Discussing basic human needs: Insights into collective reflexivity in Global Social Policy

Abstract

This article addresses practices of collective self-reflexivity by discussing feedbacks related to an Article on basic human needs. As more people came in to provide feedback, it became more interdisciplinary and moved from a purely academic towards a more policy-oriented view. The article illustrates how scholars with different backgrounds approach an issue (basic needs) that is highly relevant for Global Social Policy. Three aspects of collective reflexivity are addressed: discussions related to internal or external boundaries of GSP; reflections on disciplinary resources, such as theories and methods; and discussions that performatively establish, preserve or undermine collectivity. Collective reflexivity of these three aspects ranged from critical and concise discussions of fundamental conceptual issues to indifference to creative application of the basic needs concept. The basic needs concept was controversial, yet at the same time the process of collectivity was productive. The article concludes by asking how collective reflexivity can be carried out so as to be progressive.

Reflexivity in global social policy: Introduction to the special issue

“…Just as Freeman, Devereux, and Bandola-Gill, Grek and Tichenor enter into dialogues across the (blurry) academia-practitioner boundary, so does the article by Bettina Mahlert (2023) touch on boundary work – in this case through zooming in on one core academic practice: writing, discussing and revising an article. Through tracing the history of her own journal article about ‘basic needs’, Mahlert unpacks some of the (sub-)disciplinary differences within GSP, and how these are related to their own respective readings of this well-known, yet controversial, concept.…”