ABSTRACT
In the 1970s quite a few social scientists invested considerable intellectual effort in investigating the learning, decision-making and planning capacities of the industrial welfare states (Mayntz and Scharpf 1975). In the 1980s some instead, theorized about how institutions think (Douglas 1986). By the 1990s focus shifted to how societies/modern systems reflect, while some scientists posited, but did not directly explore, human reflexivity (Beck, Giddens and Lash 1996; for a critique see Archer 2007: 41-58). Finally, in organizational studies and research on social movements, everyday reflexivity as expressed in narratives or (internal) conversation has become a legitimate object of sociological inquiry (Wiley 1994; Archer 2000, 2003, 2007 and forthcoming); Czerniawska 1997; Collins 2004; Orbuch 1997; Miethe and Roth, 2005). This text is concerned with obstacles to developing inner conversation.
