The Phenomenal Field: Ethnomethodological Perspectives on Collective Phenomena

Abstract

The aim of my paper is twofold. First, I show how the notion of phenomenal field can be used to examine, describe and understand particular collective patterns pertaining to the everyday domain of our common social experience. Secondly, I outline the role of the notion of “phenomenal field” in ethnomethodology. I briefly discuss Gurwitsch’s notion of functional meaning. After presenting the argument, I show “the locally achieved ordinariness of a common task”, that is the lining up of the player of the two teams in the pitch, as an embodied coherence of figural contexture in its empirical perceptual details, as Garfinkel says.