What Exactly Do We Reflect on When We Use “(Self)Reflexivity” in Sociology

In recent decades, sociological techniques such as self-reflexivity and self-reflection have become buzzwords, especially in critical sociological research, as a means of accounting for and theorizing on the position of the sociologist vis-à-vis their research topic, their ontological approach to the world, and/or identities of their ‘subjects.’ The aim is commonly understood as laying bare relations of domination, or acknowledging the limitations and shortcomings of research. Even though there has been increasing focus on self-reflexivity as an integral part of the research process, sociologists frequently use the word in radically different and ambiguous ways, with meanings ranging from an offhand acknowledgement of one’s own identit(ies), to a thorough account of the context and ontological paradigms the author uses to think through the world. There is rarely any explicit discussion on what we mean by self-reflexivity and how others have chosen to apply it as a “technique” for accounting for power relations encountered in many stages of doing research.

To start conceptualizing the various ways self-reflexivity as a technique works and is related to relationships of domination, I identify the various ways in which sociologists have approached the concept. In these categorizations, the meaning of “self” also changes; for example, some forms of self-reflexivity position the ‘self’ as individual, other forms position the ‘self’ as researcher, as discipline of sociology. The aim is to lay the foundations of a terminology of self-reflexivity as a technique that would not only bring together social relations of domination based on gender, race, sexuality and coloniality together, but outlines forms of self-reflexivity that would bring together the position of the researcher with the identities of domination and concerns of epistemological and methodological de-colonization. This project contributes to building a critical social theory that unpacks the false dichotomy between theory and practice.