Anti-trafficking Organizing in Russia and Ukraine: A Global Institutional Ethnographic Analysis

• In Event: 156 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 08. Organizations, Economics and Globalization

Abstract

In this paper, I outline several lines of thought on how one can use institutional ethnography to study global phenomena. I use the case of my research on anti-trafficking organizing in Russia and Ukraine to exemplify a case of global institutional ethnography. I consider how such approach can analyze transnational regulation of social problems. I show that by focusing on connections between multiple social actors involved in transnational regulation, institutional ethnographers can achieve their goal of analyzing social relations. I also argue that negotiations between different participants of transnational regulation should be incorporated into institutional ethnographic analysis. Lastly, I consider how traditional focus of institutional ethnography on ruling relations can be applicable in research of transnational social relations. Researching social relations between anti-trafficking activists and the women they help, I analyze the relations of ruling, as well as some cases where relations of collaboration were developed within institutional settings.

Author

• Nadia Shapkina, Kansas State University