Institutional Ethnography: concept, uses and potentialities in health researches field

The Institutional Ethnography (IE), developed by the Canadian Dorothy Smith, has been used in researchers of health fields, emphasizing the analysis of power relations that regulate the everyday practices in health institutions. This article aimed to present this methodology, relatively new in Brazil, through two steps: the IE conceptualization, its application in the institutional health researches, and the presentation of methodology aspects of a research based on IE developed in Kangaroo Program in the Natal City, RN.