IE Newsletter Institutional Ethnography Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems Volume 22, No. 1 Fall/Winter 2024/2025 Katherine E. Koralesky Division Chair University of British Columbia katie.koralesky@ubc.ca Send correspondence to: Gina Petonito Academic Womxn Reclaim Your Power Correspondence and Copy Editor gpetonito@gmail.com Jayne Malenfant Editor McGill University jayne.malenfant@mcgill.ca On the Inside - Call for IE Division Awards - Congratulations Award Winners - Members News & Notes - Congratulations Doctor - Welcome New Members - Recent IE Publications - SSSP in Chicago From the Division Chair: Katie Koralesky Dear SSSP IE division, I hope this newsletter finds you well and having a good fall. I have a few pieces of information I'd like to share in this newsletter. First, thank you and congratulations to everyone who was part of the SSSP conference in Montreal this past August! I was unable to attend, however I heard that there were some amazing talks, a great workshop, and a meaningful awards ceremony. Thank you so much to everyone who participated in different ways. I am happy to report that this year, we were also able to hold a hybrid business meeting, with most of our division joining in person from Montreal. I hope we can continue to offer hybrid options for our business meetings in the future. Special thanks to Colin Hastings for leading the business meeting, and Naomi Nichols and Lauren Eastwood for representing IE at the division chair meetings on my behalf. Second, there is a great line up of sessions for the conference next year in Chicago! Gina has very kindly included everything you need to know about the conference, abstract submissions, and award nominations in this newsletter. Abstracts are due January 31! Finally, I wanted to share a recent reflection I had while discussing Institutional Ethnography with some of my colleagues who are animal welfare scientists. I first introduced IE and shared my IE research which examined the social organization of animal sheltering and protection in British Columbia, Canada. During the Q&A period, my colleague Maria asked: "What if there are no texts?" Maria's question made me realize how much I talked about the many physical and digital texts frontline staff used in their work with animals. These texts played a large role in their everyday work. However, Maria's question also reminded me of how Dorothy responded to this very same question in a talk she gave at the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health in 2018. Dorothy said that if you don't have texts, you still have people, and you can still discover what their everyday experiences are. From there, you can listen for latent or 'lurking texts', which are broader ideas that are part of societal discourses that we overlook sometimes, but are still there, underlying our work and conversations. I know we all use IE in diverse ways, but for me, this question was a helpful reminder to look beyond the many physical and digital texts that exist in settings where people care for animals, and to be open to discovering the latent texts that are also a part of these settings.Ê If you have had a similar or related reflection on your work and would like to share in the newsletter, please let me or Gina know. Thank you and take care, Katie The Dorothy Smith Award for Scholar Activism: Viviane Namaste The Dorothy Smith Award for Scholar Activism recognizes the activities of an Òindividual who has made substantial contributions to institutional ethnographic scholar activism over a long trajectory of work. The contributions may involveÊIEÊresearch conducted and used for activist ends, and activist efforts that have drawn upon or contributed toÊIEÊscholarship.Ó I am thrilled to present this yearÕs Award to an activist scholar who exemplifies what it means to put research to work for activists and whose teaching and writing has had an enormous influence on how communities understand and respond to health issues in Montreal, across Quebec, and around the world Ð Dr. Viviane Namaste. Dr. Namaste is a Professor and Research Chair in HIV/AIDS and Sexual Health at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University here in Montreal. She is known internationally for her extensive research and defense of sex worker rights, and the health rights of transgender and bisexual people. Her substantial work on HIV calls attention to how critical social science inquiry can inform community-based responses to HIV. In addition to activist work with collectives including ACT UP Paris (insert others), she is the author of major books including: Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered PeopleÊwhich was awarded the Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center; HIV Prevention and Bisexual Realities,Êwhich was called Òindispensable reading for community health educators, policy makers, and those who study or work in public health;Ó Sex Change, Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions, and Imperialism,Êwhich has been lauded for its capacity to Òforce us to re-vision Canadian feminist history to evaluate the foundational and shaping role racism, nationalism, and imperialism has played in the history of organizingÓ and un-does the institutional erasure of key actors in feminist movements. Oversight: Critical reflections on feminist research and politics, which was noted for the unique insights it offers into the relationship of HIV, history, memory, and activism, and especially in Canadian and French-language context. It will come as no surprise that this is not the first time NamasteÕs career of critical scholarship and activism has been recognized. She is also the recipient of the "Canadian Award for Action on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights", awarded jointly by the HIV Legal Network and Human Rights Watch. While these sorts of accomplishments are all momentous, they only tell us part of the impact that Viviane has had on understandings of scholar activism. I was so struck when reaching out to graduate students by how eager they were to celebrate Viviane and share in reflecting on her enormous impact: What comes across clearly, is the incredibly time, care, and intention Viviane brings to mentorship, taking mentorship very seriously. Students shared that this looks like holding directed readings with each of her students, and relating to the particular challenges of conducting meaningful community-based research and offering uniquely engaged support and understanding of: ÒÉthe unique role of being a researcher who is intricately entangled in, and accountable to, a community first: ÔSorry my thesis is five years late. I had to spend four years cycling around Saint Leonard mapping out three small, now completely disappeared, neighborhood strip clubs that were vital to women who were unable to work in the ones downtown.Õ" Of course yes, Viviane understands this, and she understands why. No need to explain. Also here's an article from some long gone local newspaper that mentions one of them. In hard copy. From her personal archives.Ó ÒViviane was the reason I didnÕt drop out of undergrad. She made me less rigid in my thinking, and more curious about the things I donÕt understand. It was working with her, that I learned to think more expansively about labour, and to bring the respect for other peoplesÕ work (formal, informal, criminalized, recognized, or otherwise) come to bear on our own intellectual labour. I think most people have worked with her see her model how one might show integrity when interacting with, or working within, institutional settings that often work against it. She sharpened my eye to questions of gap, omission, oversight, and how those things are never accidental.Ó Where Would We Be Without Suzanne and Paul?: An Institutional Ethnography Tribute (In Honor of their winning the Institutional Ethnography Leadership Award) August 2024 Let Us Count the Ways. Here are six. 1. For one we wouldnÕt be gathered here and now. ThatÕs because there would be no Institutional Ethnography Section Ð not without Suzanne and Paul having beaten the SocietyÕs bushes, its sessions, and hallways, some 20 years ago, rounding up a petition to establish the section. 2. Nor would we have the newsletter that helped launch it, which they faithfully edited for three-plus years, and which kept us in vital communication with each other. 3. And we wouldnÕt be a part of an international network of institutional ethnographers. Paul and Suzanne travelled the world (Barcelona, South Africa, Toronto) to set a foothold in the International Sociological Association and incorporate our field into the AssociationÕs agenda. 4. Nowhere are the fruits of these efforts more manifest than in their foundational publications: The Palgrave Handbook of Institutional Ethnography and Critical Commentary on Institutional Ethnography, published in 2021 and 2023 respectively (1, 2). Brimming with chapters written by authors from several countries, these edited collections have made us part of the world. 5. And we wouldnÕt have their pioneering discovery of the institution of housing. Early in their research, Paul mused Òhow strange it is: weÕre taught that basic human survival depends on food, clothing, and shelter. But sociology has paid little or no attention to any of them.Ó Well, Suzanne and Paul have paid attention to one of them and spent careers studying it ethnographically. How did they do it? With no recipe to follow, they had to invent research strategies as they went along. Of course they had DorothyÕs 4-part formula as a guide: ÒIndividuals are there in time and place and in their bodies, active in coordination with others (Critical Commentary, p. 3)Ó So, they started by talking with people (Thelma Hay, Ursula Roberts, Nina Rodriquez and Edna Kaplan). They listened to the larger social organization contained in their life histories. Then they followed where these stories led them. What were their housing histories and where did it take these women? Off these researchers went: to Phoenix and Dayton and Washington, all the while digging through documents that comprised a Housing Discourse. While always keeping their subjectsÕ bodies and movements in mind, they put their own bodies in motion to do so. In their writing, their subjects were Òreal people acting in actual and specific situations producing and reproducing the invisible work processes which made possible the housing enterpriseÓ (3, Elderly Women Living Alone, p. 4). Along the way they discovered the Standard American Housing Discourse. It Òcodified a form of housing that held parents responsible for childrenÕs well-being in a specific gendered, class and race-based discourse about appropriate housing arrangements for child rearingÓ (4, Standardized Childrearing, p. 3). So, for our purposes, letÕs put it this way: Beginning in the experiences of actual women they expanded upon their oral histories, matching them with historical archival documents, noting the text-mediations every step of the way, to trace housing-related ruling relations over time (Critical Commentary, p. 154). And in a delightful article, they deconstructed the Òown your own homeÓ movement. This campaign is still active today. For them it represents Òa configuration of ideological practices designed to reorder gender, family and housing arrangements in the U.S. in early 20th CenturyÓ (5, Be a Genuine Home Maker). Through their innovative studies and research strategy we have all learned about how the institution of housing works, historically, in the lives of women. 6. A Place to Begin, A Way to GoÉ. (DorothyÕs early, great booklet of that name). Finally, what a fine article it would be if one of us or our students would take up ÒThe Luken and Vaughan Contribution to Institutional Ethnography.Ó Paul and Suzanne would never do it and couldnÕt. But someone could. Starting with real people Ð Paul and Suzanne Ð the researcher might ask: ÒHow did you do what you did? Why? How did you work together? Who did what? More personally, what was it like to be friends with Dorothy Smith?Ó They had the privilege of learning their craft directly from her, Òin place and time and in their bodies, in coordination with (each other).Ó It was after one of Eric and AlisonÕs York conferences, that Paul, Suzanne and Dorothy rode the subway together. Staring intently at them, instructional finger in the air, Dorothy laid the foundation. ÒDonÕt ever, ever use the word Ôstructure.ÕÓ They never did. It was Dorothy who interrupted an address to some 100 listeners when these two tried to shimmy out the back to catch a plane. ÒBye, bye. Have a good trip,Ó she said in the middle of the talk, returning with Òoh, sorry, I had to say goodbye to my friends.Ó And so, as we pay tribute to Suzanne and Paul, we thank them for their contributions to our collective project. We continue to benefit from their skills: organizational, substantive, and methodological. And for something even more valuable. Through their very embodiment and their ongoing work, they are keeping Dorothy SmithÑher teachings and her spiritÑalive and well and active in our midst. References 1) Paul Luken and Suzanne Vaughan (eds). 2021. The Palgrave Macmillan Handbook of Institutional Ethnography. Switzerland AG: Palgrave Macmillan. 2) __________ (2023) Critical Commentary on Institutional Ethnography. Switzerland AG: Palgrave Macmillan. 3) _________ (1991). ÒElderly Women Living Alone: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations from a Feminist Perspective.Ó Housing and Society, 19 (2): 37-48. See also __________(1999) ÒLife History and the Critique of American Sociological Practice.Ó Sociological Inquiry, 69 (3): 404-25. 4) __________ ((2006) ÒStandardizing Child Rearing Through Housing.Ó Social Problems, 53 (3): 299- 331. See also: _________ ((2003) ÒLiving Alone in Old Age: Institutionalized Discourse and WomenÕs Knowledge,Ó Sociological Quarterly, 44 (1): 109-31. 5) _________ ((2005). ÒÉ. Be a Genuine Home Maker in Your Own Home: Gender and Familial Relations in State Housing Practices, 1917-1922. Social Forces, 83 (4): 1603-1626. See also: __________ (2003) ÒActive Living: ÒTransforming the Organization of Retirement and Housing in the United States.Ó Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. 30 (1): 145-69. See also: _________ (1990) ÒOrganizational Factors Effecting Growth and Decline in Adult Day Care Programs.Ó Journal of Applied Gerontology, 9 (3) 363-74. Congratulations Helen Hudson: George W. Smith Graduate Student Paper Award Winner Helen Hudson of the University of Ottawa won the George W. Smith Graduate Student paper award with "Using Archival Materials to Conduct an Institutional Ethnography of Prison: Analytic and Methodological Observations" This paper is an inventive, deeply insightful, and critically important work that thoroughly models how a study of ruling relations can begin in one's activist work and inform radical activism and collective efforts towards social change. The selection committee was also especially impressed by how HelenÕs paper moves IE into important new terrains, particularly through her thoughtful use of archival materials and application of IE to a study of prisons. As one committee member remarked, "Hudson's paper moves IE research into a novel empirical site and in so doing offers valuable insights into the work people do to leave prison and the ruling relations that keep people incarcerated. I think it is the kind of IE that very clearly maps ruling relations in a way that broadens the scope of activist understandings and helps to pinpoint junctures for effective interventions." Congratulations Naomi Nichols, Lee Founders Award Winner The Lee Founders Award honors the lifetime achievement of Naomi Nichols, the Canada Research Chair in Community-Partnered Social Justice at Trent University for her continued commitment to social action programs that promote social justice. Naomi blends activism with her scholarship to realize social change. Working largely on social inequality, poverty, youth justice, mental health and homelessness, Naomi directs the Research for Social Change Lab (RSCL) at Trent University. This organization investigated the homeless-serving system and developed a Roadmap for Change that helps maximize resources and expertise across related fields. Currently, Naomi partners with Petersborough Public Health and is completing a parenting and resilience community-based and participatory research project. Former students and graduate mentees nominated Naomi for this prestigious award. She proudly notes that all are doing amazing things with their personal and activist lives. Call for IE Division Awards GEORGE W. SMITH GRADUATE STUDENT PAPER COMPETITION Deadline: 1/31/25 The Institutional Ethnography Division is pleased toÊsolicit papers for its 2025 George W. Smith Graduate Student Paper Competition. To be considered, papers should advance institutional ethnography scholarship either methodologically or through a substantive contribution. Authors must be currently enrolled graduate students or have graduated within the last 12 months. Submissions are to be 25 pages long or less, excluding notes, references, and tables, and be submitted in Word-compatible and PDF formats, following the latest APA guidelines. An electronic letter from the studentÕs supervisor attesting to the lead authorÕs student status must accompany the submission. The studentÊmust be the sole author of the paper; submissions with co-authors are not allowed.Ê The recipient will receive a monetary prize of $100, a plaque of recognition, student membership, conference registration, and an opportunity to present the winning paper at the 2024 SSSP meetings. The winner of the 2024 paper will be invited to sit on the adjudicating panel for the 2026 paper submissions. Please note that any paper submitted for consideration for the George W. Smith Graduate Student Paper Award must also be submitted through the SSSP Call for Papers to be presented at the 2025 meeting of the SSSP. Send submissions to: Naomi Nichols (naominichols@trentu.ca), Liz Brule (e.brule@queensu.ca) and Helen Hudson (hhuds099@uottawa.ca) by January 31, 2025. Please be aware that a paper submission may only be submitted to one division. DOROTHY E. SMITH AWARD FOR SCHOLAR-ACTIVISM Deadline: 3/31/25 The Institutional Ethnography Division is pleased to solicit nominations for the 2025 Dorothy E. Smith AwardÊfor Scholar-Activism. This award recognizes the activities of an individual or group who has made substantial contributions to institutional ethnographic scholar activism in either a single project or longer trajectory of work. The contributions may involve IE research conducted and used for activist ends, or it may involve activist efforts that have drawn upon or contributed to IE scholarship. The award committee invites members of the Division to send a one-page statement of the nominee to committee chair Viviane Namaste (viviane.namaste@concordia.ca) by March 31, 2025. Congratulations Doctor Wendy Cash! Wendy L. Cash, a graduate of Auburn University who recently joined Jacksonville State University as Director of Alumni Engagement is our spotlighted new Doctor. 1. What made you choose IE for your thesis? Dr. Laura Parson was extremely instrumental in my doctoral journey. In one of her classes, as I was researching women in leadership, I read literature that discussed AckerÕs theory of gendered organizations. So, then I read AckerÕs work and learned more about her theory. From a personal standpoint, this theory made so much sense regarding my own experiences, and I began to think about this theory in a broader aspect, beyond my experiences, but how it might apply to women in leadership within higher education. Finding out about this theory was my research Òeureka!Ó moment. I knew I wanted my dissertation to focus on women leaders, and this theory helped me find my way, but I still wanted to know Òwhy?Ó And then, Institutional Ethnography entered my life. In another class of Dr. ParsonÕs, I learned about SmithÕs mode of inquiry, Institutional Ethnography. As I learned more about Smith and IE, I began to see how the two (gendered organizations and IE) could work together in my research. This approach helped me to really explore the issues and obstacles women in leadership faced, from the standpoint of women - why these barriers were experienced, how these experiences were coordinated, and how policies, procedures, and processes coordinated their experiences and the discourse within higher education institutions. 2. What are some of your thesis's take-home messagesÊ -Sometimes personal experiences can be a window into what others are experiencing but do not really talk about. (My experience with my dissertation) -My research was based on women leaders (provosts and vice presidents) within 4-year public institutions in Alabama. Based on the data, women leaders are disrespected, their authority is undermined, they experience unfair and unequal treatment, and they are expected to do more than others in leadership to complete their work and uphold work expectations. -Additionally, such expectations lead to exhaustion, loneliness, and lack of care for themselves.Ê -Findings and data support that the challenges and expectations of women in leadership are gendered and their experiences are coordinated by power and gendered systemic discourses and practices. -There is still so much work to be done! 3. What are you doing now? I graduated in December 2023 from Auburn University. I was a full-time employee at AU, Manager of Engagement at their Harbert College of Business, and also taught freshman learning community courses there each fall. In May 2024, I was offered the position of Director of Alumni Engagement at my undergraduate institution, Jacksonville State University (Jacksonville, AL). I have been in the position since July and am thrilled, humbled, and honored to lead at my alma mater. Most recently, I presented a paper that explored how higher education practices support metaphorical barriers women leaders encounter (co-authored by Dr. Laura Parson) at the SSSP conference in Montreal. I am also working on research, based on my dissertation, as time allows.Ê MembersÕ News and Notes Agnieszka Doll, Laura Bisallon and Kevin Walby edited Political Activist Ethnography: Studies in the Social Relations of Struggle, open access by AU Press. Contributors to this volume adopt a Òbottom-upÓ approach to inquiry to produce knowledgeÊfor activists, not about them. A must-read for humanities and social sciences scholars keen on assisting activists and advancing social change. Dr. Ying-Chao Kao accepted the invitation to serve as a deputy editor for the new journalÊSex and Sexualities, which is officially affiliated with the American Sociological Association (ASA) Section of the Sociology of Sexualities. With the leadership of its editors-in-chief, Amy L. Stone (Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX) and Krystale Littlejohn (Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR),ÊSex and SexualitiesÊwill be ready to launch on January 1, 2025, and welcome submissions in various genres.Ê - standard-length empirical articles (8Ð10K words) - short format empirical articles (<4K) - conversation and debate essays (3Ð4K words) - book review articles (synthesizing several books, 1,500Ð2K words) - pedagogical pieces (3Ð4K words) - interviews (3Ð4 K words).Ê More submission guidelines will be announced later this year.Ê Amir B. Marvasti and Jaber F. Gubrium edited two Routledge books one published in 2023 and the other forthcoming in 2025. Together they showcase a narrative ethnography that is interactional, performative, and site-specific. Featuring the everyday storytelling (narrative practice) as much as the substantive contents and themes of the stories themselves, the first book demonstrates how fieldwork is reflexively crafted in site-specific settings and accordingly is titledÊCrafting Ethnographic Fieldwork: Sites, Selves, and Social Worlds. The lesson put forth by contributed chapters is that ethnographic fieldwork cannot be guided by a set of generalized procedures or overblown theories. Appreciating that participant observation in ethnographic fieldwork commonly is combined with qualitative interviewing, the second book is titled Interviews as Activated Storytelling: Contexts and Subjectivities. The lesson put forth here by contributed chapters is that interviewing beset by standardization cannot capture the everyday meaning-making that locally constructs interviewing contexts and site-specific subjectivities. Nora Gross published Brothers in Grief: The Hidden Toll of Gun Violence on Black Boys and Their Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2024). This book spotlights the neglected aftermath of neighborhood gun violence and its consequences for racial and educational equity. Drawing on two years of school-based ethnography and more than five years of digital ethnography at a single-sex charter school in Philadelphia, sociologist Nora Gross examines how Black teen boys manage their grief after losing friends to gun violence and how school leaders and teachers balance their educational mission with often incomplete understandings of studentsÕ emotions. The book conceptualizes the progression of institutional responses to student grief as a set of stages: the easy hard, hard hard, and hidden hard. In the aftermath of multiple student murders, the school initially recognizes the need for communal outlets for student grief, but soon the urgency of educating Black boys deemed Ôalready behindÕ takes priority. Relying on myths of Black resilience and male stoicism, the school ushers students back to Ôbusiness as usual.Õ Despite the adultsÕ best intentions, these decisions fail to mitigate the effects of peer loss on studentsÕ social and educational trajectories. Although studentsÕ persistent, unacknowledged grief is narrated constantly in online peer-driven social media spaces, it remains hidden from the adults who are making decisions about their education. Forcing studentsÕ grief into hiding produces long-term social injuries for some students. Brothers in GriefÊconcludes with a discussion of what can be learned from other youth and school responses to gun violence and proposes that schools could play a role in helping youth translate their collective grief into productive forms of grievance and action. Stay Tuned! Sara Carpenter and Naomi Nichols are going to organize an online Dorothy Smith reading group and will be looking for volunteers to choose a reading/facilitate a discussion as well as sending out an open invitation to folks in the IE network to participate. They are still working on the details but do contact Naomi if you are excited and want to reach out. \ Also in the works: the Research for Social Change Lab and Trent University will be hosting another Institutional Ethnography Open School in the spring on the week of April 28th. This will be a free in-person two-day event. People will be fed but need to arrange their own transportation and lodging.Ê Welcome New Members Seven new members have joined the IE Division since the publication of our last newsletter. Welcome all! Kimberly Kassab Lynn Kuechle Dannielle Landry Jackson Loyal Daniela Perucca Alexander Rahe Sharin Ultsch Recent IE Books and Papers Published A regular feature of the Fall IE Newsletter is to compile a sampling of recent publications involving IE for our members. If you know of any papers, articles, or books that you would like to see posted here in future issues, please contact Gina Petonito at gpetonito@gmail.com. Balcom, S., Doucet, S., & DubŽ, A. (2024). Registered Nurses and Practical Nurses. Working Together: An Institutional Ethnography.ÊGlobal Qualitative Nursing JournalÊ11, 1-4. Carpenter, S. & Mojab, S. (2024). Institutional Ethnography: A Marxist-Feminist Approach for the Study of Praxis.ÊThe Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult EducationÊ36 (1), 23-38. Ethier, A., Dubois, M-F., Savaria, V. & Carrier, A. (2024). Tensions experienced by case managers working in home care for older adults in Quebec: first level analysis of an institutional ethnography. BMC Health Services Research.Ê24: 296. Su‡rez Delucci, A.A. (2024). Unpacking Ôcommunity water managementÕ in rural Chile: An institutional ethnography. Journal of Rural StudiesÊ110: 103345. MJ, Ketelaar M, Petersen EN, Janssens A. Wider (2024). Institutional research cultures and their influence on patient and public involvement and engagement in health research - An institutional ethnography. Soc Sci Med. Apr; 347:116773. Kurniawan, T., Nilmanat, K., Boonyasopun, U., & Ganefianty, A. (2024). More with document work, less with patient care: An institutional ethnography of discharge planning practices for diabetic patients . Jurnal Keperawatan Padjadjaran, 12(2), 122-134. McGibbon, E.Ê& Fierlbeck, K.Ê& Ajadi, T. (2023). Institutional Ethnography as Critical Policy Analysis: Health Equity Discourses in Canadian Public Policy. Critical Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal. 18. Nguyen, J., Rashid, M. & Forgie, S. (2024). Twelve tips for how institutional ethnography (IE) is conducted in health professions education research. Medical TeacherÊ46:6, 763-768. Call for Papers: SSSP in Chicago! Below are the IE sponsored or co-sponsored sessions calling for papers for the 2025 SSSP Meeting in Chicago, August 8-10, 2024. All papers must be submitted by midnight, January 31, 2025 to be considered for inclusion in the program. To submit, please consult this link. Critical Dialogue: The Everyday Work of Abolition-Thematic Sponsors: Community, Research, and Practice, Institutional Ethnography Co-Organizers: Keisha M. Muia: muia@pdx.eduÊ Jayne Malenfant:Êjayne.malenfant@mcgill.caÊ Session Description: We are facing crises in which housing is not seen as a right, substances are allowed to be corrupted which leads to death, those with the most financial influence are destroying the environment, and the prison industrial complex is targeting those most marginalized. These crises are organized by multiple social, political, material, economic, and institutionalized systems. In response, we are imagining new ways of taking action together. Abolition provides ways to imagine, strategize, and act for justice, wellbeing, and care outside of systems that are unacceptable. We call on those taking action in this pursuit to illuminate the work of abolition and to contribute to a shared dialogue about how we can better incorporate abolition into our lives Critical Dialogue: Institutional Ethnographies of New Technologies Sponsors: Environment and Technology, Institutional Ethnography Co-Organizers: Laura J. Parsons: laura.parson@ndsu.edu Alex Megalas: alex.megelas@concordia.ca Session Description: This session focuses on institutional ethnographies of new technologies, particularly those that explore Artificial Intelligence. We are interested in papers that use institutional ethnography as a method to explore new technologies and the ways that new technologies both capture and are captured in work across industries and contexts. Environment and Ethnography-THEMATIC Sponsors: Environment and Technology, Institutional Ethnography Organizer: Lauren Eastwood: eastwole@plattsburgh.edu Session Description: This session seeks papers that are based on either ethnographic or institutional ethnographic approaches to researching environmental problems. While we recognize that IE approaches the gathering of data in ways that are often different than traditional ethnographers, we hope that this session will bring researchers into conversation with each other to explore the ways in which we approach the study of environmental problems "on the ground" in specific locations. Critical Dialogue: Institutional Ethnographies of Family Welfare Sponsors: Family, Aging and Youth, Institutional Ethnography Co-Organizers: Naomi E. Nichols: naominichols@trentu.ca Hans-Peter de Ruiter: hans-peter.de-ruiter@mnsu.edu Session Description: We welcome institutional ethnographic papers that examine the intersections of care-work in families and institutions across the life-course Ð that is, care-work with young children, infants, or adolescents; care-work with aging adults; and care-work in other interdependent familial relationships. We solicit papers that explore how familial care-work is (dis)organized by the ordinary social, institutional and political-economic processes in labour markets and in/across education, social welfare, child protection, housing, criminal-legal?, socio-legal, immigration, and health systems. CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Using IE to Explore Intersecting Crises: Climate, Social Justice, Housing, and Health-THEMATIC Sponsors: Institutional Ethnography Co-Organizers: Naomi E. Nichols: naominichols@trentu.ca Mitchell McLamon: mitchell.mclarnon@concordia.ca Session Description: We welcome institutional ethnographic papers that go beyond the single institution tendency (Hastings & Mykhalovskiy, 2023) and draw analytic connections across seemingly distinct social problem contexts (e.g., climate change and homelessness; opioid poisonings and child protection); papers that explicate how social, institutional, and political-economic processes produce "crises" (as political objects) in environmental, health and social contexts; and/or papers that show people's experiences of a crisis as shaped by what Smith describes as relations of ruling (e.g., how people's experiences of a housing affordability crisis are shaped by specific mechanisms through which the real estate market has been re-organized as an investment opportunity or through which states have systematically de-invested in public housing New Directions in Institutional Ethnographies Sponsor: Institutional Ethnography Organizer: Katerine E. Korelesky: katie.koralesky@ubc.caÊ Session Description: This session is open to people using Institutional Ethnography in novel ways, including but not limited to novel research topics, methods, and analytical processes CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Teaching Social Problems through Institutional Ethnography Sponsor: Institutional Ethnography, Teaching Social Problems Co-Organizers: Elizabeth L.ÊBrule, e.brule@queensu.ca Morena Tartari, morena.tartari@northumbria.ac.uk Session Description: This session focuses on using Institutional Ethnography (IE) to explore social problems and social change with academic and non-academic audiences. Institutional Ethnographers who are teaching/imparting what they have learned from their IE research to academic and non-academic audiences are invited to submit their contributions to this session. Presentations can focus on how to guide, through IE, academic and non-academic audience in understanding how everyday experiences are shaped by institutional and social forces, in discussing the impact of IE research, and in highlighting the potential of IE to uncover hidden power dynamics, policies, and organizational practices. This aim is to discuss how to help these audiences and communities critically examine institutions while engaging with the possibilities of impact that IE offers. IE Newsletter Volume 22 No. 1