Reflexivity and affectivity

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to explore the reflexivity of the writer in the writing of organizational studies. The self‐reflexive move that tries to account for and/or to understand researcher reflexivity questions the epistemological and ethical prerequisites to the text. Malcolm Ashmore’s (1989) exploration of the writer’s reflexivity has long been both a key point of reference and (perhaps) a dead‐end. The theme of the writer’s or the subject’s reflexivity – i.e. her/his role, place or ethics in the text – needs constant inquiry. Michel Henry’s life philosophy, I believe, is a source for such exploration. Henry has analyzed human affectivity as the ground to awareness, sensitivity and aliveness. His phenomenology of life, which is not a phenomenology of perception, will be examined here. For Henry, the basic human affectivity that makes consciousness and the text possible is transcendent. He asserts that the text or the work is primarily self‐creating and not the representational choice of the subject or author. His critique of representation will be evaluated here on the hand of his exemplar: Vasily Kandinsky. And I will argue for a reversal of Henry’s position, in the direction of not‐transcendent affectivity, making use of my exemplar: the Flemish writer Dimitri Verhulst.