Michael Lynch – författare

DNA profiling—commonly known as DNA fingerprinting—is often heralded as unassailable criminal evidence, a veritable “truth machine” that can overturn convictions based on eyewitness testimony, confessions, and other forms of forensic evidence. But DNA evidence is far from infallible. Truth Machine traces the controversial history of DNA fingerprinting by looking at court cases in the United States and United Kingdom beginning in the mid-1980s, when the practice was invented, and continuing until the present. Ultimately, Truth Machine presents compelling evidence of the obstacles and opportunities at the intersection of science, technology, sociology, and law.

Originally published in 1987, this volume filled a notable gap in Scottish urban history and considers the place of Scottish towns in urban life during the 16th and 17th Centuries. The first part of the book is based on studies of individual burghs (Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Perth) drawing extensively on archival material. The second part includes a discussion of the pressure put upon the burghs by the town between 1500 and 1650, a process which contributed to the destruction of the medieval burgh and examines the burgh during the Scottish Revolution. The impact of war and plague on Scottish towns in the 1640s is also analysed and much emphasis is given to the relationship between town and country.

Originally published in 1987, this volume filled a notable gap in Scottish urban history and considers the place of Scottish towns in urban life during the 16th and 17th Centuries. The first part of the book is based on studies of individual burghs (Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Perth) drawing extensively on archival material. The second part includes a discussion of the pressure put upon the burghs by the town between 1500 and 1650, a process which contributed to the destruction of the medieval burgh and examines the burgh during the Scottish Revolution. The impact of war and plague on Scottish towns in the 1640s is also analysed and much emphasis is given to the relationship between town and country.

This book revisits the arguments by which Harvey Sacks and Harold Garfinkel opposed the widespread attempt in the social sciences to construct disciplinary theories and methods in place of common-sense knowledge of human action, and proposed instead an alternative that would investigate the organised methods of natural language use and common-sense reasoning that constitute social orders – arguments that led to the establishment and proliferation of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis.

As the very "constructive analysis" that they opposed has begun to be incorporated into influential lines of research in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, the authors return to the founding insights of the field and reiterate the importance of Garfinkel and Sacks’ original and controversial proposals for an "alternate" sociology of practical action and practical reasoning. Showing how constructive analysis has become entrenched in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis and arguing for a need to "re-boot" these approaches, this volume constitutes a call for a renewal of the radical alternative proposed by Garfinkel and Sacks.

This book revisits the arguments by which Harvey Sacks and Harold Garfinkel opposed the widespread attempt in the social sciences to construct disciplinary theories and methods in place of common-sense knowledge of human action, and proposed instead an alternative that would investigate the organised methods of natural language use and common-sense reasoning that constitute social orders – arguments that led to the establishment and proliferation of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis.

As the very "constructive analysis" that they opposed has begun to be incorporated into influential lines of research in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, the authors return to the founding insights of the field and reiterate the importance of Garfinkel and Sacks’ original and controversial proposals for an "alternate" sociology of practical action and practical reasoning. Showing how constructive analysis has become entrenched in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis and arguing for a need to "re-boot" these approaches, this volume constitutes a call for a renewal of the radical alternative proposed by Garfinkel and Sacks.

The contributors to this volume take up the theme of instructed and instructive actions. Harold Garfinkel, the founder of ethnomethodology, initiated the study of instructed actions as a way to elucidate the embodied production of social order in real time. Studies of instructions and the actions of following them provide empirical content to the classical theoretical issue of how rules, norms, and other normative guidelines are conveyed, understood, and used for producing social actions and structures.

The studies in this volume address novel technologies of instructed action and non-obvious ways in which ordinary actions turn out to be instructive for participants in immediate situations of action and interaction. In some cases, the studies address specialized practical, artistic, and recreational activities, and in others they address commonplace modes of action and interaction. In all cases, they focus on how the manifest organization of specific activities is organized with and without explicitly formulated instructions.

This book will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in ethnomethodological approaches to research by contributing to understandings of how specific actions are instructed and instructive in the circumstances in which they are produced.

Chapter 2 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

The contributors to this volume take up the theme of instructed and instructive actions. Harold Garfinkel, the founder of ethnomethodology, initiated the study of instructed actions as a way to elucidate the embodied production of social order in real time. Studies of instructions and the actions of following them provide empirical content to the classical theoretical issue of how rules, norms, and other normative guidelines are conveyed, understood, and used for producing social actions and structures.

The studies in this volume address novel technologies of instructed action and non-obvious ways in which ordinary actions turn out to be instructive for participants in immediate situations of action and interaction. In some cases, the studies address specialized practical, artistic, and recreational activities, and in others they address commonplace modes of action and interaction. In all cases, they focus on how the manifest organization of specific activities is organized with and without explicitly formulated instructions.

This book will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in ethnomethodological approaches to research by contributing to understandings of how specific actions are instructed and instructive in the circumstances in which they are produced.

Chapter 2 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.