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Elements of an Expansive Institutional Ethnography: A Conceptual History of Its North American Origins

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The Palgrave Handbook of Institutional Ethnography

Abstract

This chapter offers a conceptual history of the IE approach as it has developed in North America, tracking the development of its core ideas and vocabularies. The discussion is organized, roughly chronologically, around five periods: (1) Origins in Smith’s early writings on the social organization of knowledge; (2) Feminist critique and a sociology for women; (3) Activist IE and a sociology for people; (4) Investigations of governance in a neoliberal era; and (5) Further explorations of texts and text-reader conversations. The chapter proposes an “expansive” IE that draws from the full range of strategies we can find in such an account.

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Acknowlegements

I am grateful beyond words for the pleasures of learning from Dorothy Smith, and for her friendship. I am also thankful to the editors of this volume for their guidance of the overall project and the opportunity to work through these ideas. Eric Mykhalovskiy urged me to sharpen my account and provided comments that inspired and helped me to do that. And my long-time writing partners, Catherine Riessman and Wendy Luttrell, usefully reminded and helped me, as usual, to explain IE terms and ideas more clearly.

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  1. Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA

    Marjorie L. DeVault

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  1. Marjorie L. DeVault
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Correspondence to Marjorie L. DeVault .

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  1. University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA, USA

    Paul C. Luken

  2. Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA

    Suzanne Vaughan

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DeVault, M.L. (2021). Elements of an Expansive Institutional Ethnography: A Conceptual History of Its North American Origins. In: Luken, P.C., Vaughan, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Institutional Ethnography. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54222-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54222-1_2

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