Linguistic ethnography and the study of welfare institutions as a flow of social practices: the case of residential child care institutions as paradoxical institutions

Abstract

In this article we review ways of understanding how social and welfare institutions achieve their goals and produce their products, whether these are expected or not. We analyze mainstream approaches to study these institutions in Spain and in other parts of Europe. From this review, we argue in favor of an approach focused on the role of social practices as constitutive elements of institutional life and products. Our proposal focuses on one type of institution, residential child care institutions (RCCIs), to highlight how traditional limits between formally designed activities and informal practices may be problematized. The data comes from a brief linguistic ethnography, conducted in central Spain, in two RCCIs that focused on children's everyday social practices in the institution. We argue that RCCIs may be characterized as “paradoxical institutions” due to what we call “paradoxical practices,” prototypical of these institutions. As part of this argument, we analyze and discuss the trajectory of a paradoxical practice by paying attention to the product it creates and develop a model to understand institutional functioning. Finally, we discuss how linguistic ethnography provides a valuable alternative to scrutinize the work of residential child care institutions and the role they play in children's socialization.