The reflexive subject: Towards a theory of reflexivity as practical intelligibility

Abstract

Spanish

French

This article argues for a new perspective on the meaning and implications of reflexivity for understanding subjectivity. The two dominant perspectives on the genesis and consequences of reflexive subjectivities are discussed and critiqued in terms of the way they understand the relationship between reflexivity and the wider social world. Reflexive modernisation theory is critiqued for its empty and homogeneous view of reflexivity stemming ultimately from the absence of a theory of the subject. Critical realism is critiqued for its view of reflexivity as a disembodied rationality and its hostility to any connection between reflexivity and pre-reflexive foundations for identity. Drawing on the dialogue between these theories and practice theories, this article creates a new theory of reflexivity which overturns theoretical orthodoxies viewing reflexivity and social practice as opposed concepts. Based on insights from Bourdieu and other practice theorists, this article argues for a theory of reflexivity as actualising a practical intelligibility shaped by the dispositions of the habitus. Examples from empirical literature examining the relationship between reflexivity and class inequality support a theory of reflexive subjectivity based on principles of practice theory.

Keywords

Archer Beck Bourdieu habitus morphogenesis reflexive modernisation reflexivity social practice youth

Introduction

The concept of reflexivity has become a central theoretical problem for sociological accounts of subjectivity. In different ways, theories of reflexive modernisation (as in the work of Beck and Giddens) and the increasingly influential work of critical realists (in particular that of Archer) have argued that attention to reflexivity is necessary for understanding the nature of identity, the structuring of biographies and the relationship between subjectivities and social structures. Debate about the existence and meaning of reflexive subjectivities has therefore become a site for discussion of some very fundamental sociological concerns, such as the meaning of agency and the production of material inequalities. Despite the growing literature on this topic, theories of reflexivity continue to founder on the relationship between reflexive subjectivities and the wider social environment that different subjects are embedded within. In particular, critics have argued that the concept of reflexivity promotes a vision of subjectivities produced free of social constraint, imposing a middle-class world view blind to the way in which identities are socially constructed (Skeggs, 2004). If theories of reflexivity are to make a contribution to sociological understandings of subjectivity, they must address this critique by coming to terms with the relationship between reflexivity and pre-reflexive foundations for identity that are shaped by broader social relationships. That is the task of this article.

In what follows, I argue that while reflexivity is an important concept for understanding subjectivity, neither of the perspectives noted above provide a sociologically adequate account of the relationship between reflexive practices and the social construction of identity. On the one hand, the reflexive modernisation approach has no theory of the subject, meaning that it provides no account of the way in which subjectivity is related to the social, and no insight into the means by which reflexive practices may contribute to the ongoing production of different structural relationships. On the other hand, critical realism views reflexivity as separate from and antithetical to the social construction of identity in the context of structural processes, ignoring existing evidence about the continued significance of wider structures such as class in shaping the forms of reflexivity available to modern subjects and promoting a disembodied and socially disembedded view of modern subjectivity. After this critique, the article builds on insights from practice theory to articulate a new concept of reflexive subjectivity directed at theorising the relationship between reflexive practices and the pre-reflexive foundations for identity. While many authors view reflexivity as a form of cognitive rationality, I argue for a perspective which understands reflexivity as operating according to a practical intelligibility shaped by the structural context a subject is embedded within. Whilst this perspective goes against the grain of orthodoxies which view practice theories and reflexivity as antithetical, I argue that theories of reflexivity must be based on an account of practice if they are to properly theorise contemporary subjectivities. Evidence on the relationship between reflexive subjectivities and material inequalities is used in order to demonstrate the utility of this perspective for a socially embedded theory of reflexive subjectivity.

Theories of the reflexive subject

In different ways, all theories of reflexive subjectivity aim to describe and theorise the way in which people relate to themselves. The concept captures something about work on the self – a kind of active biographical work that is an important part of identity construction and thereby provides the basis for action in the world. This section summarises and critiques each existing theory of reflexivity in turn, focusing on the way that each theory describes the genesis of reflexive subjectivities, the nature of reflexivity and the relationship between reflexivity and the social. Overall, this section argues that while both theoretical perspectives make a convincing case for the sociological significance of reflexive subjectivities, neither provides an account of reflexivity that properly theorises the relationship between reflexive practices and the social construction of identity. The following describes the foundations of reflexive modernisation and critical realism in turn, before pointing out problems with both approaches in order to lay the foundations for later discussions of reflexivity and social practice.

Reflexive modernisation

Perhaps the two authors most commonly associated with the reflexive modernisation approach are Giddens and Beck. While both position reflexivity as an important dimension of modern subjectivity, they differ on the origins, meaning and implications of this for actual subjects. However, one point of agreement across the reflexive modernisation approach is that reflexivity is an outcome of the overall dynamics of modernity. Both authors use the term detraditionalisation to theorise the processes which create the conditions for reflexive subjectivities. Detraditionalisation describes a decline in traditional or taken for granted models for identity and their replacement with an ethic of individual self-actualisation and personal fulfilment. Detraditionalised identities do not ask what the ‘right’ way to be is, but rather ask what is ‘right for them’. Examples of detraditionalisation include the decline in the significance of the traditional nuclear family, the associated division of paid and domestic labour and the traditional gendered expectations that these entailed. In the place of these traditional identities have emerged reflexive subjectivities that, at the very least, question the continued relevance of these ways of living according to how they match the individual’s search for personal fulfilment. This view of detraditionalisation can be found in both Giddens (1991) and Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2002), but the origins of this vary for the different authors.

Giddens (1991) views reflexivity as a form of individual rationality made possible by systems of technical knowledge such as the biological and social sciences (‘abstract systems’) which ‘allow the self (in principle) to achieve much greater mastery over the social relations and social contexts reflexively incorporated into the forging of self-identity’ (1991: 149). This argument has been critiqued by a number of authors (including Beck, 1994) for its uncritical optimism and view of reflexivity as a cognitive rationality and sovereign agency. Giddens’s narrative of social change has been described as a ‘teleology of self-mastery’ (Adams, 2003: 226) in which rational subjects use reason to master the world, become increasingly transparent to themselves, and thereby become emancipated from structural processes (Atkinson, 2007). In the most scathing critique of reflexivity, Skeggs (2004) argues that the concept is nothing more than an ideological fiction that imposes a middle-class world view on the entire social world and erases structural processes from sociological theory.

Beck’s views on the origins of detraditionalisation differ to this: while Giddens emphasises the power of abstract systems, Beck attributes detraditionalisation to changes in material structures and the ways of life these make possible. Beck (1997: 95) argues that the move from ‘first’ to ‘second’ modernity is a movement from a society based on stable and coherent systems of structures to a condition of structural fragmentation, heterogeneity and insecurity (such as post-Fordist labour conditions, proliferating family and household structures). In order to negotiate this environment, modern subjects are compelled to be reflexive – to work on themselves and their biographies in order to craft coherent lives in times of insecurity and rapid social change. Reflexivity for Beck is about negotiating structures. So while Beck is often uncritically represented as viewing reflexivity in the same way as Giddens (Woodman, 2009), Beck has distanced himself from these aspects of Giddens’s views:

The cognitive theory of reflexive modernisation is optimistic at its core – more reflection, more experts, more science, more public sphere, more self-awareness and self-criticism will open up new and better possibilities for action in a world that has got out of joint. This optimism is not shared by [my] theory of the reflexivity of modernity. (Beck, 1994: 177)

For Beck, ‘ “reflexive” does not mean that people today live a more conscious life’, and reflexivity is not about an increase in self-mastery (Beck et al., 2003: 3, emphasis in original). What Lash describes as Beck’s ‘ethics of ambivalence’ (1994: 201) means that rather than a latter day modernisation theory, Beck’s work has been described as a ‘counter-narrative to existing sociological accounts of modernity’ (Anais and Hier, 2012: 1). However, the view that reflexivity is not a cognitive process creates further questions that the theory of reflexive modernisation does not answer.

Beck does not provide a satisfactory answer to the question of what reflexivity could be if it is not a cognitive rationality, and this undermines the value of his work for theories about subjectivity. Lash (2002: ix) emphasises the ‘reflex’ in reflexivity, arguing that reflexivity is not about critical reflection but about piecemeal biographical planning in rapidly changing social conditions. While Beck cites Lash when emphasising the non-cognitive, ambivalent nature of reflexivity (Beck et al., 2003), he does not build it into a coherent theory of reflexive subjectivity. This is part of a wider problem with Beck’s views on subjectivity, which is that Beck’s arguments remain on the level of macro-level generalisations, lacking a theory of the subject. This means that Beck cannot give an account of the way in which reflexive subjectivities are actually related to, and grapple with, social structures. Beck is aware of this gap in his theory (2009: 207). Moreover, Beck (and reflexive modernisation theorists generally) views reflexivity as a homogeneous phenomenon. As Mythen (2007: 801) has observed, Beck ‘assumes an improbable uniformity of cultural experience [in] … Western society’ and ignores the day to day contexts which people are embedded within. This leads to the view that everyone is reflexive, and everyone is reflexive in the same way (this point is also made by critical realists discussed below, especially Archer, 2012). Together, these problems mean that while the reflexive modernisation approach makes a compelling case for the significance of reflexivity for understanding modern subjectivity, the concept remains empty. Without a theory of the subject, an account of the way that subjects relate to structures, or a discussion of the meaning of reflexivity for differently positioned subjects, the concept as articulated in the reflexive modernisation perspective is silent on the way in which subjects are differently socially embedded, and the consequences of this for reflexivity. This means that while Beck does not celebrate the kind of autonomous agency that his critics accuse him of, he nevertheless does not have the theoretical armoury to properly respond to their critiques.

Critical realism

The foremost theorist of reflexivity in the critical realist tradition is Archer, whose trilogy of books on reflexivity (2003, 2007, 2012) has made the concept central to the critical realist approach to social life. For Archer, reflexivity is an intrinsic property of the subject that is emergent from the biological makeup of human beings and their basic relationship to the world. It is the way in which human agency engages with social structures, and has a mediatory role between human agency and the social. For Archer, social structures are objectively existing but abstract properties of the social world that are present to subjects as sets of constraints and enablements. Structures are constraints or enablements in relation to the life projects of individuals: whether a given form of structural organisation is a constraint or enablement depends on the life project of the person attempting to engage with it. Life projects, in turn, are outcomes of human reflexivity. This means that for structures to be sociologically significant, it is necessary to have a concept of reflexivity. Reflexivity is a property of the subject that allows the formation of life projects, thus activating objectively existing structural and cultural forms resulting in either stasis or change in the structures, cultures and agents that make up the social world. In this sense, human reflexivity is the engine of social life: ‘no reflexivity; no society’ (Archer, 2007: 25).

For Archer, reflexivity describes ‘internal conversations’ in which a subject deliberates about their ultimate values and desires, and plans their life accordingly. It consists of a number of kinds of self-talk (e.g. ‘mulling over’ or ‘deliberating’). Reflexivity is aimed at establishing a ‘modus vivendi’, or a way of living which reflects the person’s ultimate concerns, arrived at through private internal conversations. Through internal conversation, a subject arrives at their ultimate concerns and plans ways of realising these concerns. Reflexivity is the way in which the subject agentically negotiates the world. In this sense, Archer’s view of reflexivity introduces the notion that reflexivity is not merely about ambivalence, but can also be purposive and value driven. As Giddens also emphasises, reflexivity is about the crafting of a life, and all that this entails. However, there are a number of significant problems with Archer’s work. These are: her active and explicit hostility to any suggestion that reflexive subjectivities are shaped by social structures; her disembodied and cognitive view of reflexivity; and her narrative of social change.

Archer has baldly argued that reflexive identities are not shaped by social structures, and dismisses any form of ‘social conditioning’ in the formation of contemporary identities. Any relationship between identity and class is the main target of her critiques and her claims to this effect are either theoretically problematic or demonstrably empirically incorrect. Throughout the reflexivity trilogy Archer is at pains to argue against the suggestion that class influences the kinds of identities available to different subjects. In Archer (2010) it is claimed that morphogenesis (or rapid social change) means that ‘social conditioning’ no longer has a strong purchase on contemporary identities, that family background no longer constitutes a form of transmittable cultural capital (2010: 136), and that economic capital no longer translates into cultural advantage. These rather mammoth claims are directly contradicted by a very large body of empirical work on the relationship between class, personal reflexivity and the structuring of young people’s biographies. Archer is either unaware of this work or chooses not to engage with it. Detailed empirical descriptions of the strong and continuing relationship between parental cultural capital and young people’s identities can be found in, for example, Ball et al. (2000), Walkerdine et al. (2001), MacDonald and Marsh (2005), McLeod and Yates (2006) and Kenway et al. (2006). All of these studies engage with the concept of reflexive life planning, and all show strong relationships between class and the values, desires, aspirations and plans of young people from different backgrounds. Archer’s suggestion that social conditioning and the intergenerational transmission of cultural capital no longer operates or shapes identity, is, quite simply, incorrect.

There are two other related problems with the critical realist concept of reflexivity. Essentially, when taken in the context of the narrative of social change in Archer (2012), the argument that morphogenesis leads to meta-reflexivity looks rather like a slide into the model of reflexivity critiqued by authors such as Skeggs (2004) as well as Beck quoted above, in which modernity is about more reflection, more self-awareness and more self-criticism, which opens up new possibilities for rationally fixing the world’s problems (Beck, 1994: 177, quoted in full above). Archer argues that morphogenesis means, first, that the intergenerational transfer of privilege through the shaping of identities and aspirations no longer happens and, second, that a form of reflexivity is made possible (meta-reflexivity) in which people critically reflect on the conditions of their own reflexivity, leading them to break free of existing market- or community-oriented ways of life and adopt progressive, values-oriented life plans. Moreover, since Archer views reflexivity as nothing more than private internal conversations, and will admit no structural influences into this process beyond natal continuity or discontinuity, her view of reflexivity is reduced to a form of disembodied cognitive rationality. Aside from the notion of natal discontinuity, structures have no impact on Archer’s forms of reflexivity beyond presenting subjects with constraints and enablements which are then rationally negotiated in terms of the ‘opportunity costs’ (2007: 18) of different courses of action. While Archer is at pains to distance herself from rational choice theories through an insistence on the subjective and emotive nature of reflexivity (2007: 13), her theory of late modern ‘meta’ reflexivity looks all too similar to the self-transparent sovereign individual critiqued by Adams (2003) and Skeggs (2004) cited above.¹

The problem of reflexivity as it stands

Whether reflexivity is seen as a historically specific phenomenon, or an intrinsic property of the subject, the fact remains that the project of theorising reflexive subjectivities has been made more urgent by social changes described by both reflexive modernisation and critical realism. However, as it stands, the concept of reflexivity stumbles on the relationship between reflexive subjectivities and the socially constructed, pre-reflexive foundation of identity. Reflexive modernisation theory lacks a theory of the subject, precluding proper attention to the way in which reflexive subjectivities actually engage with social structures, and views reflexivity as a homogeneous phenomenon, obscuring any differences between the meaning and consequences of reflexivity for differently positioned subjects. Archer’s critical realism reduces reflexivity to private self-talk and is actively hostile to any pre-reflexive foundation for identity, or the suggestion that reflexive subjectivities are shaped by structural processes. This places Archer’s theory in rather ambiguous territory when it comes to the question of how exactly social differences (such as material inequalities or gendered divisions of labour) are produced if they have no impact on the decision-making practices of individuals beyond presenting them with different opportunity costs for action. In the remainder of this article I argue that an adequate theory of reflexive subjectivity must include insights from practice theories if it is to have any real purchase on the social construction of identity. This involves providing a theoretical account of the relationship between reflexive subjectivities and the socially constructed, pre-reflexive foundation of different identities.

Reflexivity and social practice

Both schools of thought discussed here have addressed the relationship between reflexivity and social practice, and this has taken place mostly through engagement with the work of Bourdieu. The aim of dialogues between theories of reflexivity and Bourdieu’s work has been to address the problematic relationship between reflexivity and pre-reflexive foundations for identity, and thereby to come to a fuller appreciation of the significance of reflexivity for understanding the way in which modern identities are socially produced. This section discusses the literature on the relationship between reflexivity and social practice, again highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of this literature. This is divided into three parts: the first describes the work of Bourdieu, concentrating in particular on the aspects of his work that previous theories of reflexivity have engaged with. The second and third describe this engagement with Bourdieu’s work from critical realists and reflexive modernisation theorists in order to frame this article’s argument for reflexivity as practical intelligibility.

The article then outlines a theory of reflexivity drawing on the strengths of practice theory, demonstrating that when reflexivity is theorised from the foundations of practice, the concept can provide a sociologically powerful account of the relationship between modern reflexivity and pre-reflexive, socially embedded foundations of contemporary identities. This is accomplished through a more detailed engagement with Bourdieu’s work, as well as interlocutors of Bourdieu and other practice theories.

Bourdieu

Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus (1990b) describes the way in which identities and actions are shaped by social structures. For Bourdieu, every subject is a habitus, which is the generative principle of all of the practices available to a given subject in a given social environment. The habitus is a system of dispositions, or embodied knowledge of what is possible in different contexts. The dispositions of the habitus are both structured and structuring: they are structured in the sense that the habitus is formed through a practical engagement with the social world, and the dispositions of the habitus reflect the objectively existing possibilities available to a given subject (Bourdieu uses the term ‘field’ to describe the different systems of structures that a subject may encounter). The dispositions of the habitus are also structuring in the sense that they shape social practices, and through this contribute to the structuring of the wider social world. This is why Bourdieu gives the habitus a central place in understanding the reproduction of socially constructed differences – the habitus is structured by the social world, and contributes to its ongoing production. Bourdieu argues that the habitus generates practices on the basis of principles that are not usually available to conscious deliberation, but that because the habitus is structured by the field, it generates practices which are reasonable according to the possibilities available to a given subject. This takes place through a kind of structured creativity: embodied dispositions are capable of generating meaningful practices in any environment which the habitus can make sense of. This is how the habitus can be based on unconscious assumptions as well as generative of novel practices.

Different readings of Bourdieu’s work have been used by authors who wish to theorise the socially embedded nature of identity whilst retaining the concept of reflexivity. This is the case for authors in both the reflexive modernisation and critical realist tradition.

Critical realism and social practice

Archer’s concept of reflexivity has been critiqued by other critical realists attracted to the work of Bourdieu due to a desire to retain a stronger focus on the relationship between reflexivity and the social construction of identity. Both Sayer (2010) and Elder-Vass (2007) argue that the concept of agentic, cognitive reflexivity must be supplemented with Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus in order for critical realism to properly come to terms with the relationship between subjectivity and wider social relationships. Some of this work has focused on reflexivity and class: Sayer cites empirical work on the deeply embodied, felt dimensions of class (Reay et al., 2005) to argue that the embodied dispositions of the habitus and the internal conversations of reflexive subjects actually work in tandem. Elder-Vass draws on game metaphors to argue that Bourdieu’s habitus and Archer’s reflexivity can influence one another: conscious reflexivity can be a means by which internalised dispositions are created or altered, as in when a person trains methodically in a sport. Both of these theorists accept Archer’s concept of reflexivity as conscious internal conversation, but argue that this must be supplemented with Bourdieu’s concept of embodied dispositions to fully appreciate the unconscious aspects of personal identity.

Archer rejects both of these arguments, but her response is not satisfactory. In Archer (2010) she argues against these critiques from other realists by reducing Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus to an argument for structurally determined ‘routine action’. This is a simplistic straw man of Bourdieu’s position and more complex versions of this argument (such as Jenkins, 1992) have been problematised by a number of authors (e.g. Calhoun, 1993; Ostrow, 2000) who stress the generative nature of the habitus and the creativity of social practice. Archer does not engage with this literature, but critiques her view of Bourdieu in two somewhat contradictory ways: first, that social change has made routine action impossible, and second, that it is not how subjectivity works anyway because human beings have agency and are not merely routine actors. In ignoring the embodied, creative, generative nature of the habitus in favour of a straw man of Bourdieu, Archer ignores the contribution that both Elder-Vass and Sayer have suggested Bourdieu’s work could make. Nevertheless, arguments from Elder-Vass and Sayer have important lessons for an adequate theory of reflexivity.

Their arguments indicate two things about the relationship between reflexivity and habitus. The first is that they can influence one another. As Elder-Vass emphasises, reflexive work on the self can eventually result in new embodied dispositions. This model demonstrates that embodied dispositions can be outcomes of practices of self-discipline needed to engage with different social environments. Consistent with this, Sayer’s arguments imply that reflexive internal conversation and embodied dispositions are both at work in many kinds of social action. As Sayer emphasises, the upwardly mobile working-class students of Reay et al. (2005) reflexively searched for educational institutions that were right for ‘people like them’ – where their habitus would feel at ease. Their talk about this process reflects the dispositions of their habitus, but the nature of the education market, as well as their working-class origins, means that these dispositions must be realised in reflexive work. Both of these arguments will be returned to later after a discussion of the relationship between reflexive modernisation theories and Bourdieu.

Reflexive modernisation and social practice

There is a large literature on the relationship between reflexive modernisation and Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and field. This literature draws on Beck’s theory of social change, arguing that modernity has created social conditions too complex and contradictory to allow the smooth operation of the habitus (Bourdieu, 1990a; McNay, 1999; Sweetman, 2003). Essentially, modernity creates moments of crises, in which the difference between conditions which shaped the habitus and those which the subject confronts demands reflexivity. Moreover, while both Sweetman and McNay argue that the reflexivity that emerges from Beck’s narrative of social change is critical and emancipatory, Adkins (2002) is more in tune with Beck’s rather ambivalent discussion of reflexivity. Adkins analyses the reflexive practices of young women in a changing labour market to argue that reflexivity is not about freedom from social constraint, but rather a kind of identity work which reflects changing power relations and may lead to the creation of new kinds of divisions, classifications and hierarchies.

These arguments are all attempts to situate reflexive practices within structural logics. However, none of these theorists address the gap in Beck’s work. The reflexive modernisation literature does not give an account of the way in which subjectivity grapples with social structures. This means that while this literature observes that there are Bourdieusian arguments for the existence of reflexive subjectivities, their concept of reflexivity remains homogeneous and empty of structural content. Unlike the critical realists cited above, none open the possibility of a theoretical relationship between habitus and reflexivity. The exception is one rather enigmatic and unexplored reference in Beck (2009: 207) in which he suggests that reflexivity operates according to a ‘logic of practice’. In what remains of this article I build on this suggestion, drawing on the tenets of practice theory to argue that this must be the case for an adequate theory of reflexive subjectivity.

Reflexivity as practical intelligibility

The contemporary theoretical orthodoxy about the relationship between reflexivity and practice theories is that they describe fundamentally different things. This is why Bourdieu is brought in as a counterpoint to the cognitivist, agentic and emancipatory view of reflexivity that McNay (1999), Adkins (2002) and Atkinson (2007) see as problems in reflexive modernisation theories, and Sayer and Elder-Vass see as problems in the work of Archer. However, this literature also contains good reasons to believe that this is not the case. In what follows I draw on the dialogue between theories of reflexivity and practice theories to argue for the view that reflexivity is continuous with the dispositions of the habitus. Reflexive practices are thus not autonomous from or contradictory to dispositions. In fact, it is necessary to retain a language of dispositions in order for the concept of reflexivity to be meaningful. The two concepts can be reconciled by moving away from the idea that reflexivity is a disembodied cognitive rationality, and reconceptualising it as operating according to a practical intelligibility shaped by the embodied dispositions of the habitus.

The most widely cited author attempting to bring reflexivity and habitus together is Sweetman (2003), who argues that social change means that reflexivity has become habitual for contemporary subjects. Archer (2010) argues that this contributes nothing to theories of reflexivity, because it merely calls the practice of reflexivity a kind of habitus, and therefore ignores the difference between unconscious dispositions and conscious knowledge of them. While this critique continues to be based on Archer’s simplistic reading of Bourdieu, Archer is right that merely arguing that reflexivity is habitual does not do the work required to link the dispositions of the habitus and the practice of reflexivity. To do this work it is necessary to move beyond two theoretical orthodoxies: first is the view that habitus and disposition are about unconscious, automatic, deterministic action, and second is the view that reflexivity is a form of cognitive, disembodied rationality. Doing this work is central to practice theories, beginning with Bourdieu’s discussions of the socially embedded nature of creative practice.

In his explorations of the logic of practice of different fields (such as science [1975] and art [1992]), Bourdieu discussed the way in which changes in the structure of fields makes different forms of creativity possible. In both of these works he emphasises the importance of the relationship between the distribution of capitals, the overall structure of the field and different creative practices. These practices have different consequences for individuals and for the field. These may include the solidification of existing symbolic orthodoxies and hegemonic power relations, the subversion of the symbolic basis for the structural position of elites, or the reproduction of existing structural conditions through the day to day practices of those involved in the field (Bourdieu, 1975). Throughout these works, Bourdieu is at pains to emphasise the way that the personal and structural consequences of different forms of creative practice are outcomes of the way that schemes of perception, and the actions arising from them, are socially embedded. They are part of the operation of differently located habituses, mobilising capital in relation to local structural conditions.² Bourdieu’s interlocutors have expanded on these ideas, suggesting the socially embedded nature of reflexive practices and describing the way that socially embedded reflexivity may alter the dispositions of the habitus.

Crossley (2001) draws on the phenomenological roots of Bourdieu’s thinking to argue that reflexivity is based upon the kind of embodied practical knowledge described by Bourdieu’s concept of disposition. Crossley returns to the roots of practice theory to emphasise that the dispositions of the habitus are what allow a practical relationship to the world. Without a practical understanding of the rules of social life, we would not be able to act: through living in the world, we develop practical competencies which allow us to engage in social life, and these competencies come from our day to day involvement in it. All actions are based on a practical relationship to the world, because without it we would be unable to act at all. Crossley argues that there is no reason why actions based on reflexivity should be any different: when a subject thinks about themselves and the world, and manages their life accordingly, they must draw upon their practical sense of what is possible for them and of who they are in relation to the world. That is, they must draw upon their dispositions. Crossley’s most telling example of this is different kinds of philosophical practice which involve internalising the assumptions of a field of enquiry in order to make reflections on the field possible, and this is precisely what Bourdieu explores in his discussions of art and science cited above. In this sense, reflexivity is continuous with these dispositions – another type of action or social practice that is founded on the dispositions of the habitus. The personal and structural consequences of reflexivity must therefore be analysed in terms of the way they actualise the relationship between a habitus and the local structural conditions it faces.

This point is emphasised by Brubaker (1993), discussing the relationship between reflexivity and the structural dynamics of fields. Brubaker makes two significant contributions to creating a theoretical link between habitus and reflexivity. The first is the observation that reflexive practices are forms of creativity made available by the structural and institutional dynamics of fields. Drawing on Bourdieu (1975) cited above, Brubaker emphasises the way that reflexivity is part of the practical logic embedded within certain systems of structures, an argument that resonates well with Beck’s discussion of the way that reflexive subjectivities emerge in response to structural conditions and are oriented towards negotiating changing social environments. Brubaker’s second contribution is his observations about the way that reflexive practices may change the dispositions of the habitus. Moving beyond the training metaphors of Elder-Vass cited above, Brubaker draws on Bourdieu’s theorisation of the socially embedded nature of creative practices to argue that ‘dispositions are transformations, not simple successors, of anterior dispositions’ (1993: 221). Taken in the context of Bourdieu’s discussion of the operation of different fields, Brubaker’s arguments emphasise that the conditions for reflexivity are embedded within the logic of fields. The dispositions grounding the exercise of reflexivity are themselves socially embedded.³ Reflexive identity work may contribute to changes in personal identity as well as the wider social world, but these changes emerge from the contingent relationship between these two social processes. This lays the basis for reflexivity to be seen as actualising not a disembodied cognitive rationality which undermines the habitus, but a practical intelligibility made possible by the relationship between the dispositions of the habitus and the social conditions encountered by a given subject.

Inspired by Schatzki (1996), the concept of practical intelligibility is used here to theorise the way in which the world is made present to subjects. Practice theories, including Bourdieu’s, argue that that the conditions for knowledge about the world are to be found in the subject’s potential for practical action, as well as in the way that the world is organised. The concept of practical intelligibility describes the way a subject makes sense of the world through being embedded within it and on the basis of its practical knowledge of the social contexts it is negotiating. The concept rethinks the idea of rationality: rather than an intrinsic human capacity which looks more or less the same regardless of what a person is thinking about (as in Archer’s different categories of self-talk), practical intelligibility describes the way that the world is made meaningful in the process of acting within it: the world is made intelligible through practical engagement, and knowledge of it is constituted by embodied capacities to act within it. Actions operating according to practical intelligibility can therefore be viewed as based upon embodied dispositions – practical knowledge of the world and of a person’s place within it that vary according to the actual possibilities available to a given subject. This view is distinct to the rationality described by Archer in that it does not merely take the form of weighing of costs and benefits, but of an active appreciation of what is possible in a given social environment. As opposed to cognitive rationality, practical intelligibility describes meaningful ways of thinking and doing that are made available to the subject by the way that the social world is organised.

For both critical realists and reflexive modernisation theorists, reflexivity describes active self-reflection, and personal biographical management on the basis of an active engagement with a complex and changing social world. It is this combination of personal reflection and active practice in changing societies that has made the concept of reflexivity so significant for theoretical and empirical explorations of modern identity. However, previous theories of reflexivity have been variously undertheorised, disembodied, or asocial, making them unable to appreciate the social construction of identity, the socially embedded nature of practice and the continued importance of pre-reflexive foundations to thought and action in modernity: reflexive modernisation theory lacked a theory of the subject and maintained a homogeneous concept of reflexivity, while critical realism has been hostile to any relationship between reflexivity and ‘social conditioning’ of any kind. The notion of reflexivity as practical intelligibility solves both of these problems by providing a way in which reflexivity is seen as continuous with embodied knowledge about what is possible for different subjects.

Through a practical engagement with the social structures that shape their lives, subjects develop embodied dispositions which operate as assumptions about what is meaningful and possible. Reflexive identity work takes place beginning from these dispositions, and remains socially embedded, expressing forms of creative practice made possible through an active engagement with different structural environments. Reflexivity takes place through an active negotiation of local structural conditions. Embodied dispositions and reflexive practices are thus continuous with one another, linked together by their mutual dependence on the dynamics of fields. They may, as Elder-Vass and Brubaker have argued, influence one another, but there are always embodied dispositions at work in any form of reflexivity. To argue otherwise is to empty reflexive practices of their content and return to a sociologically unsustainable vision of reflexivity as a disembodied cognitive rationality.

Reflexivity as practical intelligibility: Examples

In order to demonstrate the utility of this perspective, this article concludes with examples from available evidence on the relationship between material inequality, identity and the structuring of modern biographies, especially those of young people. The example of material inequalities among young people is relevant for a number of reasons. The first is that the main critique of previous theories of reflexivity has been their inability to theorise the reproduction of material inequalities (Atkinson, 2007; Skeggs, 2004). The capacity to shed light on the operation of material inequalities is therefore a significant issue for emerging theories of reflexivity such as that promoted here. The second reason is that there is a large volume of empirical material which explores the interaction between youth, reflexivity and structural inequalities (Farrugia, in press; Roberts, 2012; Threadgold, 2011; Woodman, 2009), perhaps reflecting Furlong and Cartmel’s (2007) argument that the consequences of social changes described by Beck can be first seen in the lives of the young. The final reason is that, according to Archer (2012), contemporary youth are growing up in a morphogenetic society which no longer allows the intergenerational transmission of cultural capital. In response to Archer’s claim, a few examples from the field of youth sociology are provided below.

Furlong and Cartmel (2007) have argued that the modern youth period is characterised by widespread reflexive biographical work, which contributes to the continued existence of very profound material inequalities. So while Archer (2012) argues for the irrelevance of class on the basis of a sample composed entirely of university students (albeit some socially mobile), the broader literature on class and reflexivity demonstrates different forms of reflexivity oriented towards building a life in different social environments. Walkerdine et al. (2001) describe middle-class young women whose identities and reflexive biographical plans are designed to manage movements through the highly competitive educational and labour market environments required to reproduce their structural privilege. These young women are planning lives in order to live up to deeply embedded ideas of themselves as middle-class women who succeed according to very class-specific terms. The work of Reay et al. (2005) discussed earlier in the article describes upwardly mobile working-class young people searching for a university that will welcome ‘people like them’. Many of these young people are offered entry to elite universities, but choose less prestigious institutions because they feel that these will be more comfortable environments for people with their backgrounds. Walkerdine et al. (2001) also describe working-class young women engaged in constant biographical planning, but this time oriented towards the day to day struggle of surviving insecure work with no capital and no real options. This reflexivity never translates into any kind of long-term planning because there is simply no intelligible way out of this difficult situation for these young women. Farrugia (2011) describes the intense self-examination involved in the experience of homelessness. For participants in Farrugia (2011), reflexivity is about the experience of a stigmatised identity and the day to day exigencies of life on the street. Their biographical plans are the requirements for bare survival.

As argued by both critical realists and interlocutors of Bourdieu (Brubaker, 1993; Elder-Vass, 2007) reflexive practices may also alter dispositions. Examples of this can again be found in the literature on young people. Kenway et al. (2006) describe working-class young men coming to terms with labour markets consisting mostly of service industry work. These young people abandon the traditional working-class masculinity of their fathers, building identities suited to the contemporary labour market. They redefine both themselves and this work in the process. Hospitality work becomes gendered in new ways, with young people defining waitressing as a feminine occupation requiring good personal presentation, and chef work as masculine, requiring physical endurance and technical competence. Kenway et al. describe these identities as reflexive subjectivities oriented towards dealing with rapidly changing economies in a local context. This reworking of the meanings of classed and gendered subjectivities also operate according to the practically intelligible options for what is available in a given social environment: a form of reflexivity that emerges from the relationship between an existing class habitus and local structural conditions, with both being changed in ways that are connected to, but move beyond, traditional working-class identities thereby contributing to the structuring of local service economies.

Against Archer’s narrow emphasis on ‘opportunity costs’, each of these studies demonstrates that reflexivity is made up of very different feelings, thoughts, plans and practices depending on where in society a person comes from. As illustrated by participants in Reay et al. (2005) discussing the feeling of being at different universities, these reflexive identities are based on deeply embodied, pre-reflexive assumptions about the self and the world. They are outcomes of the kinds of identities and practices made available to differently positioned young people by their social environment, and reflect what is practically intelligible to the subject: what it makes sense for them to do on the basis of who they are, what they know, what they can do and where people like them belong. Reflexivity is an active engagement with the world on the basis of a practical knowledge about it. It is based on, and articulates, the dispositions of the habitus in different social environments. As Bourdieu (1990b) argues, practice is an outcome of the interaction between habitus and field. Reflexivity is part of the production of practices that contribute to the structuring of society. Reflexive practices realise the dispositions of the habitus, and may rework them when the social conditions make this option available. In all cases, reflexive practices are made up by a practical relationship to the possibilities available in a given social environment.

Conclusion

The task of this article was to provide a theory of reflexivity sensitive to the relationship between reflexive subjectivities and socially embedded, pre-reflexive foundations for identity stemming from wider social relations. Reflexive modernisation theory was critiqued for its empty and homogeneous view of reflexivity which provided no purchase on the relationship between subjectivities and social structures. Critical realism was critiqued for its disembodied, cognitive view of reflexivity and its hostility to any relationship between reflexivity and the social construction of identity. These problems were addressed by arguing that reflexivity is continuous with the dispositions of Bourdieu’s habitus, which are formed differently for people in different structural locations. Rather than a disembodied rationality, it was argued that reflexivity operates according to the logic of practical intelligibility which describes the embodied knowledge of the social world that a subject acquires through practical engagement with it. Reflexive practices are embedded within the logic of fields, and describe creative responses to local structural conditions. Examples of the way that reflexive subjectivities vary for people in different class locations demonstrate that it is vital to see reflexivity and habitus as continuous with one another in order to understand the relationship between reflexive practices and structural inequalities. With real theoretical attention to the relationship between reflexive subjectivities and social structures, the concept of reflexivity can be an important part of sociological accounts of identity, as well as the production and reproduction of structural inequality in modernity.

Footnotes

Funding

This research was supported by an Australian Commonwealth Government ‘Collaborative Research Network’ grant.

Notes

Author biography

David Farrugia is currently a CRN Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Ballarat, Australia. His research interests include youth sociology and contemporary social theory. He has published work on youth homelessness, contemporary youth inequalities and concepts of reflexivity, especially focusing on the work of Ulrich Beck. His current research concerns inequalities among young people in regional Australia, examining the nature of classed identities from the perspective of social change.

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