TOWARD ETHNOGRAPHIES OF INSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE - PROPOSAL AND SUGGESTIONS

The article describes the ethnography of institutional discourse persp ective, Institutional discourses are made up of the assumptions, conce rns, and vocabularies of members of socially organized settings, and t he ways in which they interact. The perspective is an analytic framewo rk and research program that combines ethnographers' concern for in-de pth observations of everyday life with aspects of ethnomethodology, co nversation analysis, and Foucauldian discourse studies. The perspectiv e focuses on the ways in which setting members use discursive resource s in organizing their practical actions, and how members' actions are constrained by the resources available in settings. The perspective is developed by considering how institutional discourses and settings ar e reflexively linked, institutions are organized as situated conventio ns, and institutional discourses involve talk and interpretation and a re dispersed within and across settings.