Thinking With Transnational Institutional Ethnography: Moving Towards Spatially Conscious Methods for Studying Geographically Dispersed People and Institutions

Abstract

Institutional ethnography (IE) is a valuable ontological approach for investigating the coordination of social relations, both locally and trans-locally. However, much of the work utilizing IE remains within the confines of a local or national empirical field. This means there are limited accounts of IE exploring geographically dispersed institutions that cross borders and span regions. This paper makes the case for critically thinking and building on Transnational Institutional Ethnography (TIE). In it, I argue that TIE requires adapting the methodological toolbox of IE to deal with expanded geographic space and diverse bodily locations. By drawing on empirical work exploring scholarly participation in the European Union Framework Programs for research, tensions are illustrated that surfaced while working with TIE. In this discussion, I examine the ways in which interpreting an empirical field as a transnational institution, constituted of geographically dispersed people and organizations, caused a re-examination of the methods in IE to acknowledge institutional experiences shaped by diverse material surroundings and differing geopolitical locations. The paper argues that working with spatially conscious methods in TIE contributes positively to both fieldwork and analysis.