ABSTRACT
An institutional ethnography aims at contributing to social change. It focuses on institutions which are supposed to deliver a certain service to the citizens. It takes its onset in the experiences of common people and regards them as experts within their own domain. The aim of ethnography is to produce “thick descriptions”. Thick descriptions are reconstructions of social constructions. A valid thick description presupposes a valid identification of social codes. If this is not the case the ethnography might be stuck in a “thin” description paraphrasing what the researcher has heard and seen without developing any new perspective for the understanding of the social practice. Institutional ethnography aims at mapping the influence of texts and interaction on the processes and the function of pictures, signs and sounds as materialised forms of messages in sequences of actions. The analytical function of using photography is that it integrates the symbolic value of visual impressions into the ethnographic design.
