Institutionality
Description
This edited book brings together humanities and social sciences scholars from the various disciplines at the nexus of discourse studies and ethnography to reflect on questions of institutional practices and their political concerns. Institutional order plays an important role in structuring power relations in society. Yet, contrary to common understandings of structure, institutional orders are far from fixed or stable. They constantly change, and they are resisted and reimagined by social actors. The 20 studies collected in this edited volume develop the notion of
institutionality
as an overarching perspective to explore how institutional actors and institutional practices order and reorder power in societies across the globe. Thereby the chapters pay special attention to the fluidity, volatility, fragility, and ambiguity of order, and consequently to its claims to authority. Employing a broad range of discourse analytic and ethnographic methodologies, the studies show how institutions are discursively and materially constructed, defined, represented and how they are made relevant and become powerful - or how they are resisted, transformed or lose significance - in interaction. Readers will obtain nuanced insights into ways in which differently positioned social actors engage in struggles about how institutions can be imagined and enacted across several domains, such as workplace interactions, architecture, mass-media representations or organisational publicity. This book will be of interest to readers in Applied Linguistics, Discourse and Society, Critical Discourse Analysis, Political Theory and Communication Studies.
Reviews / Votes
"This important, interdisciplinary volume offers a unique discursive-material lens for examining institutional practices-including enacting, normalizing, resisting, and transforming institutions. Its grounding in a comprehensive array of topics, such as workplace interactions, media discourses, branding devices, and the production of power and authority, make it a pivotal resource for students and scholars interested in discourse and institutions in modern society." (Prof. Linda L. Putnam, Distinguished Research Professor, Emerita University of California, Department of Communication, Santa Barbara)"In times in which institutions seem to be losing significance due to multi-layered processes of individualisation, this volume beautifully employs the notion of institutionality to demonstrate how dynamics of order production are always subject to change. Both theoretically and empirically insightful, this book advances our understanding of contemporary life through subtle analyses and vivid demonstrations of how processes of power operate in workplace interaction, the mass media, and instances of racism." (Prof. Dr. Karl-Siegbert Rehberg, Senior professor, Technical University Dresden, Institute for Sociology, Dresden, Germany)
"This edited volume is a treasure grove of studies into the discursive and material dimensions of institutional ordering. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the way our lives and societies get shaped in and through institutions that order norms, values, identities, and discourses. The editors' anti-essentialist concept of institutionality allows them to articulate an interdisciplinary set of research methods and theoretical perspectives, in a coherent and innovative way." (Prof. Jan Zienkowski, Chair of Strategic Communication, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Department of Information and Communication Science, Brussels, Belgium)"Wide-ranging and ambitious in its analytical approaches and thematic scope, from the design of work spaces to discourses of economic crisis and organisational branding, this book sets an agenda for the study of institutionality, the complex of relationships between authority, power and social structure examined as discursive and cultural practices in a context of globally shifting forms of communicative style and material signification." (Prof. Joanna Thornborrow, Professor, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Department of English, Brest, France)
"A theoretically robust, analytically and methodologically comprehensive volume that brings together scholars from different backgrounds in a well curated and coherent collection. The volume provides a holistic discussion on the role of institutions as well as the societal conditions and the role of individual stakeholders in constructing, perpetuating or challenging institutional praxis. The contributors address the concept of institutionality from different angles and make the discussion equally valuable to the experienced and the novice reader. Discourse analysts interested in Workplace research will find a wealth of empirical material and theorisation that will contribute to cutting edge discussions in the field." (Prof. Jo Angouri, University of Warwick, Academic Director for Education and Internationalisation, Department of Applied Linguistics, Coventry, UK)
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Persons
Yannik Porsché is a Researcher and Lecturer in Sociology at the University of the Bundeswehr, Munich in Germany.
Ronny Scholz is a Senior Lecturer in Media Research and Media Criticism at the British University in Egypt.
Jaspal Naveel Singh is a Lecturer of Applied Linguistics at the Open University in the UK.
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