Institutional Ethnography A Sociology for People

by Smith, Dorothy E.

• ISBN13: 9780759105027
• ISBN10: 0759105022
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-05-26
• Publisher: AltaMira Press

Summary

Prominent sociologist Dorothy Smith outlines a method of inquiry that uses everyday experience as a lens to examine social relations and social organization. This sociology from women's standpoints reveals the present but largely unseen social relations of everyday life. This will be a foundational text for classes in sociology, ethnography, and women's studies.

Author Biography

Dorothy E. Smith is professor emerita in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education at the University of Toronto and adjunct professor, Department of Sociology, University of Victoria

Table of Contents

Series Editors' Foreword	ix
Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction	1	(6)
PART ONE Making a Sociology for People
Women's Standpoint: Embodied Knowing versus the Ruling Relations	7	(20)
Women's Standpoint and the Ruling Relations	9	(4)
The Historical Trajectory of Gender and the Ruling Relations	13	(14)
Knowing the Social: An Alternative Design	27	(22)
Reorganizing the Social Relations of Objectivity	28	(1)
What Is Institutional Ethnography? Some Contrasts	29	(9)
Experience and the Ethnographic Problematic	38	(5)
Conclusion	43	(6)
PART TWO An Ontology of the Social
Designing an Ontology for Institutional Ethnography	49	(26)
An Ontology of the Social	51	(17)
Institutions, Language, and Texts	68	(1)
Conclusion	69	(6)
Language as Coordinating Subjectivities	75	(26)
Reconceptualizing Language as Social	76	(10)
Experiential and Text-Based Territories	86	(8)
Conclusion	94	(7)
PART THREE Making Institutions Ethnographically Accessible
Texts, Text--Reader Conversations, and Institutional Discourse	101	(22)
The Text--Reader Conversation	104	(7)
The Text--Reader Conversations of Institutional Discourse	111	(7)
Texts as Institutional Coordinators	118	(1)
Conclusion	119	(4)
Experience as Dialogue and Data	123	(22)
Experience as Dialogue: The Problem	124	(3)
An Alternative Understanding of Experience as Dialogue	127	(1)
Experience, Language, and Social Organization	128	(7)
The Data Dialogues	135	(7)
Conclusion	142	(3)
Work Knowledges	145	(20)
Work Knowledge of University Grades and Grading: A Mini-ethnography	145	(5)
Work Knowledge as the Institutional Ethnographer's Data	150	(1)
Work Knowledge	151	(4)
The Problem of Institutional Capture	155	(2)
Assembling and Mapping Work Knowledges	157	(4)
Conclusion	161	(4)
Texts and Institutions	165	(18)
How Texts Coordinate	170	(10)
Conclusion	180	(3)
Power, Language, and Institutions	183	(22)
Making Institutional Realities	187	(4)
Regulatory Frames	191	(8)
Conclusion	199	(6)
PART FOUR Conclusion
Where We've Got To and Where We Can Go	205	(18)
Where We've Got To	205	(7)
Expansion	212	(7)
The Collective Work of Institutional Ethnography	219	(4)
Glossary	223	(8)
Reference List	231	(14)
Index	245	(12)
About the Author	257