Modernization and relational reflexivity

Abstract

This paper deals with the issue of reflexivity in the different spheres of society, affected by the processes of globalization. The author argues that each sub-system of society is more or less differentiating itself according to a (prevailing) code or register of reflexivity. Global contextualism changes the way people manage the distinction between the particular and the universal (i.e. their perceived ‘different identities’) according to a plurality of reflexive processes. A differentiating universalism emerges within the different spheres of society (the market, the political system, the associational or third-sector system, and the system of families and informal primary networks). In principle, within these spheres many different codes of reflexivity can be detected. The four types of reflexivity detected by M.S. Archer can be correlated with the different spheres/sub-systems of society in order to see how the latter change their operations and overall configuration. In conclusion, it is shown that the thesis of ‘reflexive modernity’ is a reductive and an undifferentiated way of looking at what is happening in our globalizing society. The differentiation of reflexivity does not represent a further stage of modernity but, rather, it generates an ‘after-modern’ society through what the author calls ‘relational reflexivity’.