Community-Based and Participatory Approaches in Institutional Ethnography

Abstract

In this chapter, we explore the use of participatory and community-based research (CBR) strategies within institutional ethnography. Reflecting on our current, past, and future projects, we discuss the utility of community-based and participatory methods for grounding one’s research in the actualities of participants’ lives. At the same time, we note ontological and practical differences between most community-based participatory action research (PAR) methodologies and institutional ethnography. While participants’ lives and experiences ground both approaches, people’s perspectives are not considered as research findings for institutional ethnographers. In an institutional ethnography, the objects of analysis are the institutional relations, which background and give shape to people’s actualities. The idea is to discover something through the research process that is useful to participants. As such, the use of community-based and participatory methods during analysis suggests the greatest utility of this sociological approach for people.

Citation

Nichols, N., Griffith, A. and McLarnon, M. (2017), "Community-Based and Participatory Approaches in Institutional Ethnography", Reid, J. and Russell, L. (Ed.) Perspectives on and from Institutional Ethnography (Studies in Qualitative Methodology, Vol. 15), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 107-124. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1042-319220170000015008