IE NEWSLETTER Institutional Ethnography Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems Spring 2013 Vol. 10, No. 2 Janet M. Rankin Division Chair University of Calgary jmrankin@ucalgary.ca Send correspondence to: Cheryl Zurawski Correspondence and Copy Editor cdz@arialassociates.com Send photos and other images to: Gina Petonito Production and Picture Editor petonig@miamioh.edu On the inside -Seminars honouring Roxana Ng -Responses to burning questions -Preview of IE in NYC 2013 -Upcoming IE workshops -IE in Yokohama 2014 -Member news, notes and more! From the Division Chair – Janet Rankin This will be my last “message from the chair” as Lauren Eastwood takes over the gavel during the SSSP in NYC in August. It has been a great time being more involved with both the SSSP and the community of institutional ethnographers who make the pilgrimage to the annual meetings each year. It is a pleasure working with Michele Koontz who has been so very supportive of the workshops organized in tandem with the SSSP during the years that I have been chair of the division. Kudos to Michele for making it so easy for IEers to extend our time together. Current business: 1) planning for the program of the IE workshop is now underway and we hope to have details in the conference booklet which will be available on the SSSP website by mid-May; 2) as Lauren and I collaborate to turn over the chair responsibilities it seems to make sense to keep the IE listserv housed at the University of Calgary. I have administrative support to keep it current and it is a useful way for members to communicate directly. Members can access the listserv at ie-division-l@mailman.ucalgary.ca. As moderator I occasionally get notices to “approve” postings to the listserv – I think this happens when they contain a large amount of material – so please be aware your message may not always go out immediately; 3) the electronic “IE working group” supported by the University of Calgary BlackBoard continues to attract new members. We convene monthly meetings to discuss our research and to consult with guests. Anyone interested in joining the group or getting a link to particular sessions please feel free to email me at jmrankin@ucalgary.ca. “That’s it folks!” Looking forward to connecting in the Big Apple. Janet Brown bag seminars in honour of Roxana Ng The Centre for Women's Studies in Education (CWSE) is looking for submissions for presentations in a series of brown bag seminars related to the work of Roxana Ng who passed away January 2013. Roxana’s work focused on: -Qi Gong and alternative and holistic health and healing -globalization, migration, and labour relations -immigrant women and Canadian institutions -IE -critical feminist pedagogy -anti-racism -embodied learning. If your work falls under these topics or was influenced by Roxana, you are encouraged to submit to present in the brown bag series. The series provides a semi-formal space to present complete research or work-in-progress for discussion and feedback. Brown bag seminars are held on weekday afternoons in the CWSE’s seminar room (2-227 at OISE, 252 Bloor Street W. in Toronto). Examples of CWSE brown bags are at www.oise.utoronto.ca/cwse/Events/index.html. To be considered for a brown bag seminar, please submit: -a one-page overview of the work you wish to present, including relevant websites -a one-paragraph summary of your intended presentation structure (lecture? screening? etc.) -a one-paragraph biography of yourself as related to your work -your preferred time frame for presentation (possibilities are September to early December 2013, and January to early March 2014). Submit your materials to cwse@utoronto.ca by July 8, 2013. Responses to burning IE questions Two students of IE submitted “burning questions” for an IE scholar to answer. Laura Bisaillon of McGill University kindly volunteered to prepare responses. Question 1 from Helen Brown, University of Alberta: What are the main differences between qualitative “theming” and IE “indexing” as Dorothy Smith writes about it? Laura’s response: “Indexing” and “theming” both refer to activities we do as social scientists to organize our data. Thematically organized data presupposes that the researcher has interpreted and prioritized dominant or recurring themes. This is a common approach to organizing data in many qualitative approaches. In IE, the approach to organizing data is done to reflect and respect a core ontological commitment maintained throughout the research process: examining people’s practices from within the material conditions of their lives. In this way, data are materially occurring happenings rather than interpretations of these. This materialist focus shapes our research practices in particular ways. I illustrate with an example of how I used this indexical approach to organize data I collected for my doctoral work completed in 2012. To organize textual data, I colour-coded transcripts and field notes during successive readings of them. To do this, I used the colour tool on my computer to highlight and assign a different colour for each of the following five categories: work, talk, texts, people, and institutions. As I read written materials I took note of the following: what people did, physically, and what their interactions with other people looked like (work); what language and ideas people invoked in their descriptions (talk); what documents informants brought to the interviews, or those documents that were revealed through their talk (texts); what actors informants interacted with directly or indirectly (people); and, what institutions were discussed or inferred (institutions). Using the review function on my computer, I used dialogue boxes to record notes in the margins of transcripts and field notes. After this work with transcripts and field notes, I created five Word files on my computer: one for each of the five categories listed above. Within these I made sub-files: one for each of the topics that emerged from informant descriptions of the material conditions of their lives. A last step involved copying and pasting the colour-coded descriptions featured in the transcripts and field notes into the files and sub-files I had created. The social and ruling relations organizing informant experience were made explicit through the indexing work described here. This process is explained and helpfully illustrated on pages 144 to 146 of my dissertation, which is available at: http://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/en//handle/10393/20643. Question 2 from Lisa Watt, McMaster University: I am wondering about the ethical issues involved in including people’s stories when we write up our research. In particular, where we write about people who do not know we are writing about them, but where, at the same time, we cannot do otherwise; we cannot write about them anonymously. How can we navigate tensions arising here? These might be different to the “relational ethics” in autoethnography that sociologist Carolyn Ellis (2007) writes about. Laura’s response: Thoughtful and interesting issues! People have different ideas about what ‘ethics’ are and what ‘ethical issues’ involve, which seems important to note from the outset. My answer focuses on cultivating and employing writing strategies to address the tensions you evoke in your question. There are two narrative writing processes and devices that come to mind, and I offer these for your reflection. You might first consider writing a composite ethnography. The task and challenge here is to compose a storyline that emerges from within the experiences of multiple informants. You embark on telling a story where the focus is on analytically describing the relations in the institutional sites that are of interest to you. I produced a composite story in the latter chapters of my dissertation. To get my head around identifying the “institutional fields” that circulate in the milieus I explored—and those that shape the lives of the people who dwell there—I used Liza McCoy’s (2006, p.113) valuable chapter and Timothy Diamond’s (1992) compelling book. Of course, as Diamond himself notes in the foreword, the undercover participant observation in which he engaged for this book would not likely be accepted by contemporary IRBs. In most circumstances, unconsented data are not supposed to be included in findings, pointing to a tension in research using IE where everything is considered data. Clues to social and ruling relations are everywhere; an issue that Janet Rankin and I recently explored (Bisaillon & Rankin, 2013). “Relational ethics” as discussed by sociologist Carolyn Ellis (2007) are concerns arising during the conduct and write up of research where people are implicated and featured in our representations. Concerns can be generated from our (researcher) personal bonds with informants or the potential for the places and people about which we write to be recognized. A composite storyline such as I have suggested is one strategy to diminish tensions associated with privacy concerns. The concern about IRB acceptance of research is beyond the scope of this response, but the “ethical stakes are quite high in terms of upholding the trust of potential research participants” (F. Carnevale, personal communication, April 8, 2013). The Tri-Council guidelines about consent and confidentiality in qualitative research are posted here: http://www.pre.ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique/initiatives/tcps2-eptc2/chapter10-chapitre10/#toc10-1b. IRBs function differently in each institutional context, and gathering information on how things work at your particular university is a good idea. Second, to think through the tensions you evoke, you might find it useful to look at published examples of autoethnography to see how authors have addressed similar concerns. In this approach, researchers relate accounts from their lived experience as a valid and valuable place from which to begin social inquiry. “Autoethnography is an approach to research and writing used to describe and systematically analyze personal experience … This approach challenges canonical ways of doing research and representing others, and treats research as a political, socially just, and socially conscious act” (Ellis, Adams & Bochner, 2011). Gerard de Montigny (1995) and Nancy Taber (2010) blend strategies from autoethnography and IE to analyze their subjective experiences: the former inquiring into the ruling relations within the practice of social work; the latter investigating the coordination of her experience as female academic, mother, and former pilot in the Canadian Air Force. You might also consider Susan Greenhalgh’s Under the Medical Gaze (2001) and Rob Barrett’s The Psychiatric Team and the Social Definition of Schizophrenia (1996). There are numerous tactics that you could consider employing to diminish tensions within research process and product. Autoethnographers, like other ethnographers, deploy strategies including member checking and changing names to conceal identifying information. These techniques are not necessarily free of challenges. On this matter, a colleague writes, “I was advised to obscure the identity and location of the research sites … not even identify the provinces where they were located. I may have to take issue with this point because of the influence of different policy contexts on some results” (J. Sabetti, personal communication, Apr. 8, 2013). Best of success with your important work! Selected references: -Bisaillon, L. & Rankin, J. (2013). Navigating the politics of fieldwork using institutional ethnography: Strategies for practice. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 14(1), Art.14. -De Montigny, G. (1995). Social working: An ethnography of front-line practice. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. -Diamond, T. (1992). Making grey gold: Narratives of nursing home care. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. News and notes from members Laura Bisaillon has been offered a position at the University of Toronto (Scarborough) where she will integrate the newly developing Health Studies Department. Laura reports she is very excited about the prospect of immersing herself in a department that does not yet exists, but that will take shape, with her contributions beginning this fall. Margo Kushner continues to work on a variety of family law committees with the Administrative Office of the Courts in Annapolis. During the last year, a variety of social and family law related issues have been brought before the subcommittees with which Dr. Kushner is working. These committees have been delegated the responsibility of reviewing and revising a variety of House Bills. For more information, visit Margo’s website at http://margokushnertherapist.com/ Susan Maret announces a new listserv on secrecy studies that she started in conjunction with Brian Rappert of the University of Exeter. For more information about the listserv, please go to: http://lists.sonic.net/mailman/listinfo/secrecystudies. Welcome to new members Welcome to the following new members who joined the IE Division since the last newsletter. Debbie Dergousoff Christopher Duncanson-Hales Daniela Jauk Jake Muller Elizabeth Noll Jesse Smith Philip Taucher Lisa Watt New publications Bisaillon, L. (2013). Contradictions and dilemmas within the practice of immigration medicine. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 104(1): e45-e51. Upcoming IE workshops The Centre for Women’s Studies in Education (CWSE) has opened registration for its June IE workshops with Dorothy Smith and Susan Turner in downtown Toronto. Details follow. Weekend Workshop, June 14-15, 2013 Working with Texts in Institutional Ethnography (Friday evening and full Saturday) $450 CDN + HST (13%) Weeklong Workshop Intensive I, June 16-21, 2013 $850 CDN + HST plus $450 + HST for weekend prerequisite (afternoon meeting on Sunday, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm Monday to Friday) Weekend Workshop II, June 21 & 22, 2013 Working with Texts in Institutional Ethnography (Friday evening and full Saturday) $450 CDN + HST Weeklong Workshop Intensive II, June 23-28, 2013 $850 CDN + HST, plus $450 + HST for weekend prerequisite (afternoon meeting on Sunday, 9:00 am -5:00 pm Monday to Friday) Email cwse@utoronto.ca for the registration form or with questions. Space is very limited, so please do not wait to register. IE in Yokohama The International Sociological Association’s Thematic Group on Institutional Ethnography will organize nine sessions for the next World Congress of Sociology in Yokohama, Japan, July 13-19, 2014. A call for papers will be forthcoming and the online system will be open for the submission of papers from June 3 to September 30, 2013. The list of sessions being organized for Yokohama begins below and continues on the next page. 1) Confronting Inequality by Explicating the Ruling Relations of Management 2) The Social Organization of Gendered Violence: Contemporary Perspectives, Global Responses 3) La langue de recherche en tant que problématique: réaliser une ethnographie institutionnelle dans un contexte coordonné par la culture anglo-saxonne (The Language of Research as Problematic: Doing Institutional Ethnography Beyond the Ruling of the English-speaking Culture.) 4) Interdisciplinary Applications of Institutional Ethnography 5) Educational Accountability Practices in Systems: Educational Institutions and Homes 6) Locating Institutional Sites of Change: Social Intervention in Times of Crisis and 7) When Western IE Meets Eastern Culture of Care 8) Issues and Developments in Institutional Ethnography 9) The Institutional Challenges of the Legal Frameworks in the Contemporary World Call for papers Volume 21 (2014). Gedenkschrift in Honor of William R. Freudenburg, A Life in Social Research. True to the nature of the Gedenkschrift as a commemorative publication, Research in Social Problems and Public Policy (RSPPP) Volume 21 seeks papers celebrating the work of sociologist Dr. William Freudenburg, one of the founding editors of RSPPP and Dehlsen Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara. Personal reminiscences as well as research that reflects and builds on Dr. Freudenburg’s theories are among the topics solicited. Articles that reflect the focus of RSPPP as the “potential failure of public institutions to fulfill their obligations to the broader society” and employ aspects of Freudenburg’s work are also welcome. Article length can range from 1,000 to 7,000 words. Submissions should be submitted in electronic format (.doc, docx, & odt file formats only) and conform to Harvard style. All papers – including invited papers – undergo double-blind review. Manuscript submissions to RSPPP Volume 21 certifies that material is not copyrighted nor currently under review for any refereed journal or conference proceedings. If any version or parts of the manuscript has appeared, or will appear in another publication, the details should be disclosed to the editor at the time of submission. For additional information on RSPPP, please go to: http://info.emeraldinsight.com/products/ebookseries/author_guidelines.htm http://info.emeraldinsight.com/products/books/series.htm?id=0196-1152 Deadline for completed manuscripts is August 15, 2013. Please email submissions and inquiries to the guest editor, Susan Maret, PhD at Rspppvol21@gmail.com. Preview of IE in NYC 2013 The SSSP Annual Meeting will take place August 9-11 at The Westin New York at Times Square. The following is a list of sessions of particular interest to IEers. Members are also encouraged to take note of the IE Division’s business meeting scheduled for: Friday, August 9 from 4:30 - 6:10 pm in the Nederlander Room. Friday, August 9 Time: 8:30 - 10:10 am Session 10: Law, Policy and Institutional Ethnography Room: Ambassador II Sponsor: Institutional Ethnography Organizer & Presider: Lauren E. Eastwood, SUNY Plattsburgh -“Boss Texts in New Mexico’s Organization of Teachers’ Professional Development,” LaNysha T. Adams, University of New Mexico -“Fatality Review and Safety Audit (FRASA): Applying Institutional Ethnography to Domestic Violence,” Kathleen J. Ferraro and Neil S. Websdale, Northern Arizona University -“Student Activism, Codes of Conduct and the Social Organization of University Regulatory Policies,” Elizabeth L. Brulé, York University -“Unwelcome, Unwanted, and Persistent: Institutional Responses to ‘Bullying’ and Gendered Violence in Schools,” Alison L. Fisher, York University -“Scientific Immunity and the 2009 L’Aquila Earthquake,” Andrew Stroffolino, Rutgers University Friday, August 9 Time: 10:30 am - 12:10 pm Session 14: Knowledge, Power and the Politics of Reality II: Policy-Making and Organizational Action Room: New Amsterdam Sponsors: Institutional Ethnography and Social Problems Theory Organizer & Presider: Jared Del Rosso, University of Denver -“Producing ‘Service Decisions’ in an Urban Youth Centre and its Rural Branch,” Jessica Braimoh, McMaster University -“An Institutional Ethnography of Women Entrepreneurs and Rural Development in Kyrgyzstan,” Debbie Dergousoff, Simon Fraser University -“Recognizing the Value of Emic Knowledge in Mental Health Services: an Analysis of the Beneficiaries’ Subjective Experiences,” Katharine Larose-Hébert, University of Ottawa -“‘Made in Japan’: The Nuclear Disaster at Fukushima Daiichi and the Organizational Construction of Risk,” Paul R. Durlak, University at Buffalo, SUNY -“Do Frames Matter?: A Longitudinal and Ecological Analysis of the Relationship between Ideas and Policy,” Abigail C. Saguy, UCLA, Henri Bergeron and Patrick Castel, Science Po/CSO Friday, August 9 Time: 12:30 - 2:10 pm Session 24: New Directions in IE Research (Thematic Part I) Room: New Amsterdam Sponsor: Institutional Ethnography Organizer & Presider: Janet Rankin, University of Calgary -“(Un)safe at school: The Social Organization of Diabetes Carework for Children with Type 1 Diabetes in School,” Lisa Watt, McMaster University -“Defined as a Disability: An Institutional Ethnography of Disability Determination for People with HIV/AIDS,” Katie Nicole McIntyre Reece, University of West Georgia -“Exploring the Ruling Relations of Prisoner Reentry,” Megan B.Welsh and Valli Rajah, CUNY/John Jay College of Criminal Justice -“Exploring Understandings of ‘The Good’ in Norwegian Daycare Centers,” Ann Christin E. Nilsen, University of Agder -“What Counts and What is Being Counted – The Social Organization of Knowledge on the Front Lines of Emergency Medical Services,” Michael K. Corman, University of Calgary (Qatar) Saturday, August 10 Time: 10:30 am - 12:10 pm Session 61: New Directions in IE Research, (Thematic Part II) Room: Ambassador II Sponsor: Institutional Ethnography Organizer: Paul C. Luken, University of West Georgia Presiders: Paul C. Luken, University of West Georgia and Suzanne Vaughan, Arizona State University -“Challenges and Methods in Using IE to Document and Understand Ruling Relations Without Conventional Texts,” Aaron James Williams, University of Calgary -“Phantom Texts: Can You Have An Institutional Ethnography Without Texts?” Dann Hoxsey, York University -“The children of the labour market office: Becoming a client with migration background at the Austrian labour market office,” Philip Taucher, OISE/University of Toronto -“The Work of Accessibility for Students with Mental Health Concerns in Higher Education,” Roula Markoulakis, University of Toronto -“Overruling Nurses’ Knowledge and Kindness: Quotas and Categorization in Telephone Nursing Work,” Floribert K. Kamabu and Janet Rankin, University of Calgary Saturday, August 10 Time: 12:30 - 2:10 pm Session 71: The Social Organization of Health Professional Education Room: Broadway I Sponsors: Educational Problems and Institutional Ethnography Organizer & Presider: Fiona Webster, University of Toronto -“Constructing Uncertainty, Constructing Skill: Creating New Forms of Medical Expertise through Nurse Practitioner Narrative Practices,” LaTonya J. Trotter, Princeton University (Winner of the Health, Health Policy, and Health Services Division’s Student Paper Competition) -“Exploring ‘Cultural Competence’: Ideologies and Social Relations of Health Professional Education,” Marjorie DeVault and Sivan Bomze, Syracuse University -“Hospitals and Universities Making Money Abroad: Notes for the development of an Institutional Ethnography,” Robert Paul, University of Toronto -“Other Duties Assigned: Critical Care Nursing Work, Infection Prevention and Health Care Reform,” Craig Dale, University of Toronto -“To Lift or Not to Lift: An Institutional Ethnography Examining Patient Handling Practices,” Hans-Peter de Ruiter, Minnesota State University, Mankato and University of Toronto and Joan Liaschenko, University of Minnesota Saturday, August 10 Time: 2:30 - 4:10 pm Session 89: Management and Ruling Relations Room: Broadway I Sponsors: Institutional Ethnography and Labor Studies Organizer & Presider: Cheryl Zurawski, University of Regina Discussant: Liza McCoy, University of Calgary -“Institutional Ethnography and Hindsight: Reflecting on the Structural and Administrative Impossibilities of a New Doctoral Program,” Lois Andre-Bechely, California State University, Los Angeles -“Management for the Relations of Ruling: Lessons from the NFL Referees Strike of 2012 For Adjunct Faculty and Labor Activists,” Jill Niebrugge-Brantley and Patricia M. Lengermann, The George Washington University -“The Social Organization of Nurse Managers in Acute Care,” Olive Fast, University of Calgary -“The Paradox of Socially Organized Nursing Care Work,” Shelley Quinlan, OISE/University of Toronto Saturday, August 10 Time: 4:30 - 6:10 pm Session 104: Institutional Ethnography Approaches to Gender, Race, Colonization and Migration in Transnational Contexts Room: Broadway I Sponsors: Global and Institutional Ethnography Organizer & Presider: Samit Dipon Bordoloi, Western Washington University -“Institutional Identities and Immigrant Lives: The Case of Indo-Trinidadians,” Kamini Maraj Grahame, Pennsylvania State University - Harrisburg and Peter R. Grahame, Pennsylvania State University - Schuylkill -“The Social Organization of Antiracist Feminist Activism,” Sobia Shaheen Shaikh, Memorial University -“The Unstated Preconditions that Sanctioned the Recruitment of Filipino Healthcare Professionals to Canada in the 1960s,” Valerie G. Damasco, OISE/University of Toronto -“The Work of ‘Being American:’ An Institutional Ethnographic Exploration of High School Sororities and Fraternities During World War II,” Gina Petonito, Miami University -“Reframing Political Participation: Integration Strategies of Immigrant Second Generations in New York City,” Sunmin Kim, University of California - Berkeley Sunday, August 11 Time: 8:30 - 10:10 am Session 111: Knowledge, Power and the Politics of Reality I: Violence and Control Room: Nederlander Sponsors: Institutional Ethnography and Social Problems Theory Organizer & Presider: Jared Del Rosso, University of Denver -“Crime Control as Mediated Spectacle: The Institutionalization of Gonzo Rhetoric in Modern Media and Politics,” R.J. Maratea, New Mexico State University -“‘It Glorifies the Gangster Lifestyle:’ Exploring the Motivations and Justifications for Censorship in Prison Libraries,” Tammi Arford, Northeastern University -“Securitizing Universities in an Era of ‘School Violence’,” Julie Rayanne Gregory, Queen's University -“Reduction, Duty, and Inevitability: Narrative Logics that Promote Genocide,” Lois Presser, University of Tennessee -“Defending Toxic Violence: U.S. Hegemony and Strategies of Legitimation,” Eric Bonds, University of Mary Washington Sunday, August 11 Time: 10:30 am - 12:10 pm Session 139: Institutional Ethnography and Activism Room: Ambassador II Sponsors: Conflict, Social Action, and Change and Institutional Ethnography Organizer & Presider: Ian Hussey, York University -“Saul Alinsky: Political Activist Ethnographer?” Ian Hussey, York University and Joe Curnow, OISE/University of Toronto -“Beyond Knowledge Production: Exploring how Theories of Research Use may Inform IE Practice to Promote Social Change,” Erin Sirett, McGill University and Robert KD McLean, Canadian Institutes of Health Research -“Institutional Ethnography for Social Justice Activism in Higher Education,” Norah Hosken, Deakin University -“Law as Social Relation: Medical In/Admissibility and HIV in the Canadian Immigration System,” Laura Bisaillon, McGill University -“A Decade of Boston-Area Women’s Social Change Organizations, 1988 to 1998: From Grassroots Organizing and Policy Advocacy, to Community Building and Organizational Development,” Susan A. Ostrander, Tufts University Sunday, August 11 Time: 12:30 - 2:10 pm Session 145: Critical Dialogues: Re-imagining governing, e-governance and the everyday work of the front-line Room: Pearl Sponsor: Institutional Ethnography Organizer & Presider: Alison Griffith, York University -“Redesigning the Public Sector,” Alison Griffith, York University and Dorothy E. Smith, OISE/University of Toronto -“The circuit of accountability for lifelong learning,” Cheryl Zurawski, University of Regina -“‘If our statistics are bad we don’t get paid:’ Outcome measures in the immigrant settlement sector,” Liza McCoy, University of Calgary -“What counts? Managing professionals on the front line of emergency services,” Michael K. Corman, University of Calgary (Qatar) -“Digital era governance: Connecting nursing education and the industrial complex of health care,” Janet Rankin, University of Calgary -“E-governance and data-driven accountability: OnSIS in Ontario schools,” Lindsay Kerr, OISE/University of Toronto -“A collection: ‘Let’s Be friends:’ Working within an accountability circuit,” Marjorie DeVault, Syracuse University -“The neighbourhood computer lab, funding and accountability,” Frank Ridzi, CNY Community Foundation & Le Moyne College