Conversations About Reflexivity (Ontological Explorations)

278 Pages·2010·2.25 MB·English

by  Margaret S. Archer (editor)

Conversations About Reflexivity
‘Reflexivity’ is defined as the regular exercise of the mental ability, shared by all
normal people, to consider themselves in relation to their (social) contexts and
vice versa. Hence it is crucial in mediating between what actors themselves are
most concerned to achieve in society and the social constraints and enablements
that they confront as they try to realize their concerns. Their reflexive ‘internal
conversations’ are the means through which they deliberate about what course of
action to take. Focusing fully on this phenomenon, this book discusses three main
questions associated with this subject in detail.
1 What are the social conditions leading people to practice reflexivity in dif-
ferent ways?
2 What part do our internal reflexive deliberations play in designing the
courses of action we take: subordinate to habitual action or not?
3 If ‘reflexivity’ is not a homogeneous practice for all people at all times, does
it show significant variations over history?
In addressing these questions, contributors engage critically with the most relevant
studies, by thinkers such as G. H. Mead, C. S. Peirce, J. Habermas, N. Luhmann,
U. Beck, A. Giddens and P. Bourdieu. Most contributors are leading Pragmatists
or Critical Realists, associated with the ‘Reflexivity Forum’: an informal, interna-

tional and inter-disciplinary group.
This combination of reference to influential writers of the past and the best of
modern theory has produced a fascinating book that is essential reading for all
students with a serious interest in social theory and two of its main problems –
how structure and agency are linked and what is the relationship between human
subjectivity and the objective social context.
Margaret S. Archer is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. She
has published 25 books in the area of Social Theory, with particular emphasis on
social ontology, emergent properties and the problem of linking structure and
agency.
Ontological Explorations
Other titles in this series:
From One ‘Empire’ to the Next
Radha D’Souza
Science for Humanism
The recovery of human agency
Charles R. Varela
Philosophical Problems of Sustainability
Taking sustainability forward with a critical realist approach
Jenneth Parker
Dialectic and Difference
Dialectical critical realism and the grounds of justice
Alan Norrie
Conversations About
Reflexivity
Edited by Margaret S. Archer
First published 2010
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 2010 Margaret S. Archer for selection and editorial material; individual
chapters, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN 0-203-86755-6 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0- 415- 55852-2 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0- 203- 86755-6 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978- 0- 415- 55852- 5 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978- 0- 203- 86755- 6 (ebk)
Contents
List of illustrations vii
List of contributors ix
1 Introduction: The reflexive re-t urn 1
MARGARET S. ARCHER
PART I
Reflexivity and pragmatism 15
2 Inner speech and agency 17
NORBERT WILEY
3 Cartesian privacy and Peircean interiority 39
VINCENT COLAPIETRO
4 Pragmatist and hermeneutic reflections on the internal
conversations that we are 55
FRÉDÉRIC VANDENBERGHE

PART II
Reflexivity and realism 75
5 Human reflexivity in social realism: beyond the modern debate 77
ANDREA M. MACCARINI AND RICCARDO PRANDINI
6 Reflexivity and the habitus 108
ANDREW SAYER
7 Can reflexivity and habitus work in tandem? 123
MARGARET S. ARCHER
vi Contents
8 Reflexivity after modernity: from the viewpoint of relational
sociology 144
PIERPAOLO DONATI
PART III
Modes of reflexivity 165
9 The agency of the weak: ethos, reflexivity and life strategies of
Polish workers after the end of state socialism 167
ADAM MROZOWICKI
10 Emotion, and the silenced and short- circuited self 187
HELENA FLAM
11 Self talk and self reflection: a view from the US 206
DOUGLAS V. PORPORA AND WESLEY SHUMAR
PART IV
Reflexivity in production and consumption 221
12 ‘Reflexive consumers’: a relational approach to consumption as a
social practice 223
PABLO GARCIA-RUIZ AND CARLOS RODRIGUEZ- LLUESMA
13 Organizational use of information and communication technology
and its impact on reflexivity 243
ALISTAIR MUTCH
Index 259
Illustrations
Figures
2.1 Peirce- Mead dialogical self 19
7.1 A schema of Elder- Vass’s argument 131
8.1 The basic schema for the social role of reflexivity in social
change 146
8.2 The basic schema extended according to the relational theory
of society 148
8.3 The place of reflexivity in the morphogenetic cycle 155
8.4 The temporal sequence of emergence of a social structure
through personal, social and system reflexivity (better: system
reflectivity) 156
9.1 The typology of life strategies: the modes of reflexivity and the
modes of structuring 174
10.1 The short- circuited self 196
11.1 Scale conceptualization 211
Tables
7.1 The three order s of natural reality and associated forms of
knowledge 132
8.1 Forms of societal differentiation and their related types of
reflexivity, principles of identity, and associated empirical
spheres in society 150
11.1 Absolute and comparative reflexive style 213
11.2 Gender and reflexive style 214
11.3 Comparative reflexive style and meta- reflexivity 216

Contributors
Margaret S. Archer received her Ph.D. from the London School of Economics
and has been Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, UK, since
1979. She is the past editor of Current Sociology and past president of the
International Sociological Association. Her previous books include Culture
and Agency (1988), Realist Social Theory (1995), Being Human (2000), Structure,
Agency and the Internal Conversation (2003) and Making Our Way Through the
World (2007).
Pierpaolo Donati is Professor of Sociology, University of Bologna, Italy. He is the
past president of the Italian Sociological Association; Director of the Centre
for Social Policy Studies and Social Health, University of Bologna, Director of
the ‘National Observatory on the Family’ and editor of the journal, Sociologia
e Politiche Sociali. His main recent publications include Teoria Relazionale della
Società (1992), La cittadinanza societaria (2000), La cultura civile in Italia: fra
stato, mercato e privato sociale (2002), Il capitale sociale degli italiani. Le radici
familiari, comunitarie e associative del civismo (2008), and Teoria Relazionale della
Società (2009).
Vincent Colapietro is Liberal Arts Research Professor in the Department of
Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. He received his M.A. and Ph.D.
from Marquette University, Wisconsin, (while his M.A. thesis was on Dewey,

his dissertation was on Peirce). His books include Peirce’s Approach to the Self
(1989) and Fateful Shapes of Human Freedom (2003). He has written especially
on the central figures in American pragmatism and themes related to their
unique contribution to philosophical inquiry (meaning, agency, practice,
and art).
Helena Flam received her Fil.Kand. in Sweden and her Ph.D. at Columbia
University. She has been Professor of Sociology in Leipzig, Germany, since
1993. Her publications in the sociology of emotions include The Emotional Man
and the Problem of Collective Action (2000), Soziologie der Emotionen (2002) and
Emotions and Social Movements (2005). She is a co-founder of the Emotions
Network of the European Sociological Association.