Institutional Ethnography — A Sociology for People

Institutional Ethnography (IE) is a qualitative research method developed by Canadian sociologist Dorothy E. Smith that investigates how people's everyday lives are shaped and coordinated by institutional texts, rules, and relations of power. Starting from the lived experience of individuals in a particular standpoint, IE traces the social organization that governs their work and troubles — revealing how macro-level institutions operate through the micro-level activities of real people.