ABSTRACT
Reflexivity is valuable in social research because it draws attention to the researcher as part of the world being studied and reminds us that the individuals involved in our research are subjects, not objects. By being reflexive we acknowledge that we cannot be separated from our biographies. This book is a defence of reflexivity, but it also identifies issues and concerns which currently plague mainstream sociological operationalizations of a positivistic form of reflexivity in some accounts of research. It argues for the extension of reflexivity into domains otherwise neglected in public accounts, and a shift from reflexivity as an individualized quality of the researcher (used to judge peers and to naval-gaze), to a feminist, collaborative, reflexive sensibility which is (ethically) mindful of the wider contexts shaping the knower and the construction, negotiation and contestation of knowledge(s) and experience(s). Crucially, a mindful reflexive sensibility and approach seeks to avoid the pitfalls of the present positivist-version-of-reflexivity emerging in predictable reflexive accounts which focus on the latest fad. It also attends to the gap in relation to reflexivity in theory, method, and practice by drawing together scholarly work in each of these domains and providing examples of reflexivity in action.
