Jan Marontate
School of Communication
Spring 2009
Simon Fraser University
CMNS 801-5: Design and Methodology in Communication Research
Handout 7: Readings for Week 5 (Institutional Ethnography)
Presentation and Reading Selections by Scott Timcke
Smith, D. E. (1999), Writing the social, critique, theory, and investigations, Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, pp 1 – 10, online access from the SFU library
In the Introduction to Writing the Social, a collection of nearly a decade’s work of conceptual and
methodological development, Dorothy Smith outlines the conceptual development from feminist
standpoint theory to institutional ethnography. Yet throughout development Smith stays committed to the
point that the “subject participat[es] in objectified relations organized beyond the local particularities of her
domestic consciousness” (1999: 4). This point is crucial to institutional ethnography as method of inquiry.
Smith’s method has six major components. These are: 1) that the subject and the researcher are not
“transcendent subject[s]”, but rather they are both situated in a specific set of relations (1999: 5) in which
they constantly participate (1999: 6); 2) Smith invokes Marx and Engels to argue that her method is the “the
ongoing concerting and coordinating of individuals' activities” that are discursively created (1999: 6); 3)
while ‘social organization and social relations [are] central’ (1999: 7) these concepts must not be
dehistoricised, nor should they become consuming. Instead concepts should be not a “thing to be looked
for in carrying out research, rather, it is what is used to do the looking” (G.W. Smith 1995: 24 cited in Smith
1999: 7); 4) following from the previous points social research should not be concerned so much as with
developing timeless concepts as much as with altering existing practice; 5) Texts are material objects that
bring into existence “actual contexts of reading a standardized form of words or images that can be and
may be read/seen/heard in many other settings by many others at the same or other times” (1999: 7). In
this sense texts cannot be detached from their social setting, however they do provide a means to investigate
social processes; 6) lastly experience of the influence of texts by individuals provides a route into studying
the politics of organization. This is not to confuse those individuals as the object of study, but instead to
find a means to study a larger phenomenon.
Smith, D. E. (2006) ‘Incorporating Texts into Ethnographic Practice’ in Smith, D. E. (ed)
Institutional ethnography as practice, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield pp 65 - 88
In this particular text, Smith argues that the investigation of texts should be incorporated into ethnographic
practice. Doing so, Smith argues, would recognize the importance that texts have in coming to be “part of
the action” (2006: 65). Furthermore as texts have the ability to be locally interpreted thereby providing a
means to investigate particularities they can at the same time be used to coordinate “the diversities of
people’s subjectivities and conscience” (2006: 65). Investigation of this tension, Smith argues, is one of the
core aims of ethnography. Heavy emphasis is placed on the technologies of texts and how changes in
technology influence the aforementioned dynamic at a foundational level.
2
Turner, S. M. (2006), ‘Mapping institutions as work and texts’ in Smith, D. E. (ed)
Institutional ethnography as practice, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield pp 139 - 161
This particular chapter by Susan Turner demonstrates mapping sequences of ethnographic data specifically
related to texts that coordinate activity. The chapter argues that by mapping the flow and understanding of
texts, the researcher will better understand how these texts come to be “essential coordinators of
institutions” (2006: 139). This approach will allow the researcher to circumvent charts of organizational
structure or workflows that often do not correspond to actual circumstances found within particular
organizations. Instead by following the mapping technique proposed by Turner, the researcher can extend
their analysis of translocational work process past individual accounts, observable experiences and routines.
While this chapter is not necessarily a ‘how-to’ guide in text mapping per se, it does give the reader practical
assistance in developing maps of texts, understanding those texts’ functions, and providing a means to
locate the specific means of textual practices.
Other Texts of interest:
Smith, D. E. (1999), Writing the social, critique, theory, and investigations, Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, pp 73 – 95, online access from the SFU library
A core development Smith’s work is the concept of ‘ruling relations’.
Also of interest would be Campbell, M and Ann Manicom, A. (eds.) (1995). Knowledge, Experience,
and Ruling Relations: Studies in the Social Organization of Knowledge. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press.
For a very succinct explanation of institutional ethnography (but which lacks theoretical grounding) see
Wright, U. T. and Rocco, T. S. (2007) Institutional Ethnography: A Tool for Interrogating the
Institutional and Political Conditions of Individual Experience Learning In Community:
Proceedings of the joint international conference of the Adult Education Research Conference
(48th National Conference) and the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education
(CASAE) (26th National Conference)
DeVault, M. L. and McCoy, L. (2002) ‘Institutional Ethnography: Using Interviews to Investigate
Ruling Relations.’ in Smith, D. E. (ed) Institutional ethnography as practice, Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield pp 15 - 44
In a highly cited article, Marjorie DeVault and Lisa McCoy interview a variety of institutional ethnographers
who used interviews in their data collections process. DeVault and McCoy point that for these researchers,
interviewing is not so much a planned or structured activity, but rather simply “talking with people that
occurs in field observations” (NO). At this point in the observation, the ‘interview’ is more concerned with
clarifying how a person does their job, what they understand their job to be, and how they interpret
documents that pass their way. These spot interviews are supplemented by more formal interviews and
focus groups in which seek to explain “how things work” (NO), and how work itself shapes texts, or how
those texts come to shape the work process. Importantly these spot and more structured interviews are to
be conducted throughout the organization if possible and not limited to a specific section, area or interface.
The reason for this is that institutional ethnography attempts to explore the ruling relations in a
translocation manner thought the use of constantly created or interpreted texts. Such a goal necessitates
interaction with more than one set of actors. A caution in this work is of how actors use institutional
language to explain their actions. DeVault and McCoy argue that this obscures the actors own reflected
3
understanding of their actions with texts – instead the researcher must attempt to get the actor to reflect
upon their understanding and creation of texts without the support of institutional language.
This article can also be found in Gubrium, J. F. and Holstein, J. A. (eds.) (2002), Handbook of
Interview Research: Context and Method. London: Sage, pp. 369 – 394. The work can be found on
google books.
Campbell, M, and Gregor, F. (2002) Mapping social relations: a primer in
doing institutional ethnography, Aurora: Garamond Press, pp 83 - 98, online access from the SFU library
A clear focus on data analysis makes this chapter by Campbell and Gregor is extremely helpful for
researchers previously unfamiliar with ethnography in general and institutional ethnography in particular.
This piece argues for the move past description, and into detailing the mechanics of institutional trends.
For the most part the piece attempts to balance significance and repetition of events with that of the single
unique case. Nonetheless, whatever preference a particular researcher might favour, and despite the
informative use of interviewing, Campbell and Gregor maintain that “a successful analysis supersedes any
one account and even supersedes the totality of what informants know and can tell” (2002; 85). They
continue to argue that this point however must be balanced with the conventional ethnographic approach
which seeks to represent a particular group’s worldview “as they understand them” (2002: 88). Yet these
worldviews themselves must be situated within a historical development. The chapter concludes by
advocating for an analysis which seeks to come to an interpretative understanding of how the readers of
texts come to understand the texts with which they engage.
Walby, K. T. (2005) ‘Institutional Ethnography and Surveillance Studies: An Outline for Inquiry’ Surveillance
& Society 3(2/3) pp 158 -- 172
In this particular article Kevin Walby uses institutional ethnography as a means to enrich current
understandings of how surveillance is related to institutional forms of power and their
multiple manifestations. Walby demonstrates that due to the nature of certain forms of surveillance – their
institutional character – that institutional ethnography leads itself as a method of inquiry to this emerging
area of concern
Diamond, T. (1995) Making Gray Gold: Narratives of Nursing Home Care. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Timothy Diamond’s book is an institutional ethnography of nursing care. It explores the intersections of
economic considerations, patient well-being and nursing staff who attempt to satisfy multiple success criteria
(some include personal, patient, and the organization itself). For a discussion of the particular method see
Diamond, T ‘Where Did You Get the Fur Coat, Fern?’ in Smith (ed) Institutional ethnography as
practice, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield pp 45 - 64