Goodwin

“Professional Vision”

Theme of the reading

In my opinion, this is the richest article ever written in the tradition of cognitive ethnography. Goodwin shows us how the ability to see the things that matter in any profession is not a property of eye or brain, but is instead a property of the discursive practices by which professionals demonstrate competence in their profession. Goodwin describes three key discursive practices: coding, highlighting, and the production of graphical representations. He shows how the competent use of these discursive practices allows archaeologists, lawyers, and police officers to see and help others see the phenomenal objects of interest in their profession.

Getting ready to read

Look up the following words:

Quixotic, Perspicuous, Reify, Constitutive, Ostensive, Endogenous, Deictic, Juxtapose

Questions to keep in mind while reading

What methods did Goodwin use to document the behavior of archaeologists and police expert witnesses?

What does Goodwin mean when he says that “all vision is perspectival and lodged within endogenous communities of practice”?

Does Goodwin use discursive practices in writing his paper?

Goodwin claims that categories and features in the world “mutually elaborate” each other. What does this mean? How does it relate to the idea of dialectic between setting and activity discussed by Lave and her colleagues?

How does studying archaeologists prepare us to understand a contentious jury trial?

What sort of coding scheme did the defense lawyers provide to the jury for understanding Rodney King’s actions?

Why were there no expert witnesses to testify about the practices of people getting beaten?