摘要：The years from the mid-sixties to the early seventies were for me years of greatsociological excitement and discovery. It was a period when the orthodox theoreticalframework and the conventional methodology of social research were putunder scrutiny and were found wanting. The objective was to put something in itsplace which was better and more geared to our subject matter. For me, a researcherand later lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University ofManchester, this period was stimulated and sustained by the arrival of WesSharrock, who brought with him both his desire for rigour and his monumentalreading in theory and its relevance to research practice. It was his pursuit of thisgoal, influenced by his reading and teaching of Schütz, which prompted him tobring to Manchester a series of very distinguished naturalistic sociologists, all ofwhom played an important role in teaching but also in confirming our view of thesociological field. Not the least important of these visitors was Egon Bittner,whose approach to the nature of sociological organisation matched our ownfindings and provided solutions to problems which we were experiencing in ourresearch activity.
