sociological reflexivity

is an objective move which becomes valuable only in methodological terms as a research tool.

With such a commitment, ethnography retains its identity as a method and reflexivity becomes valuable only in methodological terms as a research tool. As we have seen, Bourdieu is hostile to reflexivity as touching on the subjective. (396) As such, reflexivity, which Bourdieu does valorize, has a very restricted function. Self-critical reflexivity is for Bourdieu a renewed and more powerful form of the old project of the sociology of knowledge, but this time fully integrated as a dimension of sociological method. (397)

is an objective, critical treatment of the contexts which produce objectifying modes of thought (reason).

The objective, critical treatment of the contexts which produce objectifying modes of thought (reason) is indeed a valuable form of reflexivity with many possibilities for expanding/reconstructing the ethnographic research project. But more's the pity, then, to severely constrain such possibilities by assimilating this kind of critique as a method that does not seriously alter the forms taken by past sociological (and ethnographic) practice. (398)

is tied to the commitment to sustain objectivity, the distance and abstraction of theoretical discourse, and empiricism as distinct historical contributions of sociology (and a related social theory) as a discipline.

Sociological Reflexivity The position on reflexivity in Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, which can also stand here in general for the kind of reflexivity in ethnography that has had appeal for British (and, by derivation, American) cultural studies (e.g., the use of reflexivity in Paul Willis's Learning to Labour [ 1981  1977)]), is tied to the commitment to sustain objectivity, the distance and abstraction of theoretical discourse, and empiricism as distinct historical contributions of sociology (and a related social theory) as a discipline.

sociological reflexivity, n.Definitions

sociological reflexivity