This article argues for a new perspective on the meaning and implications of reflexivity for understanding subjectivity. The two dominant perspectives on the genesis and consequences of reflexive subjectivities are discussed and critiqued in terms of the way they understand the relationship between reflexivity and the wider social world. Reflexive modernisation theory is critiqued for its empty and homogeneous view of reflexivity stemming ultimately from the absence of a theory of the subject. Critical realism is critiqued for its view of reflexivity as a disembodied rationality and its hostility to any connection between reflexivity and pre-reflexive foundations for identity. Drawing on the dialogue between these theories and practice theories, this article creates a new theory of reflexivity which overturns theoretical orthodoxies viewing reflexivity and social practice as opposed concepts. Based on insights from Bourdieu and other practice theorists, this article argues for a theory of reflexivity as actualising a practical intelligibility shaped by the dispositions of the habitus. Examples from empirical literature examining the relationship between reflexivity and class inequality support a theory of reflexive subjectivity based on principles of practice theory.
AdamsM (2003) The reflexive self and culture: A critique. The British Journal of Sociology54(2): 221–238.
2.
AdkinsL (2002) Revisions: Gender and Sexuality in Late Modernity. Buckingham: Open University Press.
3.
AnaisSHierS (2012) Risk society and current sociology. Current Sociology60(4): 1–3.
4.
ArcherM (1995) Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
5.
ArcherM (2003) Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
6.
ArcherM (2007) Making Our Way Through The World: Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
7.
ArcherM (2010) Can reflexivity and habitus work in tandem? In: ArcherM (ed.) Conversations about Reflexivity. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 122–143.
8.
ArcherM (2012) The Reflexive Imperative in Late Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
9.
AtkinsonW (2007) Beck, individualisation and the death of class: A critique. The British Journal of Sociology58(3): 349–366.
10.
BallSMaguireMMacraeS (2000) Choice, Pathways and Transitions Post-16. New Youth, New Economies in the Global City. London and New York: Routledge.
11.
BeckU (1994) Reply and critiques. In: BeckUGiddensALashS (eds) Reflexive Modernisation. Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Cambridge: Polity, pp. 174–216.
12.
BeckU (1997) The Reinvention of Politics. Cambridge: Polity.
13.
BeckU (2009) World at Risk. Cambridge: Polity.
14.
BeckUBeck-GernsheimE (2002) Individualisation: Institutionalised Individualism and its Social and Political Consequences. Thousand Oaks, CA and London: Sage.
15.
BeckUBonssWLauC (2003) The theory of reflexive modernisation: Problematic, hypotheses and research program. Theory, Culture and Society20(2): 1–33.
16.
BourdieuP (1975) The specificity of the scientific field and the social conditions of the progress of reason. Social Science Information14(5): 19–47.
17.
BourdieuP (1990a) In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
18.
BourdieuP (1990b) The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity.
19.
BourdieuP (1992) The Field of Cultural Production. Cambridge: Polity.
20.
BrubakerR (1993) Social theory as habitus. In: CalhounCLiPumaEPostoneM (eds) Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives. Cambridge: Polity/Blackwell.
21.
CalhounC (1993) Habitus, field and capital: The question of historical specificity. In: CalhounCLiPumaEPostoneM (eds) Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives. Cambridge: Polity/Blackwell.
22.
CrossleyN (2001) The phenomenological habitus and its construction. Theory and Society30(1): 80–120.
23.
Elder-VassD (2007) Reconciling Archer and Bourdieu in an emergentist theory of action. Sociological Theory25(4): 325–346.
24.
FarrugiaD (2011) Youth homelessness and individualised subjectivity. Journal of Youth Studies14(7): 761–775.
25.
FarrugiaD (in press) Young people and structural inequality: Beyond the middle ground. Journal of Youth Studies. DOI:10.1080/13676261.2012.744817.
26.
FurlongACartmelF (2007) Young People and Social Change: New Perspectives. Maidenhead: McGraw Hill/Open University Press.
27.
GiddensA (1991) Modernity and Self Identity. Cambridge: Polity.
28.
JenkinsR (1992) Pierre Bourdieu. New York: Routledge.
29.
KenwayJKraackAHickey-MoodeyA (2006) Masculinity Beyond the Metropolis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
30.
LashS (1994) Reflexivity and its doubles: Structure, aesthetics, community. In: BeckUGiddensALashC (eds) Reflexive Modernisation: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Cambridge: Polity.
31.
LashS (2002) Individualization in a non-linear mode. In: Beck U and Beck-Gernsheim E, Individualisation: Institutionalised Individualism and its Social and Political Consequences. Thousand Oaks, CA and London: Sage.
32.
MacDonaldRMarshJ (2005) Disconnected Youth? Growing up in Britain’s Poor Neighbourhoods. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
33.
McLeodJYatesL (2006) Making Modern Lives: Subjectivity, Schooling and Social Change. Albany: State of New York Press.
34.
McNayL (1999) Gender, habitus and the field: Pierre Bourdieu and the limits of reflexivity. Theory, Culture and Society16(1): 95–117.
35.
MayCCooperA (1995) Personal identity and social change: Some theoretical considerations. Acta Sociologica38(1): 75–85.
36.
MythenG (2007) Reappraising the risk society thesis: Telescopic vision or myopic sight?Current Sociology55(6): 793–813.
37.
OstrowJ (2000) Culture as a fundamental dimension of experience: A discussion of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of human habitus. In: RobbinsD (ed.) Pierre Bourdieu (Volume One). London: Sage, pp. 302–322.
38.
ReayDDavidMBallS (2005) Degrees of Choice: Class, Race, Gender and Higher Education. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham.
39.
RobertsS (2012) One step forward, one step Beck: A contribution to the ongoing conceptual debate in youth studies. Journal of Youth Studies15(3): 389–401.
40.
SayerA (2010) Reflexivity and the habitus. In: ArcherM (ed.) Conversations about Reflexivity. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 109–122.
41.
SchatzkiT (1996) Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the Social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
SweetmanP (2003) Twenty-first century dis-ease? Habitual reflexivity or the reflexive habitus. The Sociological Review51(4): 528–549.
44.
ThreadgoldS (2011) Should I pitch my tent in the middle ground? On ‘middling tendency’, Beck and inequality in youth sociology. Journal of Youth Studies14(4): 381–393.
45.
WalkerdineVLuceyHMelodyJ (2001) Growing Up Girl: Psychosocial Explorations of Gender and Class. New York: New York University Press.
46.
WoodmanD (2009) The mysterious case of the pervasive choice biography: Ulrich Beck, structure/agency, and the middling state of theory in the sociology of youth. Journal of Youth Studies12(3): 243–256.
