bourdieu and self-reflexive sociology

Kelleen Toohey (kelleen_toohey who-is-at sfu.ca)
Thu, 16 Nov 1995 16:24:34 -0800

I think the issue of reflexivity and social position or location is
important in our work, but for me the more critical issue for reflexivity
is being able to reflect on the nature of our discipline and intellectual
tools, and how they shape what we perceive and understand about the world.
For example, I like what
Wacquant has to say about Pierre Bourdieu's position on this matter...

[Bourdieu] is a merciless critic of what Geertz(1987:90) has nicely
>christened the "diary disease", for genuine reflexivity is not produced by
>engaging in post festum "Reflections on Fieldwork"...; nor does it require
>the use of first person to emphasize empathy, "difference" (or differance)
>or the elaboration of texts that situate the individual observer in the act
>of observation. "Rather it is achieved by subjecting the position of the
>observer to the same critical analysis as that of the constructed object at
>hand"....It is not the individual unconscious of the researcher but the
>epistimological unconscious of his (sic) discipline that must be unearthed.
>(p. 41)
>Bourdieu & Wacquant, L. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology.
>Chicago: U of Chicago Press.