Morriss, Lisa (2016) Dirty secrets and being ‘strange’ : using ethnomethodology to fight familiarity. Qualitative Research, 16 (5). pp. 526-540. ISSN 1468-7941
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Abstract
The paper is a discussion of my attempt to move beyond familiarity by using ethnomethodology – and the emotional impact of doing so; namely, the feeling of having a ‘dirty secret’. As a social work group member interviewing social workers, the process of fieldwork was all too familiar. However, during transcription and analysis, what I had considered to be ‘business as usual’ was revealed as something more complex. The paper describes how the ethnomethodological notions of being a member, the unique adequacy requirement of methods, and breaching worked to make the familiar strange and became key to my understanding.