Some years ago 1 , in what was a discussion of other matters, we wondered about the analytic potentiality of ignorance (Sharrock and Anderson, 1980). What had caught our eye was the possibility, no more, that the initial fieldwork experience, involving as it does the overcoming of alienness and separation, could provide rich resources for the analysis of culture. In coming to know a culture, in finding one’s feet, the fieldworker finds an organisation to activities, knowledge and practices. That organisation constitutes the culture for him. In focussing on this “discovery”, it might be possible to draw out some of the ways that bodies of knowledge and associated activities make themselves accessible, comprehensible and utilisable by anyone who comes to them. Such a suggestion is, of course, little more than an extension of Schutz’ (1962) insights with