Abstract
Peace research must analyze the dynamics of structural and cultural violence—located in the policies and practices of organizations and institutions—in order to prevent, ameliorate, or transform direct violence. Institutional ethnography has the potential to address these three goals through research and subsequent action. This chapter argues for institutional ethnography as a promising approach to ethnographic peace research by: defining pre-conflict and post-conflict peacebuilding; identifying a pre-conflict case study in a community-building theater; explaining institutional ethnography through the theater’s May Day Parade process; and describing its value for peace studies by framing this research approach in a peace studies pedagogical model.