in J. Alexander, B. Giesen, Ethnomethodology and Social Studies of R. Münch and N. Smelser (ed.), The Science (New York: Cambridge Micro-Macro Link (Berkeley: University University Press). of California Press, 1987), 207-34.
Lynch, Michael (1999) “Archives in Schudson, Michael (1992) Watergate in formation: Privileged spaces, popular American Memory: How We Remember, archives and paper trails,” History of the Forget, and Reconstruct the Past (New Human Sciences 12(3): 65-87. York: Basic Books).
Lynch, Michael (2007) “The Origins of Scott, Sir Richard (1996) Report of the Ethnomethodology,” in Stephen Turner Inquiry into the Export of Defence & Mark Risjord (eds.), Philosophy of Equipment and Dual-Use of Goods to Anthropology and Sociology: Handbook Iraq and Related Prosecutions (the Scott of the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 15 Report). London: HMSO. (London: Elsevier): 485-515.
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Suchman, Lucy (1987) Plans and What Foucault was against was that Situated Actions: The Problem of there is such a thing called the truth that Human-Machine Communication can be uncovered, because the concept (Cambridge: Cambridge University of truth was bourgeois and even the Press). whole idea of legal process was. In 1972 Foucault had an argument with the Tilly, Charles (1984) Big Structures, Maoists about what to do after we win Large Processes, Huge Comparisons the revolution: Shall we try the (New York: Russell Sage Foundation). bourgeois traitors or should we shoot them straightaway? And Foucault argued Weizenbaum, Joseph (1976) Computer that we should shoot them straightaway, Power and Human Reason (San because if we try them then you have to Francisco: WH Freeman). engage in legalistic reasoning and that’s the end of the revolution, the revolution Woolgar, Steve (1976) ”Writing an is here to get rid of legalistic reasoning! 8 intellectual history of scientific development: The use of discovery Phil Hutchinson accounts." Social Studies of Science 6: Picking up on that, there is a famous 395-422 debate with Chomsky where Foucault is arguing that revolution is about the Yates, Frances (1966) The Art of proletariat achieving power and against Memory (Chicago: University of the thought that it is about achieving Chicago Press). justice. Chomsky is trying to argue that it’s about trying to bring about a higher state of justice, and Foucault argues no, Discussion it’s just about the proletariat gaining power. Mathieu Marion In Sense and Sensibilia Austin picks up Mike Lynch on example which was used by people I don’t know how that implicates the 9 like Ayer to argue for phenomenology, position that we took. The sceptical saying a straight stick, when in the water reading of Garfinkel – the popular looks bent, so there is an illusion reading – is that documentary method because the real stick is not bent. But could lead to this horror that no you see something that’s bent; therefore historical account can be trusted. This is you see only your sense data, not the real not where Garfinkel goes with it and yet, thing. The idea being that there is this as Harvey Sacks pointed out, there are extra step - if you are fooled once, always uses for these paradoxes, there’s you’re fooled all the time. […] The use for scepticism. And it’s like reading other point follows from the Foucault that I learned in the universities in France in the seventies. The political 8 See James Miller, 1993, The Passion of Michel picture you presented is of people Foucault, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 204. covering their tracks; the truth is in the 9 Mike Lynch & David Bogen, 1996, Spectacle evidence for the real things that these of History: Speech, Text and Memory at the Iran- guys tried to cover up by shredding […]. Contra Hearings, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 101 Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009
Foucault. It seems as though some of the actors in the current regime in the United Mike Lynch States read Foucault and use him to I can’t think of anything in Goffman that create a boat with no bottom; they’re- addresses directly memory or its enacting a world that has no bottom, that theatricality. We didn’t really engage the juridical orientation would insist with the video in a detailed or upon. 10 They are of course acting very sophisticated way, but one of the things selectively but the famous quote is that comes up, let me just put it very where journalist Ron Suskind is crudely, is that if there is a question interviewing some White House aide about whether a witness is sincerely who says [to paraphrase] “you’re from recalling something or not, the witness the reality-based community where, will sometimes insist upon his or her history’s actors bring about, the reality sincerity with repeated and forceful that you guys wanna document”. 11 In assertions, such as “I really mean it!” some ways that’s a very sophisticated This kind of upgrading and the view of things, the juridical structures repetition, dramatized through both that grind these investigations to a halt verbal and gestural expressions, can be a are finding difficulty in working with way of working the boundaries of that view, and so, it may be that the plausibility. There might be something inadequacies of the juridical machinery in Goffman about that. But I would are being exhibited by a very different address it in relation to some of the political faction than Foucault struggles interrogators go through when anticipated. trying to get recollections and admissions from a witness. And the Phil Hutchinson interrogator’s dramatising implausibility, What about the relevance of Goffman’s while the witness dramatises, repeats, comments on memory and theatricality? and insists upon truthfulness, would be part of that game.
10 See, e.g. Bruno Latour, 2004, ‘Why has Dave Francis critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to Memory is an accountable phenomenon, matters of concern’, Critical Inquiry 30(2), 224- and what you provided is a lovely, but a 248. 11 quite specialised example of that. The full quote from Ron Suskind (2004) Memory is routinely treated as an ‘Faith, certainty and the presidency of George W. Bush’, New York Times Magazine (17 accountable phenomenon. For instance, October): a domestic example “What do you mean ‘The aide said that guys like me were "in what you don’t remember? I only told you we call the reality-based community," which he yesterday!” One thing that strikes me is defined as people who "believe that solutions that nobody has really done much work emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really on this. works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own Mike Lynch reality. And while you're studying that reality— I know, but there are bits. Jeff Coulter judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating has done some work, and Harvey Sacks other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."’ 102 Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009 has made a few remarks along those Mike Lynch lines in his Lectures on Conversation. 12 Yes. Paul Drew analysed a transcript of Ekman’s 1985 book on lying has a bit on a rape case and Jeff Coulter has talked that in that logically and morally about the logic of not recalling in this. 14 speaking, there are certain things you Not recalling that you’ve met someone, can’t fail to recall. 13 And then in terms implicates the past event, so it does not of membership there are certain things only deny that you remember, it’s not you can’t fail to recall. For instance, if just saying “I forgot”, but it can also you’re a doctor, you can’t profess not to implicitly deny the existence of the event recall previous visits by a patient – it’s that you were asked to testify about. your responsibility to have it on record, whether or not you remember it. So there David Francis are sorts of requirements for information Thinking about discussions between and for how you would yield that Dorothy Smith and Ted Cuff about information that people sometimes will versions and going back to Harvey work around and so forth, but it’s part of Sacks. You take the whole of routines. archaeology and examine a few hours or a few days in Rome and examine the Dave Francis practices, any account of the So its not only that you can’t claim to ethnomethodology of history is just have forgotten but if you do claim to another attempt to examine the ordinary have forgotten then what does that tell practices. me about how you live? Mike Lynch Mike Lynch Yeah, although in this kind of Yes, that’s true – and not just because it interrogative situation, there is at least an might reveal a ‘cognitive deficit’ if you ostensible orientation to truth as an profess not to recall something you’re accountable category, what you can get expected to make available: memory is out of it. And so I don’t think truth, as bound up with moral implications and such, is a perspicuous topic; rather, there responsibilities. is the topic of how the interlocutors trade upon the salience of truth, quite Dave Francis meticulously. I was thinking of the domestic example I just gave you, the domestic excuse - “I Wes Sharrock told you before”. If you claim to have Of course it’s very important to realize forgotten, you end up having a big row that looking for the use of the word with your wife. ‘truth’ doesn’t necessary tell you whether a concept of truth is in
14 12 Jeff Coulter, 1985, ‘Two concepts of the Paul Drew, 1992, ‘Contested evidence in mental’. In K. J. Gergen & K. E. Davis (eds.), courtroom cross-examination: The case of a The Social Construction of the Person, New trial for rape’, in P. Drew & J. Heritage (eds.), York: Springer-Verlag, pp. 129-144. Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional 13 Paul Ekman, 1985, Telling Lies: Clues to Settings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Press, pp. 470-520. Marriage, New York: Norton. 103 Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009 operation. And you would have to give the Iran-contra witnesses did is to deploy up a lot more than the words ‘true’, or this intricate vocabulary of the middle ‘false’, to give up the use of the concept ground between telling the truth and of truth. And so these sorts of fantasies lying. One term that was used a lot was of abolishing the truth are really only ‘dissembling’; other terms such as about the degree to which things are not dissimulation and ‘plausible deniability’ true, are false, are a misrepresentation. suggest attention to what would be And of course the whole discourse on revealed as opposed to how much would the ‘crisis of representation’ isn’t of be concealed. It became more of a ‘there’s nothing there to be represented’; gradient of possibility rather than a the whole thing is ‘it is not being binary; and certainly not one with an represented really in itself.’ And I mean excluded middle - that’s what you have to get rid of - the idea of ‘things in themselves’. The idea Phil Hutchinson that ordinary discourse featuring truth, - what you can get away with! and practices of finding things to be correct, justified and the rest, have Mike Lynch nothing to do with an underlying concept Part of the domain or resource that North of something in itself. If we give that up used in his responses is that he is dealing we haven’t gained anything we haven’t with security issues, so that he’s not lost anything. going to reveal everything to the Congress, because, of course, it’s public Phil Hutchinson testimony and they’ve already vetted I don’t know in terms of Foucault, what can be revealed or not in the public maybe you can clarify I mean even in tribunal; to paraphrase, he can say: “I Derrida this is a standard move; he does don’t have to tell you everything, begins with a metaphysical account of because we’ve got enemies listening in,” truth, and then demonstrates how we can and that becomes ironic when the never achieve that, therefore, no truth. It interrogator follows up: “Well, you think is the same with the concept of the gift, Congress is the enemy? You can’t tell the idea of the gift. The pure idea of the Congress this stuff?” And so, this gift is nothing like the way that people happens in lots of ways with claims to use the word gift in their transactions, Executive Privilege, state secrets and that sort of thing, the ‘pure gift’ is that kind of thing. But then again the tie- unachievable therefore, for Derrida, in between these things on the ground there is no such thing as a gift. and philosophical treatments of truth is pretty remote: truth is evidently used as Mike Lynch a concept, but not in any meaningful Yes, there are ways in which the way with reference to philosophical ordinary dialogical usage is sophisticated discussions of it. in relation to what we spin out when we talk about these themes in abstraction. In Phil Hutchinson: But can you the circumstances of an interrogation, demonstrate the deceit? this whole domain of “I don’t recall” becomes about a question of, ‘Is he lying or not?’. With respect to lying one thing
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Mike Lynch Ivan Leudar You often don’t know whether it is. You Talking about the work see, the thing about plausible deniability ethnomethodologists have done on is the plausibility of it. One of the things memory is interesting; but how much that Coulter (1985, see fn12) points out work, if they did any, did they do on about non-recall is that it is an evasion doing history? Say, by comparison to all strategy, but it does more than evade, the work you did on natural science, say and so to determine if evasion or genetics. deception are involved requires a judgement we all make but evasion is Mike Lynch only one possibility. I mean, the fact that I can’t think of anything. we know that we routinely fail to recall things and some people recall more than Ivan Leudar other people recall itself becomes a So why not? resource when we are faced with questions about what to reveal to this Mike Lynch person, what do we need to talk about, It’s one of those things. Claude Rosental and so forth. All of this is available, so recently published a book on logicians’ that to say that a witness is being work. 15 In an ironic way, when he went deceptive is one possible outcome –a to MIT he tried to find some logicians to determination that these resources make follow around, like laboratory scientists. difficult to arrive at. Laboratory scientists have these lively places where they talk to each other, you Ivan Leudar know they’ve got machines. What do There was a fair bit of research done in logicians do? Well they work in an psychology on plausible denial some office, sometimes communicate with time ago. It claimed to show that people other logicians. Historians bury do not deny just anything but things that themselves in archives, there aren’t too others might plausibly believe. So if you many co-authored historical works, it’s deny having a memory, this implies a interactionally not particularly rich, but presupposition of an ordinary member to that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t do the contrary. an analysis of doing history.
Mike Lynch Ivan Leudar Of course plausible deniability also So you think that as an refers to setting things up and that was ethnomethodologist you couldn’t use the interesting thing. North admitted to those same methods to study say re- setting up (as well as erasing) the enactment of something? documentary base, so that he and his colleagues would have the latitude to Mike Lynch deny plausibly what they had been Yes, the kinds of things I would find doing. Professional criminals do this all interesting are not necessarily the the time with alibis and that sort of thing. 15 Claude Rosental (2008) Weaving Self- Evidence: A Sociology of Logic (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). 105 Ethnographic Studies, No 11, Autumn 2009 professional historians’ work, but the work that goes into producing an archive. I mean the stories about Harold Garfinkel’s own archive are a book in themselves, the battles over his materials. Robert Merton’s archive would be another story that would be interesting if you can get people to reveal the shenanigans, you know what you put in it and what you keep out of it. That’s the kind of work that interests me.
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