Specialization:
Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis, Social Organization, Morality, Race and Ethnicity, Inter-Species Interaction, Sociological Methodology
Education: B.A., UC Santa Barbara
Bio:
Liz Munday is a fourth-year doctoral student in Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She holds an M.A. in Sociology from UC Santa Barbara and completed her B.A. in Sociology summa cum laude with distinction in the major.
Her research lies at the intersection of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EMCA), the sociology of morality, race and ethnicity, and sociological methodology. Across these areas, Liz examines how social phenomena become empirically observable through the practices by which people categorize conduct, formulate accounts, assign responsibility, and organize accountability in interaction.
Her current work develops a broader theoretical and methodological program focused on the relationship among sociological objects, methods, evidence, and inference. Drawing on EMCA, she examines how research methods participate in making particular social phenomena available for analysis and what different forms of evidence permit sociologists to claim. Her work on the sociology of morality re-specifies morality as publicly organized accountability, locating its observability in the practices through which conduct becomes recognizable, evaluable, justifiable, sanctionable, and reparable.
Liz’s master’s research uses CA to identify implicit bias discourse (IBD) as a distinct interactional phenomenon. Drawing on post-task interviews, she examines how participants mobilize publicly circulating formulations of implicit bias, including automaticity, unconsciousness, cultural learning, and universality, when accounting for actions they themselves treat as potentially biased. The analysis shows how IBD functions as a practical resource for acknowledging racialized associations while managing intention, responsibility, and moral self-presentation. It also connects the institutional production and circulation of this discourse to its sequential use in moments of moral accountability.
Liz’s early dissertation work develops a multi-method study of moral categorization, assessment, and evidence. One component uses a survey experiment on animal care to examine how participants classify ambiguous practices as acceptable, questionable, neglectful, or abusive, and how animal behavior, institutional recommendations, and available justifications shape those classifications. A second component uses CA to examine assessment as a practice through which categorial and moral organization become publicly observable in interaction. Together, the projects compare what experimental, survey, and sequential forms of evidence make available for sociological analysis and how different research arrangements organize claims about care, harm, responsibility, and accountability.
Her work has been supported by the UC Chancellor’s Fellowship, the Louis H. Towbes Graduate Fellowship, and the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research.
Liz serves as Pedagogy Editor for the Journal of Sociology of Race and Ethnicity and has served as Information Officer for the American Sociological Association’s Section on Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis since 2023. She has also served on the department’s Undergraduate Program Committee and mentored students pursuing honors research and graduate study.
Courses:
Liz teaches Social Psychology (SOC 104) and Research Methods (SOC 115) at Santa Barbara City College and has taught Introduction to Sociology (SOC 1) and Issues in Social Psychology (SOC 147) at UC Santa Barbara. She has supported courses in social categories, ethnomethodology, and sociological research methods as a teaching assistant.