Institutional ethnography: explicating the social organization of professional health practices intending client...

Institutional enthnography uses traditional ethnographic procedures grounded in an analytic approach for explicating the social organization of knowledge. I illustrate the theory and method by describing my experience and analysis-to-date in a study of the social organization of knowledge in mental health, day program occupational therapy in Atlantic Canada. I emphasize the research standpoint within everyday experience. From this point, the researcher explicates (through description) how (micro) social relations, i.e. everyday actions, speech and documentation, are embedded in the (macro) practices of "institutions" such as mental health services. I summarize data management procedures including use of ETHNOGRAPH. Analysis-to-date is showing how the organization of mental health day programs both constrains and creates potential for occupational therapists enabling client empowerment.