THE MANAGEMENT OF TEMPORALITY

There has been a cleavage within the sociological community regarding the question of reflexivity. While some see ethnomethodology as inevitably adopting a constructivist point of view and argue that it can in no way avoid the problem of referential reflexivity, others cherish Harold Garfinkel's teaching that ethnomethodology should not be engaged in an ironic mode of theorizing and argue that the problem of referential reflexivity is totally misconceived. In this article, after showing why the advocates of referential reflexivity fail to indicate the nature of constructive work involved in the ethnomethodological studies of practical action, I will analyze some of the ethnomethodological studies of scientific practice conducted by the antireflexivists and demonstrate that, despite their arguments to the contrary, the antireflexivists are engaged in an ample dose of constructive work to render a sequence of experimental action intelligible. More specifically, I will argue that antireflexive ethnomethodologists'alleged recovery of the temporally situated logic of the members involves the narrative logic of history.     

Critical Reflexivity and Moral Regulation

Critical reflexivity is a dominant practice framework in social work. It is designed to address the operation of power relations between social workers and their clients. However, I intend to shed light on a different set of concerns related to this practice. I examine the ways in which critical reflexivity can operate to re-inscribe colonial notions of moral superiority, and re-center whiteness within social work education and practice settings. Drawing on research I conducted with racialized social workers in Toronto, Canada, this article examines the ways in which critical reflexivity can operate as a governing technology to silence the operation of racism.     

Collaboration and censorship in the oral history interview

The objective of this article is to highlight seldom considered aspects of the relationship between the researcher and the interviewee in feminist oral history research. As part of a study of the work of British women sociologists the researcher is undertaking a series of oral history interviews with retired academics. The attempts to follow social science ethical injections concerning the protection of human subjects and feminist injunctions to maximize subject collaboration and researcher reflexivity have raised several issues prior to, during and after the interviews. Issues of collaboration and censorship impinge on the research process at every stage of the work and, along with the personal and structural power relations of those involved, determine, in unanticipated ways, the final research product.     

“From Her Side of the Gossamer Wall(s)”: Reflexivity and Relational Knowing

Drawing on a provocative metaphor from an award-winning novel, this article argues that reflexivity can be conceived as three gossamer walls through which researchers construct knowledge from within three sets of relationships, including relations with: oneself (and the ghosts that haunt us); with research participants; and with one’s readers, audiences, and epistemological communities. On the other side of a first gossamer wall are relations with our many selves as well as with ‘ghosts,’ deeply buried across time and space, that may come back to haunt us when we are physically and emotionally invested in our research. Behind a second gossamer wall are the multi-layered relations between researchers and research respondents, relationships that can involve oral, audible, physical, emotional, textual, embodied, as well as shifting theoretical and epistemological dimensions. Finally, a third gossamer wall lies between ourselves and our readers and audiences as well as the epistemological or epistemic communities wherein our work is located, read, reviewed, and received. Rooted in an ethnography of Canadian primary caregiving fathers, the article contributes to current discussions of reflexivity in qualitative research practice by expanding dominant understandings of reflexivity as a self-centered exercise towards a consideration of other critical relationships that are part of how we come to know and write about others. The metaphor of gossamer walls, combining the sheerness of gossamer and the solidity of walls, provides for creative ways of conceptualizing reflexivity in temporal and spatial terms as well as to consider the constantly shifting degrees of transparency and obscurity, connection and separation that recur in the multiple relations that constitute reflexive research and knowing.     

The practice of systemic reflexivity

What does it mean to practise systemic reflexivity? Much has been written on reflective practice but less is known of the practice of systemic reflexivity. This paper is a contribution towards expanding on what is known of the practice of systemic reflexivity. In this endeavour, a contextualising narrative of how ideas of the practice of systemic reflexivity merged within the systemic field is followed by an exploration of reflective practice and systemic reflexivity, using McGilchrist’s approach of interpersonal neuroscience. The purpose is to demonstrate how the two concepts of reflective practice and systemic reflexivity combined could enhance social work practice. However, this is not to deny the current literature that we have on reflection and reflexivity, but there is a need to continue creating space to widen dialogue in this area as a way of keeping the ideas alive and generating alternative ways of working with the two concepts.     

Referent Networks Predict Just Rewards

This study introduces the referent network, the set of relations defined by knowing others reward levels, and makes initial predictions about how the structure of that network shapes perceptions of income fairness. Previous research recognizes that justice assessments are driven by social comparisons; yet there is a paucity of research on how the structure of interpersonal contacts shapes justice assessments. Using a social networks perspective, the arguments here suggest that the referent network affects social comparisons, which in turn affect justice assessments of rewards. This reasoning is also integrated with the notion that people make both local and referential comparisons when determining their just rewards. An experiment evaluates these arguments. Results show support for the argument linking network structures to justice assessments and partial support for the extension to local and referential comparisons. Supplemental analyses show how reward levels qualify the arguments. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Reflective Practice,Reflexivity, and Critical Reflection in Social Work Education in Australia

Reflective practice, reflexivity, and critical reflection are now widely accepted as important in contemporary social work practice. Despite this, there remain differences in how the terms are discussed within the literature. This results in confusion in how students are instructed about reflective practice, reflexivity, and critical reflection. This paper presents a proposal for clarifying these concepts based on the results from an interpretive study of reflective practice in social work education and practice in Australia. The study utilised three different methods: autoethnography, an archaeological analytic, and qualitative interviews. It found that reflective practice is understood as a capability, a form of critical thinking, a discipline response to a changing sector, and a way of theorising from practice. Conceptual clarifications of reflective practice, reflexivity, and critical reflection are presented.

IMPLICATIONS

• There is a need for clarification about the meaning of reflective practice, reflexivity, and critical reflection within social work.

• Findings from a qualitative study on the meaning and use of reflective practice in Australian social work education may provide conceptual clarification of these terms.

     

Ultimate concerns in late modernity: Archer,Bourdieu and reflexivity

Through a critique of Margaret Archer's theory of reflexivity, this paper explores the theoretical contribution of a Bourdieusian sociology of the subject for understanding social change. Archer's theory of reflexivity holds that conscious ‘internal conversations’ are the motor of society, central both to human subjectivity and to the ‘reflexive imperative’ of late modernity. This is established through critiques of Bourdieu, who is held to erase creativity and meaningful personal investments from subjectivity, and late modernity is depicted as a time when a ‘situational logic of opportunity’ renders embodied dispositions and the reproduction of symbolic advantages obsolete. Maintaining Archer's focus on ‘ultimate concerns’ in a context of social change, this paper argues that her theory of reflexivity is established through a narrow misreading and rejection of Bourdieu's work, which ultimately creates problems for her own approach. Archer's rejection of any pre‐reflexive dimensions to subjectivity and social action leaves her unable to sociologically explain the genesis of ‘ultimate concerns’, and creates an empirically dubious narrative of the consequences of social change. Through a focus on Archer's concept of ‘fractured reflexivity’, the paper explores the theoretical necessity of habitus and illusio for understanding the social changes that Archer is grappling with. In late modernity, reflexivity is valorized just as the conditions for its successful operation are increasingly foreclosed, creating ‘fractured reflexivity’ emblematic of the complex contemporary interaction between habitus, illusio, and accelerating social change.     

Niklas Luhmann: Contingency,risk, trust and reflection

The hurdle of Niklas Luhmann's extensive theories is their complexity and level of abstraction. These qualities are, however, exactly what constitute their empirical sensitivity to the interrelation between organization and society in today's hyper-complex society. Luhmann never theorized on public relations; yet his theories enable identification of frames for understanding public relations in interrelation to society's overall coordination processes. Contemporary society apparently tries to solve problems activated by the blind reflexivity of modernization by activating reflective forms of coordination. Correspondingly, practice ideals of public relations can be reconstructed as reflection—the specific worldview which facilitates self-insight in relation to the social context.     

Reflexivity,recursion and social life: elements for a postmodern sociology

The paper examines, and seeks to develop, the sociological concept of reflexivity. It identifies two senses of reflexivity, one associated with ethnomethodological accounts of members’practical reasoning, the other with a more philosophical sense of conscious self-referencing, and analyses their relationship. The paper argues that the development of this form of analysis leads to a form of propositional undecidability which makes it typically ‘postmodern’. The development is linked to ideas of recursion, as these are expounded in computer science and mathematics, and to Derrida's interpretation of ‘textual fold’— this also being used to ground the association of reflexivity with postmodernism. The analysis ‘returns to the social’by considering aspects of Niklas Luhmann's explication of social reflexivity. It concludes by examining the understanding that a postmodern sociology might have of a postmodern society in which the grounds for social order have become undecidable.     

On reflexivity and the conduct of the self in everyday life: reflections on Bourdieu and Archer

This article provides a critique of the concept of reflexivity in social theory today and argues against the tendency to define agency exclusively in terms of reflexivity. Margaret Archer, in particular, is highlighted as a key proponent of this thesis. Archer argues that late modernity is characterized by reflexivity but, in our view, this position neglects the impact of more enduring aspects of agency, such as the routinization of social life and the role of the taken‐for‐granted. These concepts were pivotal to Bourdieu and Giddens' theorization of everyday life and action and to Foucault's understanding of technologies of the self. We offer Bourdieu's habitus as a more nuanced approach to theorizing agency, and provide an alternative account of reflexivity. Whilst accepting that reflexivity is a core aspect of agency, we argue that it operates to a backdrop of the routinization of social life and operates from within and not outside of habitus. We highlight the role of the breach in reflexivity, suggesting that it opens up a critical window for agents to initiate change. The article suggests caution in over‐ascribing reflexivity to agency, instead arguing that achieving reflexivity and change is a difficult and fraught process, which has emotional and moral consequences. The effect of this is that people often prefer the status quo, rather than to risk change and uncertainty.     

Agency,reflexivity and risk: cosmopolitan,neurotic or prudential citizen?

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the turn to risk within sociology and to survey the relationship between structure and agency as conceived by popular strands of risk theorizing. To this end, we appraise the risk society, culture of fear and governmentality perspectives and we consider the different imaginings of the citizen constructed by each of these approaches. The paper goes on to explore what each of these visions of citizenship implies for understandings of the structure/agency dynamic as it pertains to the question of reflexivity. In order to transcend uni‐dimensional notions of citizenship and to reinvigorate sociological debates about risk, we call for conceptual analyses that are contextually rooted. Exampling the importance of knowledge contests around contemporary security threats and warnings of the deleterious effects of pre‐emptive modes of regulation that derive from the ‘risk turn’ within social science, we argue for a more nuanced embrace of reflexivity within risk theorising in order to facilitate a more dynamic critique of the images of citizenship that such theorizing promotes.     

The reflexive self and culture: a critique

This article attempts to engage with a tendency in the theorization of social change and self-identity, evident in the work of a number of contemporary social theorists, to place an extended process of reflexivity at the heart of modern identity. As symptomatic of 'neo-modern' accounts of selfhood, critical readings of Giddens, Beck, Castells and some aspects of social theory more generally, and their account of modern reflexivity's relationship to culture, are assessed. In light of these criticisms, ways in which culture might still play an important part in the shaping of identity are considered. The relationship between language, culture and reflexivity, drawing from philosophy, sociology and G. H. Mead's own brand of social psychology, are all utilized in establishing a critique of the role Giddens and others designate for culture in the constitution of the contemporary self. By potentially repositioning self-identity in its connection to culture, the overall bearing of reflexivity upon the processes of self-identity is thus questioned. It is argued that a culturally-situated, yet fluid and multifarious account of self-identity is a necessary analytical and normative alternative.     

Science against modernism: the relevance of the social theory of Michael Polanyi

Science, as an institution, is widely taken by sociologists to exemplify the modern tendency towards vesting trust and authority in impersonal offices and procedures, rather than in embodied human individuals. Such views of science face an important challenge in the social philosophy of Michael Polanyi. His work provides important insights into the continuing role of embodied personal authority and tradition in science and, hence, in late modernity. I explicate Polanyi's relevance for social theory, through a comparison with Weber's essay 'Science as a Vocation'. An understanding of the personal dimensions of trust and authority in science suggests practical limits to the position of Giddens on the disembedding of social relations and on the scepticism and reflexivity of modernity.     

Reflexivity in the Research Process: Psychoanalytic Observations

This paper highlights what psychoanalysis can add to discussions of reflexivity, by specifically describing how reflexivity is conceptualized and fostered on psychoanalytic observation methods courses at the Tavistock Clinic, London. It is demonstrated that this psychological form of reflexivity is relevant to empirical and conceptual work and shown that it shares interesting parallels with debates about reflexivity in social research methods, while also being able to contribute to discussions of what constitutes reflexivity and what kinds of methods course might facilitate it. Reflexivity is often discussed in relation to a researcher’s empirical work, but this paper argues that reflexivity is equally needed in relation to the academic context in which most research and learning takes place. This paper demonstrates how psychoanalytic approaches to learning stimulate a reflexive relation to empirical and conceptual work and it provides examples of reflexivity from a two‐year infant observation and a research project on romantic love (involving conceptual and biographical research).     

Family Genealogy: A Sociological Imagination Reveals Intersectional Relations

This article depicts everyday family genealogy as a vehicle for the sociological imagination that links personal biography to social–historical contexts across generations. As genealogists construct current from past identities, they engage a sociological imagination that potentially enables them to grasp how intersectionality – gender, race, ethnic, sexuality, nation, class, and age relations – is articulated through history. The key aims here are: (1) to provide background conditions behind the growth of genealogy; (2) to reveal how doing and studying family genealogy engages a sociological imagination that can be a vehicle for perceiving the intersectional underpinnings of social memories. Genealogy can be seen as a political practice where race-class-gender within social memories can contribute to diverse stories from new standpoints in American history.     

Situated (un-)learning in software design: a deconstructive approach

Constructive technology assessment aims at anticipating societal impacts of technological innovations and suggests incorporating reflexivity and social learning into technology development. Social learning involves fostering the ability of diverse social actors to cultivate sociotechnical critical skills, thus allowing technological and social change to be governed with consideration for social values and diverging interests. Based on this demand, our paper presents a discourse-theoretical, interventionist approach to software design introducing deconstruction and (un-)learning as reflective practices to guide development processes. Inspired by Donna Haraway’s focus on power relations in technoscience culture, our approach—called ‘deconstructive design’—traces how structures such as in/formal hierarchies and discursive hegemonies affect the development processes and design decisions of teams or communities of practices. The underlying deconstructivist methodology refers to practice-based concepts of situated learning. Thus, it locates a potential for value-based intervention at the micro/meso-level of everyday work practices.     

The framing of social class distinctions through family food and eating practices

Drawing on two qualitative studies which looked at diet, weight and health from a social class perspective, we use Bourdieu's theory of habitus to help explain the different food and eating practices undertaken by families with young teenagers. Whilst the families displayed considerable reflexivity when making decisions about what to eat on a daily basis, the analysis highlighted that everyday behaviours are still bounded by distinctions of taste, according to social position. The paper includes an examination of the relationships between different forms of capital and whether form or functionality is prioritised within families. We show the importance of temporal frameworks when interpreting classed food and eating practices.     

A mexican American woman encounters sociology: An autobiographical perspective

I attempt to show how my ideas about bureaucracy and Mexican American culture are a product of my life history and how I worked out key features of these ideas in teaching sociology at a small university. This was made possible because strategic sponsors helped me as an “outsider” to become a kind of “insider” within that social milieu. Her fields of interest are bureaucracy, family, social psychology and race and ethnic relations. She is currently writing a monograph on Mexican American family life.     

Towards a postmodern research agenda for public relations

The theory and practice of public relations are largely based on a modernist understanding of organization that privileges management perspectives and a strategic focus in the field. This article explores the possibility of postmodernism as an alternative theoretical approach to public relations. Postmodernism rejects the manager as a rational being who has the ability to determine organizational outcomes through strategies. Modernist public relations is examined as a hegemonic practice that interpellates practitioners into the system to legitimize the perspectives and actions of corporate managers as objective knowledge, particularly through discursive practices in organizational media. Public relations’ media relations role is critiqued for its creation of a hyperreality and the resulting crisis of representation. The paper concludes with suggestions for a postmodern research agenda based on reflexivity.