12 - Reflexivity

Summary

Introduction

From Sociologie de l'Algérie (Bourdieu 1958) to Pascalian Meditations (Bourdieu 2000a) and Science of Science and Reflexivity (Bourdieu 2004b) the notion of reflexivity is both at the origin and the heart of Pierre Bourdieu's work. As a methodological concept, reflexivity occupies a central role in the evolution of his work, not to say a defining one if it is to be understood within the intellectual field:

Bourdieu has been insistently pointing at the possibility of a unified political economy of practice, and especially of symbolic power that fuses structural and phenomenologically-inspired approaches into a coherent, epistemologically grounded, mode of social enquiry of universal applicability … but one that is highly distinctive in that it explicitly encompasses the activity of the social analyst who sets out to offer accounts of the practice of others.

(Wacquant, in Bourdieu & Wacquant 1989d: 26–7)

A concept is defined according to how it is understood and extended. As such, reflexivity in Bourdieu's intertwined empirical and theoretical work is the moving representation of an object through the constant (re)formulation-expression of its use and its meaning. This is accompanied by parallel illustrations of its practically-grounded scientific and epistemological relevance and significance (Bourdieu 1977b; 1988a; 1990c; 1994e; 1998c). Certain concepts gain in applicability through the extension of the way they may be understood and used – often at the cost of coherence. However, reflexivity, as defined in Bourdieu's work, has followed a different path as he has sought to explain and refine its meaning and its multiple applicability, not least in relation to its evolving environment.