Reflexive Questions Research Articles

Reflexivity of the subject in selected contemporary social theories

The subject of this article is the question of human reflexivity, where the individual is understood as the subject of social relations. We are interested in individual and collective subjectivity. The paper begins with an attempt to depict the theoretical field, on the grounds of which the problem of reflexivity appears in sociology. Next, we present the main concepts in the subjectivity theory found in sociological and philosophical literature. This allowed us to prepare an interpretational basis that is helpful in analysing specific subject reflexivity concepts. The presented theories arise from the views of M.S. Archer, P. Bourdieu, A. Giddens and C. Taylor. These views serve as the basis of our discussion concerning reflexivity, its meaning and interpretational challenges encountered in contemporary social theories of the subjectivity orientation. As a conclusion, the authors consider the main problems placed before the field of humanities concerning the further development of subjectivity theories.

Issues and challenges in the application of Husserlian phenomenology to the lived experience of hate crime and its legal aftermath: an enlightenment prejudice against prejudice?

The field of hate crime research addresses the presence, sources, and impact of particular types of expressions of prejudice, often perceived as particularly damaging and hurtful forms of interpersonal abuse and violence. There is the reflexive question of the possibilities of researchers themselves ever being able to adopt a truly "unprejudiced" approach to the presence of such damaging prejudices. Can this goal be realized without a researcher necessarily losing an experientially grounded understanding of what these meanings, values and purposes have come to mean, and how they are themselves interpretively reconstituted anew, including within the lived experience of victims, witnesses, police, prosecutors, judges, and victim support workers? A possible philosophically informed approach to the dilemmas posed by this topic is offered by Husserl's phenomenology. This study critically explores the possibilities, reflective stages, and theoretical limitations of a sympathetically reconstructed Husserlian approach to hate crime. It argues that despite its manifest tensions, gaps, ambiguities, and internal contradictions, aspects of the Husserlian philosophical approach directed toward the different levels of experienced hate crime still retain the potential to both challenge and advance our understanding of this topic.

Learning through "huddles" for health care leaders: why do some work teams learn as a result of huddles and others do not?

The health care industry embraces the concept that collective learning occurs through group social interactions and has been initiating huddles as an avenue for collaborative learning. During change of shift or prior to beginning daily tasks, a huddle is initiated and facilitated by the manager or frontline supervisor. Given that "shared knowledge is obtained through group-based learning," why are some teams learning and others are not? The phenomenon is perplexing, given that the same resources are provided to all teams. Based on the findings in the literature review on learning in groups, teams learn from huddles and others do not because of the following: communication style and dialogue among the group members, communication style and dialogue facilitated by the leader, team and member perceptions, and team membership. Teams that learn from huddles do so because of the elements within the dialogue between team members (reflexive questioning, redundancy of information, metaphors, analogies, dramatic dialogue, strategic meaning) and because the huddle team exhibits higher levels of collegiality, tenure, heterogeneity, team identification, and collective efficacy. Facilitators must encourage a conversation in order to encourage reframing of cognitive maps that encourage learning by huddle members.

Ethical beginnings: Reflexive questioning in designing child sexuality research

Background: Counselling young children referred for sexualised behaviour can challenge therapists' ideas about childhood and sexuality. This area of practice is complex and sensitive, and calls upon collaboration with a range of significant adults in children's lives. Purpose: This paper examines a researcher's process of movement from counselling practice into qualitative research practice, and the use of reflexive questioning to explore ethical issues within the study. Design: Shaped by social constructionist ideas and discourse theory, ethical questions are outlined within the design stage of a doctoral research project on sexuality in children's lives in Aotearoa New Zealand. Limitations: This paper explores ethics in the design of a current study: there are no results or conclusions.

Anthropological proselytism: Reflexive questions for a Hare Krishna ethnography

This paper is an anthropological exegesis on the Hare Krishna theology and practice of sankirtana—a form of proselytisation in which devotees chant the Holy Names of the Lord through city streets and in other public places, and which can also involve other means of ‘spreading the word’. This is also an inquiry into the relationship between anthropology and proselytism and their respective modes of communication, a topic I approach reflexively by addressing the awkward methodological question as to whether my writing about Hare Krishna proselytisation is itself a form of proselytisation.

What's in this issue?

What's in this issue?

Of Highways, Turntables, and Mirror Mazes: Metaphors of Americanisation in the History of American Philanthropy

This exploratory essay reflects on recent scholarship on twentieth-century European–American relations that has used the concept of “Americanisation,” particularly with regard to cultural transfers. The essay analyses how concepts of Americanisation have changed over time and uses the historiography of American philanthropy abroad to illustrate these changes. Whilst most scholars who apply the concept now view Americanisation as a two-way process which entails selective adaptation and transformation, there are subtle differences in emphasis. The essay traces these in the use of metaphors. Two metaphors have achieved prominence recently, the highway and the turntable. Testing both against empirical material taken from the transnational history of American foundations, the article then introduces a third metaphor, the mirror maze, which brings out a neglected dimension, the question of reflexivity.

Coming out in the field: A queer reflexive account of shifting researcher identity

This article contributes to the literature on reflexivity by articulating a queer reflexivity lens, which entails engaging in a reflexive questioning of the categories we use to identify people and recognizing the shifting nature of researcher and participant identities over the course of the research process. Queer reflexivity enables us to think differently about an important debate in qualitative methods concerning who can study whom. For instance, are white researchers in a position to study people of color? Are men able to study women and women’s issues? Can “straight”-identified researchers study the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer community? I argue that the question of whether or not to “match” for categories of difference in research studies is complicated by the fluid, shifting nature of identities that queer theory highlights. In order to demonstrate how qualitative organizational researchers can learn about the craft of research through the concept of queer reflexivity, I recount an auto-ethnographic “coming-out” tale in which I discuss the implications of my shifting sexual identity over the course of a research project.

Practical Approaches to Supporting Young Women With Intellectual Disabilities and High Support Needs With Their Menstruation

Menstrual myths may influence decisions about menstrual and fertility management for women with intellectual disabilities and high support needs. We identify six myths (related to menstruation, menstrual management, communication, sexual feelings, menstrual difficulties, and surgical elimination) and the evidence that dispels these myths. We provide reflexive questions for practitioners to help them critically reflect on their own approaches to menstrual management. We encourage those supporting women with disabilities to consider the reflective questions we have provided and to strive to support informed decision-making about menstruation and the related areas of fertility and sexual feelings.

Rethinking Native Anthropology: Migration and Auto-Ethnography in the Post-Accession Europe

Abstract. This paper embarks on the epistemological debate on native anthropology and examines the complexities inherent in the process of production of ethnographic knowledge in the post-accession Europe. The author first addresses the questions of reflexivity in anthropology. In relation to this, the paper discusses the interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives on researcher’s positionality in the field of the study and situatedness of knowledge claims. Subsequently, the author demonstrates how their own status as a native anthropologist was played out in their ethnographic fieldwork among Polish migrants in Belfast. To this end, the author examines their positionality in the field, pointing to intricacies of the insider/outsider status. Next, the paper focuses on the dialectics at work in carrying out an ethnographic study among the members of the same ethnic group, but away from home. It indicates potential disadvantages and advantages deriving from such a situation.

Data-driven research: open data opportunities for growing knowledge, and ethical issues that arise

The Open Data Initiative in the UK offers incredible opportunities for researchers who seek to gain insight from the wealth of public and institutional data that is increasingly available from government sources – like NHS prescription and GP referral information – or the information we freely offer online. Coupled with digital technologies that can help teams generate connections and collaborations, these data sets can support large-scale innovation and insight. However, by looking at a comparable explosion in data-driven journalism, this article hopes to highlight some of the ethical questions that may arise from big data. The popularity of the social networking service Twitter to share information during the riots in London in August 2011 produced a real-time record of sense-making of enormous interest to academics, reporters and to Twitter users themselves; however, when analysed and published, academic and journalistic interpretations of aggregate content was transformed and individualized, with potential implications for a user-base that was unaware it was being observed. Similar issues arise in academic research with human subjects. Here, the questions of reflexivity in data design and research ethics are considered through a popular media frame.

Global connexity and circulation of knowledge

The authors show how scientific and technological research in Latin America has become institutionalised and has given rise to science policy questions and debates. This development has become a subject of study. Thus, the text describes the emergence and development of social studies on science in Latin America since the 1950s with the development of an original Latin American thought on science and technology (PLACTS), the formation of the first social studies on science and technology (STS) research groups working on scientific disciplines and producing diagnoses on the scientific development, then the institutionalisation of these STS studies and the consolidation of research groups in this domain giving rise to new approaches concerning the conditions of scientific development in a peripheral context, the social and local utility of scientific and technological knowledge, the processes of re-signifying established knowledge, the creation of new relations between research and industry and the emergence of research policies. Finally, the text shows how Latin American researchers are today questioning the articulations between local and globalized knowledge, between local activities and policies and global networks, and the role of technological knowledge in Latin America in a globalized world, which raises a reflexive questioning of the role of STS-produced research in Latin American societies.

Venturing into the unknown of ethnography: reflexive questions to love and cautionary ethics to live by

This paper summarizes the discovery of an ethnographic self, the use of reflexive tales as methodology, and the development of four cautionary ethics for novice ethnographers. Ethnographic ethics to live by include: demonstrating care and concern, accepting risk and uncertainty, suspending judgment, and exercising the art of listening, selection and representing. Each ethic was lived in the field, developed through reflexive questioning, and further constructed, articulated and re-envisioned through research literature. The discussion of these four ethics is contextualized within an inquiry that focused on the use of text-to-speech technology in a Grade 5 classroom. Within these ethics, students were valued as collaborators in the process, offering suggestions to the inquiry when relevant. In the end, they felt comfortable viewing and discussing the value of text-to-speech technology as an intrusion to their reading process, a choice to make, or a life tool.

Framing Reflexivity in Quality Improvement Devices in the Care for Older People

Health care organizations are constantly seeking ways to improve quality of care and one of the often-posed solutions to deliver ‘good care’ is reflexivity. Several authors stress that enhancing the organizations’ and caregivers’ reflexivity allows for more situated, and therefore better care. Within quality improvement initiatives, devices that guarantee quality are also seen as key to the delivery of good care. These devices do not solely aim at standardizing work practices, but are also of importance in facilitating reflexivity. In this article, we study how quality improvement devices position the relationship between situated reflection and standardization of work processes. By exploring the work of Michel Callon, Michael Lynch, and Lucy Suchman on reflexivity in work practices, we study the development and introduction of the Care Living Plan. This device aimed to transform care organizations of older people from their orientation towards the system of care into organizations that take a client-centred approach. Our analysis of the construction of specific forms of reflexivity in quality devices indicates that the question of reflexivity does not need to be opposed to standardization and needs to be addressed not only at the level of where reflexivity is organizationally situated and who gets to do the reflecting, but also on the content of reflexivity, such as what are the issues that care workers can and cannot reflect upon. In this paper we point out the theoretical importance of a more detailed empirical study of the framing of reflexivity in care practices.

Families' experience of harmony and disharmony in systemic psychotherapy and its effects on family life

Family harmony is highly valued by Asian families. This qualitative study sets out to explore the contribution that harmony makes to therapy. Four Singaporean Chinese family members, a mother and daughter from one family, and a sister and brother from another, were interviewed about harmony and disharmony. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to make sense of the in‐depth interviews. The results suggested that family harmony was important and was defined as harmonious co‐existence in family life. Systemic psychotherapy sessions successfully influenced the family members' experience of harmony and disharmony with other members and contributed to harmony in therapy and family life. Lastly, the participants detailed the links between harmony or disharmony and systems at the individual, family and sociocultural levels. The findings highlight the fact that therapists who work with families of Asian origin need to understand how harmony is perceived by them. Asking reflexive questions from an authoritative position that is respectful of clients is recommended to contribute to self‐healing in disharmonious families. Furthermore, therapists may wish to use aspects of individual, family and sociocultural systems that can contribute to family harmony.

Agency, reflexivity and risk: cosmopolitan, neurotic or prudential citizen?

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the turn to risk within sociology and to survey the relationship between structure and agency as conceived by popular strands of risk theorizing. To this end, we appraise the risk society, culture of fear and governmentality perspectives and we consider the different imaginings of the citizen constructed by each of these approaches. The paper goes on to explore what each of these visions of citizenship implies for understandings of the structure/agency dynamic as it pertains to the question of reflexivity. In order to transcend uni-dimensional notions of citizenship and to reinvigorate sociological debates about risk, we call for conceptual analyses that are contextually rooted. Exampling the importance of knowledge contests around contemporary security threats and warnings of the deleterious effects of pre-emptive modes of regulation that derive from the 'risk turn' within social science, we argue for a more nuanced embrace of reflexivity within risk theorising in order to facilitate a more dynamic critique of the images of citizenship that such theorizing promotes.

From sexism to sexy: Challenging young adults’ ageism about older women’s sexuality

This article reports on a study that explored young adults’ perceptions of sexual expression among older women in the context of confronting ageism and sexism from a feminist perspective. Deirdre Fishel’s educational film about aging and sexuality,Still Doing It: The Intimate Lives of Women Over 65, was shown to 277 undergraduate students (82 male and 1 95 female) enrolled in a global issues human sexuality course. Data consisted of students’ narrative responses to 6 reflexive questions. Using grounded theory methodology, the analysis revealed 4 key themes organized around the following topics: (a) how young adults perceive older women’s sexuality, (b) perceptions about ageism and sexism, (c) students’ comfort level with discussing aging women’s sexuality, and (d) life lessons: learning from older women. The authors discuss implications for education and practice.

Seeing (and Doing) Conservation Through Cultural Lenses

In this paper, we first discuss various vantage points gained through the authors' experience of approaching conservation through a "cultural lens." We then draw out more general concerns that many anthropologists hold with respect to conservation, summarizing and commenting on the work of the Conservation and Community Working Group within the Anthropology and Environment Section of the American Anthropological Association. Here we focus on both critiques and contributions the discipline of anthropology makes with regard to conservation, and show how anthropologists are moving beyond conservation critiques to engage actively with conservation practice and policy. We conclude with reflections on the possibilities for enhancing transdisciplinary dialogue and practice through reflexive questioning, the adoption of disciplinary humility, and the realization that "cross-border" collaboration among conservation scholars and practitioners can strengthen the political will necessary to stem the growing commoditization and ensuing degradation of the earth's ecosystems.

Enabling New Understandings1: Therapeutic Conversations with the Terminally Ill and their Families

This article explicates and applies ideas of relationally reflexive inquiry (see Burnham, 2004 and Oliver, 2004) in the arena of death and bereavement. It defines relational reflexivity and examines the nature of the questions that can be used to induce a relationally reflexive exploration in a therapeutic setting. It develops fresh ways of working and shows how, in practice, these enhance the way we approach a therapeutic encounter. These concepts enable the authors to analyze and interpret postinterview relationally reflexive questions. The therapeutic focus is within a palliative care setting, using examples from the authors' own practice as systemic psychotherapists (while acknowledging that this methodology is useful in all therapeutic areas). The ideas presented in this paper are not new, but the way we have “interwoven” theoretical concepts has created innovative ways of working clinically, producing a theory-practice praxis.

A note on the algebraic reflexivity of the group of surjective isometries of [formula omitted

This short note deals with question of algebraic reflexivity of the group of surjective isometries of the space of compact operators K ( C ( K ) ) for a compact set K. We show that when K is a countable metric space the group of surjective isometries is algebraically reflexive.