Mapping Conceptual Worlds: Usfng Interpretive Ethnography to Explore Knowledge-Making in a Professional Community

Interpretive ethnography is a methodology for studying the ways in which a social group constructs and lives its particular, indigenous version of reality. In this paper I argue that interpretive ethnogi'aphy offers a useful avenue for exploring how members of a professional community go about producing and applying specialized written knowledge. At the same time, however, I raise the caveat that researchers using the methodology to study professional knowledgemaking need to maintain a balance of engagement with and detachment from the conceptual world of the community being observed. For illustrative purposes, I refer to a study in which I examined the intellectual collaboration of economists at the Bank of Canada, the country's central bank.