Institutional Ethnography The ‘hood where experience counts. A research madness method presentation by K.So PCOM 621 – Royal Roads University
Institutional ethnography dissected
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"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.
In other words… • It’s
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.
Institutional Ethnography •
Inquiry in institutional ethnography is framed as much as possible without relying on academic theories, professional language and discourse, or administrative terms and categories. Theory “Cognitive Dissonance Theory”
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Academic/ scientific lingo
Business terms
“antidisestablishmentarianism”
“Synergy”
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.
IE: History 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. •
Institutional Ethnography
For more information on this research method, please visit the class wiki.