Séminaire : Institutional ethnography and its usefulness to surveillance studies

Jeudi 26 février 2009 
14h00 à 16h00
Pavillon Lionel Groulx, 3150 rue Jean-Brillant
Salle C-3019 

Kevin Walby is a PhD candidate in sociology at Carleton University. He has published in the Canadian Journal of Law and Society (2008), Upping the Anti (2008, with J. Monaghan), Social & Legal Studies (2007), Critical Sociology (2007), Qualitative Inquiry (2007), Surveillance & Society (2006/2005), the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice (2005), the Canadian Journal of Sociology (2005) as well as many other journals and edited books. He is part of Books2Prisoners Ottawa. He is an outreach and advocacy coordinator for the Journal of Prisoners on Prisons.

Résumé : Institutional ethnography (IE) is a method of inquiry that examines how the work people do with texts plays an integral part in governance processes. IE draws from several qualitative research methodologies, such as observation, interviewing, focus groups, mapping, and textual analyses.

I will argue that institutional ethnography is a critical method of inquiry useful for revealing how surveillance practices are textually organized. I introduce several key concepts designed specifically for use in research regarding camera surveillance: surveillance agents, surveillance subjects, material relations of surveillance, televisual texts, initiating texts and rolling texts. Researchers studying surveillance would benefit from engaging with the method of institutional ethnography because IE can explicate how surveillance subjects are linked to and managed by textual practices.