ABSTRACT

This article considers the possibilities and limits of applying institutional ethnography, a feminist theoretical and methodological approach that contributes to collective projects of investigating and transforming social life. Elaborating on the approach, the article reports on an ethnographic exploration of visual artists’ experiences and struggles in Canada's art world – a project that started from the standpoint of practising visual artists, examined their work and relations, and explicated practices and logics of art and valued work conditioning their lives. Speaking back to formal or text-based investigations of particular institutions, the article grapples with how to engage in research that more fully reveals the ‘social,’ attending to everyday life, to the ‘life work’ that people do, and to social forms that are threaded through intersecting, localized intimate and institutional spheres.

摘要

本文考虑了应用制度民族志的可能性和局限性，这是一种女性主义的理论和方法论方法，有助于研究和改变社会生活的集体项目。详细介绍了这种方法，本文报告了对加拿大视觉艺术家在艺术领域的经历和挣扎的民族志探索，该项目从实践视觉艺术家的角度出发，考察了他们的工作和关系，并阐明了艺术和艺术的实践和逻辑。重视工作，调节生活。回到特定机构的正式调查或基于文本的调查中，本文着重探讨如何进行更充分地揭示人们日常生活中的“社会”，“日常生活”，“生活”的研究，