A Sharp Ethnographer for Swedish Researchers

Abstract Bob Emerson’s influence on Swedish sociology is wide-ranging and multifaceted. Bob presented this ethnomethodological approach to ethnography on several occasions to a Swedish audience. Our loose network of cultural criminology in Lund developed into what is now the Crime, Control, Culture group at our department, a successful research community consisting of BA and MA courses, researchers, lecturers, postdocs, and graduate students involved in a plethora of projects. Bob’s influence on Swedish social research came to be both methodological and analytical. One example is the analyses of the ‘micro-politics of trouble,’ followed up in his last book, Everyday Troubles: The Micro-Politics of Interpersonal Conflict . Another is his co-authored article on organizational horizons. Bob’s article on “key incidents” (Emerson 2004) has had an impact on researchers and students, giving them some courage to follow their curiosity and surprises that a field invites, instead of following a predefined logic or technical approach. In most of our method courses on qualitative research, we have used Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes (Emerson et al. [1995] 2011). Now we have reached 2025 and Bob’s influence is still evident and tangible. We miss him immensely as a charming person and a very supportive colleague. As to his legacy within the sociology of social control and field-based methodology, we do not need to miss it. It is clearly alive among us.