Studies of the Routine Grounds of Everyday Activities

Ordinary interaction rests on background expectations; breaching them can make those expectations visible.

Garfinkel, H. (1964). Studies of the Routine Grounds of Everyday Activities. Social Problems, 11(3), 225–250.

Type

Journal article

Find it

doi.org/10.1525/sp.1964.11.3.03a00020

Checked

Against the abstract, 15 September 2026

Why it is on the list

Garfinkel’s breaching experiments broke the unstated expectations behind ordinary interaction on purpose, and watched people work to restore normality. What that reveals is the mechanism behind this course’s governing sentence: the protocol isn’t undocumented because it is obvious. It is undocumented because it is background, invisible to the people running it until it fails. The later book chapter is the same text; this is the journal original.