Institutional Ethnography and the Materiality of Affect: Affective Circuits as Indicators of Other Possibilities

Abstract

Many studies have utilized institutional ethnography (IE) to reveal the social relations that govern how things are put together at the frontline of work, particularly in the public sector and education. The focus has generally been on restrictive practices associated with accountability regimes of new public management. Less analytic attention has been paid, however, to discovering ways in which workers are finding how it can be otherwise. Revisiting the data from a longitudinal study, originally conducted as an IE, provided an opportunity to trace the influence of affect in relation to teachers’ practices. Grounded in empirical data, this article makes a case for the methodological innovation of tracing the work done by affect, as part of an IE, in order to reveal possibilities for resistance.

The Work of Youth Homelessness Prevention in Ontario: Points of Frustration, Points of Potential

“…The research process involves engaging people in conversations and observing their practices to "reveal troubles arising in (or conflicts between) authorized and experiential knowledge" [14] (p. 3). Following this mode of inquiry, researchers seek to illuminate "how it is" that people's experiential knowledge diverges from authorized accounts [15] (p. 692), attending to the processes through which diverse people's activities are coordinated across local settings [16]. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which these processes may be at odds with the interests of people in the local setting [17].…”

“…As per the federal Reaching Home Coordinated Access guide, these systems make use of BNLs to generate Coordinated Access lists, which can then be used to prioritize and match people experiencing homelessness to available housing resources [28]. While By-Name Lists are intended to include all (consenting) individuals experiencing homelessness in a given service-delivery region, Coordinated Access lists include only "clients who are eligible and interested in housing resources" [28] (p. 15). A further refinement of this list produces a priority list which includes "clients who are able to accept an offer of housing resources immediately" [28] (p. 15).…”

Workplace Bullying: The Problem That (Still) Has No Name

“…The interview transcripts were analysed to identify the incidence of bullying, employee reactions, consequences of reporting such experiences and the ideologies and organisational texts that possibly shaped women’s workplace experiences (Rankin, 2017b; Talbot, 2017). The bullying experiences were indexed to organise the interview data into ‘linked practices and happenings’ in order to view the institutional order shaping those experiences (Rankin, 2017b).…”

An Autoethnography of “Making It” in Academia: Writing an ECR “Journey” of Facebook, Assemblage, Affect, and the Outdoors

“…If “snake phobia” is replaced with “shame” and “academia” stands in for “desert,” this excerpt describes how marked my ECR years were by the underlying shame that I brought to them. In centering this materiality of affect, I reflect on Talbot’s (2020) work, which demonstrates the sheer complexity of how affect, learning, work, co(n)-text, and lived experience come together.…”

“…If "snake phobia" is replaced with "shame" and "academia" stands in for "desert," this excerpt describes how marked my ECR years were by the underlying shame that I brought to them. In centering this materiality of affect, I reflect on Talbot's (2020) There I was, working at an actual university -in Adelaide, Australia-with the actual title of Doctor beside my name on a plastic plate on my actual office door, onto which I stuck some colorful postcards, because that is what actual academics do (Ruth 2015). I had actually made it as an academic.…”