Doing Modernity: Studies in Critical Interactionism

  Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis   in Social Work   Wayne Martin Mellinger, Ph.D. I. Introduction: The Interactional Turn in Social Work Social work is a profession conducted in talk. Whether assessing a child-protection report, negotiating housing assistance, or counseling a client in crisis, practitioners accomplish their work through interaction. Yet for most of its history, the discipline theorized practice in terms of policy, ethics, or psychology rather than examining the details of how help is actually achieved. Ethnomethodology (EM) and conversation analysis (CA) have changed that. Emerging from sociology, these approaches provide tools for studying social work empirically at the level of talk, text, and embodied conduct. Figures such as Gerald de Montigny, Heinz Messmer, Sarah Hitzler, and Mariusz Granosik have demonstrated that the everyday activities of intake, case management, and intervention are not mechanical procedures but finely organized acco...