ASA EMCA Lifetime Achievement Award

The section’s Lifetime Achievement Award Committee this Spring enthusiastically endorsed the letters in support of Don Zimmerman, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at University of California- Santa Barbara, who has been selected as the 2013 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Sociological Association section on Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis.  Several letters of nomination and support from prominent colleagues attested to Don Zimmerman’s significant contributions over many decades of individual and collaborative scholarship, teaching, and professional service. 

Among his many contributions, letters noted his importance for providing early and accessible illustrations and expositions of foundational ethnomethodological insights, and his influential studies on topics including the accomplishment of gender through talk and the conversational organization of emergency calls. Also noted were his importance as a mentor and thesis supervisor for dozens of younger colleagues, and a variety of professional service accomplishments including contributions to conference organizing, book editing, and his service as Editor of the journal Research on Language and Social Interaction (ROLSI). The several letters reflected a consistent understanding across  a variety of vantage points of a remarkable, multi-dimensional career spanning half a century and more, and making appreciated, influential contributions, including to a broader understanding of what ethnomethodology is about, how it can be productively related to conversation analysis, and how both can be applied in such a manner as opens up innovative, insightfuland important new lines of social inquiry.

[Committee members this year were Tim Berard, Lorenza Mondada, and Jack Whalen]

Short Selected Publicatio by Don H. Zimmerman

[for a more extensive list see here]

Boden, D., and D. Zimmerman. 1991. Talk and Social Structure. Cambridge: Polity Press.

West, Candace, and Don H. Zimmerman. 1987. “Doing Gender.” Doing Gender 1 (2): 125–151.

Whalen, J, and DH Zimmerman. 1998. “Observations on the Display and Management of Emotion in Naturally Occurring Activities: The Case of‘ Hysteria’ in Calls to 9-1-1.” Social Psychology Quarterly 61 (2): 141–159.

Whalen, J, DH Zimmerman, and R Whalen Marilyn. 1988. “When Words Fail: A Single Case Analysis.” Soc. Probs. 35 (4): 335-362.

Wilson, TP, and DH Zimmerman. 1986. “The Structure of Silence Between Turns in Two‐party Conversation.” Discourse Processes, 9, 375-90

Zimmerman, DH. 1974. “Fact as a Practical Accomplishment.” in R. Turner (ed.), Ethnomethodology. Harmondsworth: Penguin: 128-143.

Zimmerman, DH. 1970. “The Practicalities of Rule Use.” in J. Douglas (ed.) Understanding Everyday Life. Chicago: Aldine: 285-295.