Reflexivity and the Construction of Competing Discourses of Masculinity in a Female‐Dominated Profession

This paper contributes to the debates on reflexivity and change by extending our understanding of (non‐)reflexivity mechanisms in the discursive constructions of gender. Specifically, I explore how and why women persistently construct contradictory discursive accounts of men and masculinity in a female‐dominated profession of counselling psychology in Russia. Drawing on the concept of ‘interpretative repertoires’ I argue that female counsellors construct different kinds of masculinities based on three ‘repertoires’: psycho‐biological, structural and relational. I demonstrate how these constructions of masculinity are imbued with different meanings and are used to explain only certain contexts, which precludes women's ability to reflect on their contradictory nature. I conclude by discussing how an exploration of discursive (non‐)reflexivity extends our understanding of the conditions for gender transformations.     

'I wanna tell you a story': Exploring the application of vignettes in qualitative research with children and young people

Few methodological papers exist which examine the use of vignettes within qualitative research and more specifically, with children and young people. The paper will briefly discuss the application of vignettes within quantitative and qualitative research traditions derived from the available literature before outlining the major theoretical and methodological issues relating to the use of this technique in social research. Using empirical examples of young people's responses to a selected vignette, we then go on to explore the various benefits of vignettes that can ensue when employing this technique in isolation or as part of a multi-method approach. This discussion concludes with an exploration of how vignettes can be harnessed to engage young people, particularly in the discussion of sensitive topics, whilst enabling them to retain a high level of control over the research process.     

社会系统论视角下区块链应用的法律规制

区块链应用已经开始影响经济系统、法律系统乃至全社会系统的运作。作为一种新兴社会信用共识机制，它将颠覆传统信用机制，进而形成对整个社会的新一轮赋能和改造。社会系统论认为，区块链内部欠缺反思性，自治能力不足。与此同时，区块链具有一定的负外部性与扩张倾向，会对社会系统及其结构耦合产生激扰。倘若区块链的扩张倾向难以得到有效遏制，将会加剧全社会的“去界分化”风险。并且，该风险还将危及基本权利。面对区块链应用对于全社会各领域的影响，法律系统通过对区块链的法律规制做出回应。因此，在对区块链的法律规制作出整体性反思的基础之上，应以风险预防和基本权利保护为导向，作出思路和方向的调整。     

Children as Peer Researchers: Reflections on a Journey of Mutual Discovery

This article is based on a small‐scale study evaluating the work of an emotional literacy project in the North West of England. It focuses on the research process and the challenging experience of involving children as peer researchers. The author draws on theoretical and epistemological insights from feminism and the sociology of childhood to explore some of the enduring tensions and contradictions facing adults involved in children’s research. The primary intention is to use post‐research reflections to raise questions and stimulate debate amongst children’s researchers rather than offer solutions. © 2010 The Author(s). Children & Society © 2010 National Children’s Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited.     

On reflection: is reflexivity necessarily beneficial in intercultural education? 1

This article explores how the concept of reflexivity is used in intercultural education. Reflexivity is often presented as a key learning goal in acquiring intercultural competence (ICC). Yet, reflexivity can be defined in different ways, and take different forms across time and space, depending on the concepts of selfhood that prevail and how notions of difference are constructed. First, I discuss how the dominant usages of reflexivity in intercultural education reflect and reproduce a Cartesian view of the self that shapes how ICC is conceptualized and taught. I discuss three assumptions that this view produces: that the self is accessible and transcendable, that reflexivity is universal across space and time, and that the self can act as its own remedial change agent or ‘inner consultant.’ I argue that because reflexivity is understood in many different ways, attention to definition is crucial, both in designing learning objectives in intercultural education and in devising ways to attain them. Greater attention is also needed in intercultural education to the ways in which selfhood, and hence also reflexivity and constructions of difference, differ across space and time.     

民俗学表演理论核心概念探析

表演理论自20世纪80年代传入我国，曾在民俗学及其他相关学科引起很大反响。但由于国内对相关的理论著述还缺乏全面系统的翻译，因而使国内学者难以把握该理论的精髓，也未能充分认识它对当代民族艺术的保护及民族文化交流的重大意义。本文以搜集到的国内外一手资料为基础，对表演、框架、自反性、标定、模式性和新生性等核心概念的内涵与意义进行了阐释，以期为后来者深入了解表演理论提供一定的借鉴。     

Reverse interviewing: a white adoptive mother engaging with black birth mothers and vice versa

Abstract

Researcher reflexivity, meaning the revealing of the researcher’s assumptions and her position vis-à-vis those researched, has by now become commonplace. This article explores such issues in the context of a larger study of transnational adoption for which I conducted interviews with South African birth mothers as both a researcher/interviewer and an adoptive mother. Instead of seeking to eliminate researcher bias, I propose using it as data that could reveal novel aspects of the phenomenon under study. This article specifically explores the use of reverse interviewing, which in this case meant disclosing my double positionality and inviting the interviewees to ask me questions. It is not a matter of merely extracting information: the technique allows participants to air their concerns, and facilitates investigation of the researcher’s reactions to them. All this, in turn, carries implications with regard to how the study area is conceptualised.     

The Ethics of Relational Leading: Gender Matters

This article is concerned with the ethical implications of conceptualizing and enacting leadership as a relational practice, rather than as a heroic‐individualistic performance. Using a small empirical study, it explores the possibilities and challenges of becoming an ethical subject against the pressures on leaders to instrumentalize and masculinize their relational work. Ethics is understood as a critical reflexive practice through which leaders come to understand the effects of their conduct and are able to transform or restyle themselves. This fashioning of an ethical subject is discussed in relation to the construction of masculinized certainty and feminized self‐doubt. The article concludes with some tentative thoughts about the capacity of embodied subjects to transgress dominant modes of being and acting.     

Knowledge and Reasoning in Social Work: Educating for Humane Judgement

Much has been made of the uncertainties and contingencies ofpractice, and of the need for social workers to make more explicituse of formal knowledge in order to reduce this uncertainty.However, we argue that this focus on making certainty out ofuncertainty glosses over the ways in which both knowledge andpractice often propel practitioners towards early and certainjudgements when a position of ‘respectful uncertainty’might be more appropriate. Facilitating learning that will helpsocial workers to deal with uncertainty raises challenges forsocial work educators. If they are to equip social workers withthe skills to exercise ‘wise judgement under conditionsof uncertainty’, they will need to recognize the waysin which both theory and popular knowledge are invoked to makeunequivocal knowledge in case formulation. In this paper, wesuggest ways in which students can be helped to remain in uncertaintyand interrogate their knowledge and case reasoning.     

Caste,purity, and female dress in IT India: Embodied norm violation as reflexive ethnographic practice

This article proposes the methodology of embodied norm violation for overcoming the dichotomy between cognitive reflexivity and embodied ethnographic practice. The methodology is derived from the author's own embodied experiences as a female Indo-German ethnographer in the field of IT India. For exemplifying the methodology and its potential, this article focusses on two field-related phenomena, namely adhering to a vegetarian diet and dressing the female body. It uses them to gather insights on embodied purity and caste in IT India and discusses implications with regard to the political body (Foucault), the social body (Bourdieu), and the individual body (Merleau-Ponty). The theoretical contribution lies in suggesting embodied norm violation as a reflexive research methodology which delivers organizational insights beyond text, discourse, and cognition. On the empirical level, embodied norm violation enabled the researcher to uncover the pre-reflexive and gendered dimension of IT India as a neocolonial, modernist, and male project.