Reflexivity (n.) is a 'return' that extends beyond the experiencing subject to encompass the organizational and cognitive structure of the discipline. In other words, the subject of reflexivity is the social scientific field in toto.
Reflexivity (n.) is an interrogation of the limitations of social position, of field and of the scholastic point of view, which together are constitutive of knowledge itself.
Reflexivity (n.) is concerned not with the politics surrounding the analysis of an object, but rather with the very act of construction of the object, which is ultimately, the collective scientific unconscious that is embedded in theories, problems, and (especially national) categories of scholarly judgment.
Reflexivity (n.) is, for the sociologist, always biased by the 'intellectualist bias' which entices us to construe the world as a spectacle, as a set of significations to be interpreted rather than as concrete problems to be solved practically.
Reflexivity (n.) is, for the sociologist, always biased by the individual researcher's social origins and coordinates (class, gender, ethnicity, etc.). This can be controlled to some degree by self-criticism.
Reflexivity (n.) is, for the sociologist, always biased by the position the analyst occupies in the the microcosm of the academic field, that is, in the objective space of possible intellectual positions offered to him or her at a given moment, and, beyond, in the field of power.
Reflexivity (n.) is not concerned with the individual researcher and his personal biases. Rather, the subject of reflexivity must ultimately be the social scientific field in toto itself.
Reflexivity (n.) is not the reflection of the subject on the subject. Rather, it is the systematic exploration of the 'unthought categories of thought which delimit the thinkable and predetermine the thought' (bourdieu 1982a:10), as well as guide the practical carrying out of social inquiry.
Reflexivity (n.) is the systematic exploration of the unthought categories of thought which delimit the thinkable and predetermine the thought as well as guide the practical carrying out of social inquiry.