Indexical ripples: tactics for qualitative sociological research

Joint CDER / Nuffield College Sociology Seminar

This seminar considers the challenges of doing qualitative research in sociology. Drawing on recent and ongoing work on ‘technological sensemaking’ in educational settings (Perrotta and Eedelouei, 2026), the talk reflects on the continued relevance of methodological approaches that attend to the situational dimension of experience, in pursuit of a rational accountability of practical actions and practical reasoning (Garfinkel, 1996).

Two methodological tactics are illustrated which, despite obvious flaws, retain empirical and theoretical usefulness for those seeking to add an ethnomethodological dimension to their inquiries:

1. Trials of explicitness, in which a researcher introduces situational and cognitive elements during fieldwork to elicit explications of ‘what is going on’ — explications that may be produced by humans, by machines, or by human-plus-machine imbroglios (Latour, 1994).
2. Cultural probes, in which a researcher introduces arrangements and artefacts that test and expose relations within social settings and infrastructures.

The talk also touches on unresolved questions of objectivity and scale in qualitative research, including provocations and counterintuitive approaches that pursue aesthetic and literary authenticity rather than traditional criteria of empirical rigour.

References
Garfinkel, H. (1996). Ethnomethodology’s program. *Social Psychology Quarterly*, 59(1), 5–21.
Latour, B. (1994). Pragmatogonies: a mythical account of how humans and nonhumans swap properties. *American Behavioral Scientist*, 37(6), 791–808.
Perrotta, C., & Eedelouei, S. (2026). ‘Whack the prompt in there and see what it says’: making sense of Communicative AI in education. *Learning, Media and Technology*, 1–15.

The Sociology Seminar Series is convened by Zachary Parolin and Carlo Perrotta. For more information about any of the seminars in the series, please contact sociology.secretary@nuffield.ox.ac.uk.