Discovering the Social Organization of Perinatal Care for Women Living with HIV: Reflections from a Novice Institutional Ethnographer

This chapter is a critical reflection about my journey of coming to know and do institutional ethnography as a doctoral researcher. I offer some ideas about my experience conducting an institutional ethnography beginning from the standpoint of mothers living with HIV and connect my decisions to Dorothy Smith’s work, the tenets of a sociology for people, and feminist knowledges. The chapter includes three sections: (i) the importance of ethnographer reflexivity to ground an inquiry; (ii) reflections about interviewing women for an institutional ethnographic inquiry; and (iii) what story is told through institutional ethnography, specifically thinking through the scope and sociopolitical implications of what is discovered through an inquiry. It is my hope that by accounting for my experiences and decisions as a graduate student researcher, I can inspire and motivate others who choose to employ institutional ethnography as their critical research strategy.