加拿大女性主義社會學家Dorothy Smith是當代北美重要的社會理論家之一，她所發展的建制民族誌（Institutional ethnography），不僅是一種研究方法，更是另一種社會學。不同於發展理論或修正理論的知識生產途徑，建制民族誌的探究紮根於人們每日每夜具體的、進行中的活動和經驗，進一步追溯和闡明跨地跨時協作的社會關係，如何編派和影響特定的在地經驗，以達到支配關係治理的目標。以「外籍居家看護聘僱評估研究」為例，本文討論建制民族誌的方法論與研究設計， 特別是建制民族誌如何運用文本進行經驗性的探究。文本對建制民族誌的探究極為重要且關鍵。不同於其他質性研究將文本本身視為單獨分析的實證材料，建制民族誌學者關注文本如何連結個人活動和建制的社會關係。文本不僅呈現日常生活的活動如何進行和協作，更是組織和勾連不同在地場域的社會關係的中介。透過研究發現的呈現，我指出建制民族誌對社會生活的理解不是分類、詮釋或是建立理論，而是藉由對聘僱評估過程的描述，闡明以文本為中介，跨地跨時運作的建制關係，對個人在地經驗的形塑和影響。

Institutional ethnography is not only a research method, but is an alternative sociology. Its investigation is anchored in the actual experiences of people’s everyday life, and then moves further to trace how the trans-local social relations organize and impact the particular local experiences to achieve the goal of governance. Using the research on evaluation on live-in migrant care workers’ employment as the example, this article discusses the methodology and research design of institutional ethnography; especially how the utilization of text as an investigative tool. Different from the other qualitative methods, which regard text itself as the analytical materials, institutional ethnographers focus on how text connects individual’s activity to institutional relations. In the discussion of research findings, I point out that the goal of institutional ethnography is not to categorize and interpret individual’s experiences or build upon theories. Instead, through describing the processes of evaluation, the research explicates how the textual-mediated social relations shape and influence people’s lived experiences.