Institutional Ethnography
The hood where experience counts.
A research madness method presentation by K.SoPCOM 621 Royal Roads University
Institutional ethnography dissected
"Institution", within institutional ethnography, refers to complexes of activity organized around a distinctive function such as the law or education or international development.
Ethnography is a well-known approach to studying everyday life in its natural state.
Institutional ethnographers share techniques of observation, talking to people, formal interviews, and so on with other ethnographers.
Institutional ethnography dissected
However
IE differs from other forms of ethnography
because it addresses a key feature of
contemporary life that other researchers take
for granted and ignore
IE researchers notice that human lives are
shaped by social relations of coordination and
control that we cannot understand or perhaps
even see from within the scope of local
experience.
Institutional ethnography dissected
IE research must move outside the local setting
(where ethnographic fieldwork is conducted)
and explore how the social is "put together" in
the way that people experience it.
Institutional ethnography defined (finally)
Institutional ethnography explores how the
coordination of people (and ideas and plans
and so on) through the institution's discursively
organized practices, working across time and
geographic spaces functions by learning from
people who are experienced in the coordination
(coordinator or those being coordinated) in the
organization.
Its like conducting a
study to learn about
the function of a
maze by asking lab
rats about the
conduct, rules and
structure of the maze.
In other words
Inquiry in institutional ethnography is framed as much as possible without relying on academic theories, professional language and discourse, or administrative terms and categories.
Rather, we proceed from what people know about their lives, what they actually do everyday, and how they express this knowing and doing in their own terms.
Institutional Ethnography
TheoryAcademic/ scientific lingo
Businessterms
Synergyantidisestablish-mentarianism
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Feminist approach to knowledge
Originated with Dorothy E. Smith in 1987
Developed for use in sociology
IE has not been used in communication research
previously
IE is used to often times examine the power and social
relations in research.
IE: History
Institutional
Ethnography
For more information on this research
method, please visit the class wiki.
