Applications of Institutional Ethnography In the Justice System

Format: Open session

The application of Institutional Ethnography – a critical sociological approach developed by Dorothy Smith – in criminological and socio-legal studies has been developing over the last two decades.

This session aims to contribute to the reflection on the status quo of the application of IE in the justice system (e.g., from out-of-court civil procedures to the criminal justice system), by inviting papers that offer empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions to show the potential of IE in these fields.

We welcome papers which focus on institutional ethnographies or studies inspired by institutional ethnography that highlight people’s needs and disjunctures in their experience of the justice system or of other agencies and organizations that are not directly part of the justice system but that gravitate around it.

We are also interested in studies which show the potential of Institutional Ethnography to pursue and achieve institutional change at the level of the justice system. experience of the justice system or of other agencies and organizations that are not directly part of the justice system but that gravitate around it.

Furthermore, this session aims to give continuity to the specific network on IE and studies concerning the justice system promoted with the patronage of the WG06 in 2022 and constitute a space of discussion with and support of Institutional Ethnographers at different career stages who developed or are developing their research in this field of research.