Designing social action: The impact of reflexivity on practice

Abstract

The main goal of this article is to analyse the relationship between reflexivity and action along three axes.The first entails the discussion of a reflexive action model that explores the combination of factors, processes and mechanisms which explain the guiding role reflexivity can play with regard to practices, in specific circumstances. The second axis concerns situations in which reflexivity does not act as an orientation mechanism and may even have the opposite effect, as a source of disorientation and paralysis of practices. The third relates to the production of social change and reproduction that may arise from the exercise of reflexivity. The whole discussion points to the mediation role that reflexivity assumes in the relationship between structure and agency, i.e. in the way structural enablements and constraints are received, filtered and mobilised by subjects in the subjective definition and reflexive implementation of their personal projects.

Actors’ reflexivity and engagement in the formation of new accounting tools during university hybridization

“…At the same time, Caetano (2017) and Archer (2017) acknowledged that, while there is no direct correspondence between the two typologies, they both only partially cover individual reflexivity mechanisms, especially when it comes to heterogeneous actors. This in turn opens up the way for more empirically driven costructs of reflexivity types to be observed in particular contexts and situations (Caetano, 2015b(Caetano, , 2019.…”

“…Notably, the reflexivity concept has been extensively discussed by social theorists (for review, see Caetano, 2015a) who have developed several different theoretical constructs of modes (Archer, 2003(Archer, , 2007(Archer, , 2012 and different types of individuals' reflexivity (Caetano, 2017). While this paper acknowledges these theoretical constructs and related typifying[3], it follows recent calls to be open to the examination of reflexivity as an empirically driven construct (Archer, 2017;Caetano, 2015b, Caetano, 2019. In this regard, applying to the accounting domain, Aleksandrov et al (2018) proposed mapping so-called reflexivity forms (or multiple reflexivities) as different forms of empirically driven "internal conversations" revealed by the various actors during new accounting tools' development.…”

Multilevel Impacts of Iron in the Brain: The Cross Talk between Neurophysiological Mechanisms, Cognition, and Social Behavior

“…However, one could easily argue that cognition and behavior are framed by a multitude of psychological and social dimensions (including norms, beliefs, knowledge and dispositions, interaction context, actors’ perceptions, appraisals, expectations and motivations, among others) [122,123]. To give a specific example, one of these processes is known as personal reflexivity, which is the capacity that individuals have to think about themselves and the world, their decisions and interactions, as well as to project future behavior [124,125,126]. The authors have found diverse profiles of personal reflexivity, framed, among others, by the individuals’ social origins.…”

Reflexivity, Internal Conversation and Societal Influences on Higher Education Students’ Consideration of Values and Priorities during their Citizenship Studies

“…Agents may be strategically responsive, but not always knowledgeable in their actions or have intentional outcomes in mind (Burkitt, 2018;Caetano, 2019). In considering the usefulness of Archer's dualism of structure-agency in the higher education context, South African educationalist Williams (2012) maintained that it was not clear if university students believed they are agents and are able to act back on the structures around them to bring about changes to structures and their associated cultures.…”

“…In Archer's structure-agency-agents relationship, concerns are what people value or care about the most (Archer, 2012;Caetano, 2019). Values are concerns connected to our perception or sense of self and our preparedness to commit at some level to them and to determine action (Caetano, 2019). Values are wide-ranging including fairness, justice, reciprocity (Ahier et al, 2003), meaningfulness, satisfaction in life, and study-life balance (Coetzee & Oosthuizen, 2012), and are open to multiple interpretations.…”