Institutional Ethnography and Youth Participatory Action Research: A Praxis Approach

This chapter highlights the use of Institutional Ethnography (IE) as a mode of inquiry in a Youth Participatory Action (YPAR) research project. We describe how we conducted our collaborative research project, highlighting the range of pedagogical and methodological resources we drew on throughout the project. These descriptive accounts serve to illuminate how IE researchers can exercise methodological responsivity and dexterity in ways that are compatible with IE’s ontological and epistemological commitments, while also ensuring the praxis goals of a YPAR initiative are reached. We also examine the interviewing practices of our youth research team, noting the ways that they engage in critical analytic practices with us and with research participants in the context of the interviews themselves. We argue that a shared strength of YPAR and IE is the opportunity for collective identification and critical analysis of the organizational structures that underpin people’s experiences.