Читать книгу Essential Concepts in Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 70

Reflexivity has become one aspect of many sociological studies, but the concept has also been adopted in other disciplines and fields of enquiry. For example, Whiting et al. (2018) drew on theories of reflexivity in their participatory video study of work–life boundary transitions. This study gave participants videocameras, allowing them to decide how best to handle the concepts that the research team asked them to focus on. This enabled participants to generate their own data about their lives rather than reproducing the conventional and unequal researcher–participant power relationship. The researchers were interested in how tensions in the three-way relationship between researchers–videocams–participants in the project were created and managed.

Participants in the research used the videocam as a ‘reflexive tool’ to create video accounts of one week in their life, thereby generating their own knowledge. In allowing participants effectively to become active researchers too, the researchers acknowledged their own relative lack of agency during the recording process. Whiting et al. (2018: 334) note that, ‘While we were encouraging reflexivity on the part of the participants to learn about their own work–life boundary transitions in a digital age, they were encouraging us to a more reflexive understanding of our own research practices.’ For the research team, adopting such a ‘relationally reflexive approach’ pushed them to consider their own underlying assumptions alongside the power relations involved in the research process.

Not all of those who adopt more reflexive research methods in their work would subscribe to Beck’s reflexive modernization theory or Giddens’s thesis of de-traditionalization. For many, reflexivity is simply part of the way they approach the job of studying society which helps them to be more aware of their own biases and theoretical assumptions. Certainly a dose of reflexivity can be healthy for researchers who might otherwise not be in the habit of reflecting on their longstanding habits and practices, as it helps to ensure they remain relevant and effective.