An Ethnographic Consideration of Rule‐Following

Rules are an essential feature of social life and anthropologists have long debated the role they play in human forms of organization and activity. But what does it mean to follow a rule? The article addresses this issue by examining particular, ethnographically specified, cases drawn from fieldwork in an Indo‐Guyanese village. In doing so, it argues that an anthropological account of rule‐following might profitably draw on the writings of Garfinkel and the later Wittgenstein.