Garfinkel, Harold

Harold Garfinkel is a well known contemporary scholar in the United States on the studies of ethnomethodology. He invented the term ethnomethodology and was considered the cofounder of this school of thought. Ethnomethodology looks at how individuals communicate while interacting. One of its key points is that ethnomethods are reflexive accounts. These accounts are the ways in which actors do such things as describe, criticize, and idealize specific situations to make sense of their social world. Studies in Ethnomethodology is Garfinkel’s best known book.