Harold Garfinkel

Harold Garfinkel, born on October twenty-ninth, nineteen seventeen, was a prominent American sociologist and pedagogue, renowned for his pioneering work in ethnomethodology. He served as a university teacher at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he developed and established ethnomethodology as a significant field of inquiry within sociology.

Garfinkel is perhaps best known for his influential publication, Studies in Ethnomethodology, released in nineteen sixty-seven. This collection of articles laid the groundwork for understanding the social processes that underpin everyday interactions. His contributions to the field were further solidified with the later publication of selections from his unpublished materials, including Seeing Sociologically and Ethnomethodology's Program.

Before his tenure at UCLA, Garfinkel attended the University of Newark, which later became Rutgers University. During this time, he enrolled in a course titled Theory of Accounts, where he delved into accounting and bookkeeping procedures. This experience proved pivotal, as he began theorizing the various categories into which numbers would be placed, enhancing his understanding of accountability in social contexts.