THE 2007 ETHNOMETHODOLOGY AND

CONVERSATION ANALYSIS BOOK AWARD

The Book Award Committee for the Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis Section met and selected Hedwig te Molder and Jonathan Potter's edited collection Conversation and Cognition (Cambridge University Press, 2005) as the award winner for 2007.

This edited collection explores a range of important issues for all sociologists: what is the nature of cognition? To what extent is cognition shaped by, and responsive to, the social institution of interaction? And how, in turn, might cognition matter for social action? Insofar as the founding of Ethnomethodology/Conversation Analysis was premised, at least in part, on recognizing the centrality of sense making, intersubjectivity, and interaction to understanding human social life, it is fitting that the first book award this section will bestow covers precisely this terrain. Potter and te Molder have produced a book that provides a solid exploration of current issues and perspectives on how cognition can be conceived and studied by insisting on the centrality of social interaction in human affairs. The book brings together leading scholars pursuing ethnomethodological and conversation analytic research to challenge, and in some cases correct, existing cognitive science research. The resulting collection has an overarching unity of focus, while individual chapters nevertheless canvass a variety of sometimes mutually opposed positions. This lends the book the character of a vibrant debate that will surely foster continued research, and -- we hope -- expose more cognitive scientists to the insights our field offers.

The introductory chapter describes the history of research and thought about the nature of cognition and points out the ways in which cognitive science approaches to the topic can be usefully altered or strengthened by interactional approaches, primarily ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. The individual chapters then take different, sometimes contradictory positions on these issues.

While all of the chapters advocate the use of interactional data and analytic techniques based on ethnomethodology and/or conversation analysis, some argue for incorporating ideas and findings from cognitive science, while others take the opposite point of view, arguing for not assuming an "underlying mental apparatus": "There is nothing intrinsically 'mental' about thinking, intending or interpreting. It is we as agents (not as 'minds') who do these things when we do them." (p. 93). The research presented demonstrates that events and actions often thought to reflect internal psychological states or cognitive processing may actually be interactional procedures for resolving interactional problems. The research shows how cognitive processes can be made visible in the talk and can be used strategically; and how the doing of this is linked to commonsense knowledge and assumptions about how the mind works.

Another contribution of this book is that it discusses how discursive psychology, which has roots in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, handles mental states and descriptions.