Living in XTC: An Autoethnography and Institutional Ethnography of My Experience Residing in a Government Funded Long-Term Care Institution

Abstract

This thesis is an autoethnography and institutional ethnography of my experience as a disabled young adult within a publicly funded long-term health care facility. By way of explication and analysis of a number of factors, including my personal experience, health region and long-term health care facility formal policies, practices, reviews, reports and nurse charting, I investigate and illuminate a relatively obscure unjust societal phenomenon: disabled young adults living in an old folks’ home. My research examines how the ruling power relations in a government funded health region and a long-term health care facility, organized through a bureaucracy, form a total institution for young adult residents. Bringing together autoethnography and institutional ethnography creates a unique social scientific methodological tandem that suits my set of circumstances and goal of changing the research context for the better. Both methods were developed to investigate societal problems as socially just acts.