Institutional Ethnography (IE) is an interdisciplinary feminist approach to research that focuses on how texts, language, and discourses organise our everyday lives. Developed by Dorothy E. Smith (1926-2022), IE is not just a methodology, but a comprehensive feminist ontology of how the social world works, which advocates using a form of standpoint to explore the social world and institutions from specific perspectives. IE research ‘takes sides’, often researching as, with, and/or for, marginalised groups who are often made invisible by, or excluded from, organisations and institutions. The focus on texts allows IE researchers to ethnographically explore the organising power of language and institutions. In IE, language and discourses are made material in institutional texts, which are conceptualised as replicable material objects that carry messages and act as ‘bridges’ which connect and organise people across different times and places. However, not every IE researcher concentrates solely on texts. There are many ways to use IE and our network promotes a pluralistic field, encouraging people to gain an understanding of the foundational literature which they can then use in different and creative ways to grow the field.