ABSTRACT
All social formations are only relatively enduring, which is as true for those of modernity as any other. As their constitution and composition changes, so do the extensiveness, scope and significance of agential reflexivity. Reflexivity is defined as ‘the regular exercise of the mental ability, shared by all normal people, to consider themselves in relation to their (social) contexts and vice versa’.1 As such, it is the process through which reasons become causes of the courses of action adopted by social subjects. Their subjective internal deliberations – internal conversations – are responsible for mediating the conditional influence of objective structural and cultural factors upon social action.2 Although I maintain that reflexivity is indispensable in any social formation, it does not follow that its properties, powers or its mode of practice remain unchanging. On the contrary, reflexivity has a history – a long one – and it has a future of increasing social importance (particularly for conflict, citizenship and civil society).
