Institutional Aura: On the Intangible Aspects of Materiality and Their Role in Institutional Maintenance

Drawing on institutional theory and the literature on materiality, I address the research question: how are institutions maintained by buildings and the artifacts within them? I specifically focus on the “intangible” aspects of spaces, extending the existing literature on enchantment evoked by spaces. Based on the findings from an ethnographic study of the UK Parliament, I put forward a concept of institutional aura which is a socially constructed sense of connection with the people and events of the past amplified by the place. Institutional aura produces three effects: it grants people legitimacy and status, it imbues power and creates historical imprints of people and events from the past. Institutional aura and the processes of remembering and forgetting affect people's lack of motivation for change.