Abstract
Academics are increasingly being affected by work pressure with a direct impact on their mental health and well-being. This malaise in academic work can be explained by the context of the neo-liberal, performative and managerialist business school that espouses a quantophrenic, accelerated work environment. In this article, we suggest that one remedy is to create the space for academics to slow down the academic pace and dedicate time to turn the gaze upon themselves to enact academic reflexivity via dialogue with peers. We employ a relationally reflexive autoethnographic method informed by social poetics to illustrate how we worked with our own academic reflexivity. By inviting an epistemological perspective of self, field and scholastic position analysis, not commonly researched in management learning, into an ontological understanding of reflexivity, the article makes two valuable contributions. First, it illustrates how dialogues among peers can potentiate reflexive processes. Second, it provides a structured framework that support academics in inviting reflexivity into the classroom.
Introduction
The business school academic is suffering from malaise in their academic work, which can be explained by three phenomena at a social, institutional and personal level. At a social level, the business school has adopted an ideology of neo-liberal performativity, where intellectual contributions such as the amount of high-ranked journal articles, citations, H-index and one’s ability to attract external funding are being perceived as the most valuable currency in academia (Barnett, 2000; Elbanna and Child, 2023; Olssen and Peters, 2005). This has led to an institutional culture of competition and quantophrenic evaluation, where academic citizen activities and roles such as peer-to-peer mentoring, researcher community commitment, pedagogical and didactical teaching development and investing in positive societal impact are being labelled as service rather than research (DeRond and Miller, 2005; Elangovan and Hoffman, 2021; Geppert and Hollinshead, 2017; Miller et al., 2011; Taberner, 2018). This process has resulted in an extension of and shift in academic identities, thus also affected academics on a personal level. The sociological positioning of academics has shifted to give rise to a kind of entrepreneurial self that implies strong investment in a multitude of roles with the aim of marketizing and promoting the academic self, where the academic should assign primacy to the parts of the academic self that fall under the category of intellectual contributions. This intense investment in only some parts of the academic self has caught our attention, and we agree with our fellow colleagues that this has direct personal consequences on mental health and well-being of academics (Boone et al., 2022; Guthrie et al., 2018; Kinman and Johnson, 2019; Quijada, 2021; Urbina-Garcia, 2020).
Like many other professions, academia experiences an increased social acceleration brought about by the numerous activities expected of the academic (as described by Rosa, 2013), and it has changed our understanding of what it means to be an academic. In academia today, there is less time to make social connections with fellow academics, and to ponder and identify ways to enact our academic self in critical-reflexive ways. Within the context of this social acceleration of academic life, academics rarely find the time to stop, engage in dialogues with fellow academics, and consider their reflexive practices (Hibbert et al., 2019; Mavin et al., 2023; Morillas and Romani, 2022; Ripamonti et al., 2016), hence, adding to academic malaise. As argued by Mavin et al., (2023: 19), collective reflexivity is often; ‘glossed over or omitted’ even though it is identified as a significant premise to support learners’ reflexivity and to be able to thrive as an academic (Mavin et al., 2023; Morillas and Romani, 2022). In many ways, this is an oxymoron as the expectation of modern business schools is that we, as educators of future managers, play a significant role in supporting learners in developing the ethical, responsible and critical-reflexive management skills needed to tackle the societal and complex challenges organizations face today (Cunliffe, 2002b, 2009, 2016[2004], 2020; Hibbert et al., 2019; Mavin et al., 2023; Morillas and Romani, 2022; Ripamonti et al., 2016)
We suggest that this lack of academic reflexivity has severe consequences for both the individual academic, academia, and the learning spaces being offered at business schools. Thus, in this article, we attempt to pause the acceleration of academia for a moment, and slow down somewhat so that academics can dedicate some time to turn the gaze upon themselves. We propose that by engaging in critically reflexive dialogues with one another, we can become more mindful of our academic self. This is possible as we attend to our experience by giving it full and proper attention. Indeed, if we are to enact our entrepreneurial self as academics, we suggest that reflexivity is needed in order to balance the societal and intersubjective expectations that we both embody and are embedded in. Furthermore, we need to develop new ways to live in and with, and hopefully, change the academic malaise we face.
The main argument we present in this article is that in order to support learners’ ability to become reflexive, academics should also dedicate time and space to engage in the same critical reflexive processes we invite our learners to engage in. We need to practice what we preach and scrutinize the structures and incentives of academia and academics in critical-reflexive ways. By momentarily investing in our own reflexivity as academics, we can tease out, become more aware of and possibly also question the individual and societal, taken-for-granted assumptions that intuitively shape how we invite reflexivity into our academic lives. Maybe we will even be able to live in and with the academic malaise in more critical reflexive ways. Therefore, our research focus in this article is: How can academics turn reflexivity back on themselves and further potentiate reflexive processes within their academic practice?
This article follows the intra- and inter-subjective reflexive dialogues between two experienced leadership academics, Marge and Paul, from two different European Business Schools. We met at a management conference in Lisbon in 2019 while presenting in the same session of a track on ‘reflexivity in management education’. In a break-out session, we got talking about the concept of reflexivity in leadership. What started out as a dialogue on reflexive leadership and how to invite reflexivity into the classroom incrementally shifted towards how academics can turn their gaze back on themselves to achieve critical-reflexive questioning of their own taken-for-granted academic practice. We shifted our focus as we both struggled with adapting to the academic malaise, and we were looking for reflexive ways to tackle this. Thus, we started discussing how we as academics could understand the structures, doxa and nomos shaping the field and scholastic positions around academia in more critical reflexive ways.
We situate our approach within the ontological approach to reflexivity, and methodologically we apply a relationally reflexive autoethnographic method informed by social poetics (Cunliffe, 2002a; Larsen and Madsen, 2016; McNamee, 2000). We have chosen social poetics as it offers us a lens that enable us to be reflexive about how our language, styles, ways of speaking, gesturing, listening, and experiencing are embodied and play through us as we relationally construct meaning: ‘Embracing a radically reflexive stance, social poetics elevate every day, imaginative ways of talking, for example, metaphors, storytelling, and gestural statements’. (Cunliffe, 2002a: 128). A social poetics stance enables us to acknowledge how the origins of our doings and sayings lie within, between and around ourselves. Furthermore, it allows us to explore the structures, doxa, nomos; uncover academic malaise in a critically reflexive manner; and raise heightened awareness that the academic self we have developed is both embedded and embodied as well as societal and intersubjective.
As far as we know, this article is the first attempt to combine Bourdieu and Cunliffe’s approach to reflexivity in combination with academic reflexivity. By inviting an epistemological Bourdieusian (2001, 2004, 2022) perspective of self-, field- and scholastic position analysis, not commonly researched in management learning, into an ontological Cunliffean (2002a) understanding of reflexivity, the article makes two contributions. First, it becomes possible to illustrate and discuss how reflexivity entails individual, intersubjective and organizational aspects (Morillas and Romani, 2022). Furthermore, how dialogues among peers can potentiate these reflexive processes. Second, in the article, we provide a structured framework that proposes a new perspective on academic reflexivity anchored in an ontological and social poetics approach to language that can support academics in inviting reflexivity into the classroom. This framework formalizes and theoretically extends recent work by Hurd and Singh (2021: 357), with their collaborative reflexive practice that shows how a ‘critical reflexivity process can be mobilised as a pathway to self-care and well-being within academic work’. Iszatt-White et al. (2017) terms this as their ‘dialogue testimonio’ approach, which turns the lens on themselves and their experience of adopting reflexive pedagogy in a leadership development programme. Both contributions feed into the discussion on how academics can understand and live with and in an accelerated academia in more critically reflexive ways and strengthen their entrepreneurial selves as academics.
The article is structured in five parts. First, we outline Cunliffe’s (2002b) and Bourdieu’s (2001, 2004) conceptualizations of reflexivity by identifying the similarities and differences between them to present one joint understanding of academic reflexivity inspired by both scholars. Second, we unfold the radical reflexive autoethnographic method informed by social poetics that we have used to reflexively make sense of our reflexive practice. Third, we exemplify our own reflexive social poetics method through excerpts from our dialogues that illustrate our reflexive practice. Fourth, we discuss how important it is for academics to engage in critical reflexive dialogues with peers to support them in being able to not only live in and with the accelerated academic society and malaise today, but maybe also in social poetic ways be able to alter it incrementally and make more room for academic well-being. Finally, we outline our conclusion.
Bourdieusian and Cunliffean conceptualizations of reflexivity
The endeavour of this article is to turn the gaze from learner reflexivity towards academic reflexivity based on the assumption that if we are to teach future managers how to become more critically reflexive, we need to practice it ourselves. To do this, we enlist the help of two influential scholars in the field of reflexivity, namely Bourdieu (2001, 2004, 2022) and Cunliffe (2002a, 2002b, 2008, 2022). The Bourdieusian and Cunliffean understanding of reflexivity, share some major similarities and differences. First, the similarities are presented, which are followed by the differences. This leads us to a joint understanding of reflexivity informed by both the similarities and differences between Bourdieu and Cunliffe.
Similarities between Bourdieu and Cunliffe’s understanding of reflexivity
Both Bourdieu and Cunliffe have written extensively about reflexivity and in our endeavours to combine their perspectives and understandings, we have identified four similarities between their approaches to reflexivity: (1) Reflexivity revolves around questioning taken-for-granted assumptions; (2) Reflexivity is objectified and relational; (3) Reflexivity is about adopting a critical analysis of what is taken-for-granted and making explicit what is often tacit; and (4) reflexivity involves intersubjective relational interaction.
1. Reflexivity revolves around questioning taken-for-granted assumptions
Both Bourdieu (2001, 2004, 2022) and Cunliffe (2002a, 2002b, 2016[2004], 2020) hold the position that one of the pivotal aspects about reflexivity revolves around questioning the taken-for-granted assumptions to critically examine the underpinnings that shape our understanding of everyday actions. Cunliffe (2022) brings in the notion of self-reflexivity as a way to describe how a reflexive way of being means: accepting our responsibility for shaping the world and ourselves; questioning our ways of being, relating and acting – thinking about how, in our living conversations with others, our assumptions, words and responses influence meaning and help shape our understanding of organizational “realities” and identities. (Cunliffe, 2001: 87)
Bourdieu (2020; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992) argues that through self- and field analysis, we are able to identify our own biases and uncover the doxa and nomos that shape what we take for granted: ‘subjects are said to be reflexive insofar as they [. . .] possess the capacity to turn back upon and monitor their own actions’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 37). Thus, by reflexively questioning the assumptions of who we are, ‘. . . we begin to recognize our ability to change those realities’ (Cunliffe and Jun, 2005: 230).
2. Reflexivity is objectified and relational
Both Cunliffe (2002b, 2008, 2016) and Bourdieu (2001, 2004) unfold how reflexivity can be used to understand and highlight what academics take for granted often is objectified and relational. Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992: 36) argue that reflexivity is socially embedded, whereby ‘its primary target is not the individual but “the social and intellectual unconscious embedded in analytical tools and operations’ (italics in original). Cunliffe (2014: 46) presents the notion of how, through dialogues, we are able to make the tacit explicit and understand the inherent relational aspects of what is objectified: ‘It’s in our living dialogic relationships, our relationally responsive interaction, that we create meaning, make senses of what’s happening around us and work out what needs to be done’. Here she indicates that our understandings of ourselves, each other and the surrounding contexts are embodied.
In his work, Bourdieu (2001, 2004) puts a special emphasis on the notion of objectification as he argues how the subject is positioned or embedded within a social world, and this social world works in objectified ways by enabling some (but not all) sayings and doings. Thus, the relation between field and habitus and between ‘position’ (within the field) and ‘disposition’ is central to Bourdieu’s understanding of reflexivity. He believes that it is not ‘sufficient to make explicit the ‘lived experience’ of the knowing subject’ (Bourdieu, 2022: 46) but to ‘objectify the social conditions of possibility of the lived experience and, more precisely, the act of objectification’. For Bourdieu (2022), objectification means that the academic is scrutinized by turning the tools of analysis back on their academic selves. Academics can achieve reflexivity through a systematic exploration of social scientific knowledge claims by scrutinizing their own self, cultural practices and biases. The purpose of this is to ‘systematically explore the unthought categories of thought, which delimit the thinkable and predetermine the thought’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 40).
3. Reflexivity is about adopting a critical analysis of what is taken-for-granted and making explicit what is often tacit
Both Bourdieu (2001, 2004) and Cunliffe (2002b) reveal in their own way how reflexivity can be used as an analytical tool for critical analysis of what is taken-for-granted by exploring what we embody and the societal structures we are embedded in. These kinds of critical analyses enable managers, researchers and practitioners to scrutinize their own position and biases. In addition, they realize the impact of those actions on the social world they operate within and study. By pausing the instantaneous and questioning what has relationally been objectified within a given field, one becomes aware of how language and action are both generative and generating. Thus, by adopting a critical examination of what is taken-for-granted, we can make explicit what is often tacit (Bourdieu, 2001, 2004); Cunliffe, 2002b, 2014) Thus, relying on critical reflexive practices like social poetics, as suggested in this article, makes room for different ways to understand both the embodied and embedded aspects of how we act and communicate (Cunliffe, 2002a; Larsen and Madsen, 2016; McNamee, 2000).
4. Reflexivity implies intersubjective, relational interaction
Finally, both Cunliffe (2016) and Bourdieu (2004) conceptualize reflexivity as intersubjective. Cunliffe (2016) states ‘A subjectivist ontology [. . .] is based on the assumptions that we shape our social and organizational worlds in our everyday conversations and actions. [. . .]’
Intersubjectivity accepts that we are never wholly separate, that we are who we are because of our living and lived relationships with others. (Cunliffe, 2016: 742). Bourdieu (2004: 4) defines reflexivity as . . . the image sent back to a knowing subject by other knowing subjects equipped with analytical tools which may have been provided to them by this knowing subject (. . .) the aim is to provide cognitive tools that can be turned back on the subject of the cognition, not in order to discredit scientific knowledge, but rather to check and strengthen it.
Therefore, Cunliffe (2016) highlights the intersubjectivity via relational interactions, and Bourdieu (2001, 2004) emphasises the relational analysis afforded by reflexivity to ascertain the researcher position as embedded in organizational structures to uncover biases, and hence, enhance future research.
Differences between Cunliffe and Bourdieu’s notion of reflexivity
In the analysis of how Bourdieu and Cunliffe work with reflexivity, we have also identified two substantial differences regarding the two scholars understanding: (1) how individual(s) primarily constitute society or how society primarily constitutes individual(s) and (2) whether reflexivity is understood from an ontological or an epistemological stance.
1. Does society constitute the individual(s) or vice versa?
Cunliffe’s work (Cunliffe, 2002b, 2016, for example) often occurs in management and organizational settings with the aim of looking at how reflexivity can impact management practice, leadership and organizational learning at an intra- or inter-subjective level. Thus, the primary phenomenon under study in Cunliffe’s work is how individuals constitute society intra- and inter-subjectively (Cunliffe, 2002a, 2002b, 2009, 2016[2004], 2022). Furthermore, she analyses how individuals by being critically reflexive can change and develop society incrementally by altering their own sayings and doings. Therefore, her interest lies in how individuals embody understandings that can be scrutinized in a critically reflexive way and possibly altered. Alternatively, Bourdieu’s (2001, 2004, 2022) work focuses more on sociological research, on how researchers can utilize reflexivity within a society that constitutes individual(s): ‘to buttress the epistemological security of sociology’. (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 36, italics in original). He also unfolds how individuals are embedded in societal structures that lead to objectified contextual boundaries. Following his approach, it becomes obvious how challenging such a scrutinizing process is for individuals to become aware of and even more challenging to alter. The overall purpose with this focus is to support individuals in realizing how society in often tacit and taken-for-granted ways shape individuals through doxa, nomos, habitus and accepted doings and sayings. Bourdieu (2001, 2004, 2022) argues that this kind of knowledge will enable the individual to act more critically reflexive towards society and increase the scope and the solidity of social scientific knowledge. Hence, overcoming their inherent bias in their academic position.
2. Reflexivity understood from an epistemological or ontological stance?
The second difference we want to present and that is quite significant for the approach to academic reflexivity we outline here is how Cunliffe has an ontological perspective on reflexivity, whereas Bourdieu presents an epistemological perspective. Ontologically, Cunliffe (2002a) argues that language constitutes social realities and identities. Language is generative, social, subjective, intersubjective, always in flux, plays through us as rhythms and gestures that evoke verbal and emotional responses. Thus, reflexivity, self-reflexivity and critical reflexivity are embodied ways of being in the world where the generative and generating aspects of our sayings and doings become apparent and possible to alter through for example social poetics. Epistemologically, Bourdieu (2001, 2004, 2022) argues that humans are subjects acting in fields where certain sayings and doings are embedded in the field, and a reflexive stance can be used epistemologically to make tacit nomos, doxa and habitus explicit. Thus, for Bourdieu, reflexivity is an epistemological practice academics can engage in to become aware that they are embedded in specific doings and sayings.
The difference between an ontological and epistemological perspective anchoring is quite significant. An ontological anchoring underlines that academic reflexivity is key to not only understanding the academic malaise and academic self we scrutinize in this article. It also makes it apparent that we as academics can change both the embedded and embodied, societal and intersubjective through intra- and inter-subjective critical reflexive dialogues. Thereby, potentiating reflexive processes. An epistemological anchoring enables academics to use reflexivity to become aware of how their understanding and actions are shaped by doxa, nomos and structures. However, from an epistemological stance, the ability of academics to do more than just be aware and critical of this is limited. This difference can be strongly highlighted if we evaluate the different ways Bourdieu and Cunliffe understand ‘Objectification’. As presented above, for Bourdieu, academics are able through epistemological objectification to turn the tools of analysis back on themselves to achieve a more reflexive understanding of the academic self and academic malaise they experience. Alternatively, for Cunliffe, objectification is understood as ontological processes where academics through reflexivity become aware of how they, through their doings and sayings, relationally objectify some understandings of their academic self and their academic malaise. Thus, as the objectified understandings are relationally constructed, they can be altered through other doings and sayings.
A joint understanding of reflexivity
The joint understanding of reflexivity we propose is anchored in the four similarities between Bourdieu and Cunliffe informed by the notion of how society and individuals both shape and are shaped by each other anchored in an ontological approach to reflexivity. Thus, by combining Cunliffe’s (2014) notion of reflexivity with that of Bourdieu’s (2001, 2004, 2022), we have provided ourselves with a framework that enables us to scrutinize how academics can turn reflexivity back on themselves to further potentiate reflexive processes within the academic spaces. Reflexivity implies challenging one’s assumptions and beliefs (self-reflexivity) and focusing on the self in various contexts to ascertain how the self is constructed, how one behaves and how one is (critical reflexivity) (Cunliffe 2014; Shotter, 1993). By jointly and reflexively exploring, questioning, unfolding and dialoguing both the intersubjective and contextual conditions for how we invite reflexivity into our academic lives, we can support each other in recognizing the multiple perspectives and possible ways we can potentiate learner’s reflexivity: ‘Critical reflexive learning can be reached by changing the doxa that supports the established order’ (Morillas and Romani, 2022: 14). Inspired by Bourdieu (2001, 2004, 2022) and Morillas and Romani (2022), we suggest that besides the strength of this individual, agentic reflexivity, we must also consider the social dimension, namely the accepted social, cognitive and emotional taken-for-granted presuppositions, systems, practices, positions and disposition, and the need to explore these from a critical reflexive stance. Therefore, inviting Bourdieu’s (2001, 2004, 2022) notion of reflexivity into the exploration of academic reflexivity is relevant. It is at the core of Bourdieu’s reflexive approach that we also need to acknowledge how the relationship between our academic habitus or self, field or area of inquiry, ‘position’ and ‘disposition’ confines and enables reflexivity as we figure out how to navigate reflexivity in our academic life. Furthermore, Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) uses the metaphor of ‘the game’ as he unfolds how the academic community and life consist of doxa, nomos, positions, prepositions and certain sayings and doings that constitute the contextual settings and boundaries for what is privileged, prioritized, marginalized and left out within academia. Thus, by informing the ontological anchoring of reflexivity suggested here, we can explore the academic self via a structured framework that addresses how what we take for granted and how we act as academics is both embedded and embodied, societal and intersubjective.
The framework below is a suggestion as to how to combine Bourdieu and Cunliffe’s perspectives on reflexivity by operationalizing Bourdieu’s (2001, 2004) understanding of reflexivity as an examination of the ‘epistemological unconscious’ and ‘social organisation’ of the discipline or area of inquiry through three tenets (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 40). In this article, the three tenets are used to explore academic reflexivity through dialogues to potentiate reflexivity among academics in three ways; (1) for academics to better understand their academic self; (2) for academics to better understand and alter the academic malaise they live in, and; (3) to use intra- and inter-subjective dialogues to potentiate reflexive processes in the classroom. However, we suggest that the framework presented can be used outside this context to scrutinize other organizational phenomena by any academic who is interested in engaging in intra- and inter-subjective dialogues from a critically reflexive stance (Hurd and Singh, 2021; Iszatt-White et al., 2017).
The first tenet is self-analysis with an emphasis on the academic’s location within social space. This tenet enables us to determine the academic’s trajectory and position within the field based on social origins. Bourdieu (2001, 2004); believed that the subject was full of biases, and hence, needed to become aware of those biases in order to achieve objectification, which ‘calls into question the charismatic representations that intellectuals often have of themselves, and also their propensity to think of themselves as free from all social determinations’ (Bourdieu, 2022: 51). This self-analysis can generate an account that can be subjected to further social inquiry and scientific debate. This first tenet is how reflexivity bears some resemblances to Cunliffe’s (2022) approach to self-reflexivity as we are invited to acknowledge how our sayings and doings and ways of being in the world are socially constructed and constitutive ontologically through language.
The second tenet is field analysis with an exploration of the relational position within the specialist field. This tenet interrogates the academic’s position within the ‘microcosm of the academic field’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 39), ‘this autonomous social world, within which agents fight for stakes of a quite particular kind and obey interests which can be [perfectly] disinterested in another respect’ (Bourdieu, 2022: 53). The aim here is to uncover the doxa (i.e. the fundamental, taken-for granted, internalized set of practices, beliefs and norms) and nomos (the articulation of those beliefs) (Bourdieu, 1977). Because academics are relationally positioned within their field of practice and this position determines their situated viewpoint, they only have a partial view of the field or as Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) calls it – the game. Therefore, by involving academics from different fields into the reflexive practice and dialogue, we can gain a more nuanced view of the game of academia and academic malaise. Based on this kind of uncovering, academics can develop new ways to invite reflexivity into the classroom. This second tenet of reflexivity is associated with Cunliffe’s notion of critical reflexivity, where we turn our gaze towards the external environment and our constitutive role in it (Cunliffe and Jun, 2005; Hibbert et al., 2019). However, in this tenet, the epistemological and ontological differences between Bourdieu and Cunliffe become apparent – where Bourdieu assigns primacy to how the field inhibits the subject, Cunliffe assigns primacy to people’s responsive and engaged action with others and self. Thus, what we understand as the field emerges from people’s sayings and doings and how they are in the world.
The third tenet is scholastic position analysis, which concerns the specular perspective that academics develop when analysing the social object. The aim here is to enable greater discovery of the scholastic point of view, the academic’s ethnocentrism, which stems from the very posture of a scientist. It consists in ignoring everything that makes the difference between theory and practice, and to project into the description and analysis of practices the representation that the analysts can have of themselves because they are outside the object and observe it from afar and from above. (Bourdieu, 2022: 54)
The academic’s position as external observer creates an ‘intellectualist bias’, that results from viewing and analysing the world as a spectacle, hence possibly missing the practical dimension. Cunliffe (2002b) also touches upon this dimension of reflexivity as she argues for the need to ‘recognise the moments of opportunity for reflective and reflexive dialogue; where we begin to “think about thinking itself, about the categories in (our) heads and the categories (we) impose upon the world”’ However, where Bourdieu perceives the scholastic point of view from an epistemological stance, Cunliffe does it from an ontological perspective arguing that institutionalized and objectified ways of speaking and acting are embedded in the individual, organization and culture. Thus, we need to be critically reflexive in order to change them one dialogue at a time (Cunliffe, 2002b). By reflexively exploring the academics’ position in the scholastic universe, it becomes possible for us to explicate how the institutionalized ideologies and practices we embody and take for granted, legitimate some views on the world and ways of inviting reflexivity into learning spaces at the cost of others (Morillas and Romani, 2022).
As we combine Bourdieu and Cunliffe’s approach to reflexivity, we can illustrate and discuss how reflexivity entails social, institutional and individual levels. Therefore, we can focus on the double role of reflexivity being both constituting and constitutive and how we, as academics, can enact reflexivity to potentiate the ways we invite reflexivity into the classroom. Here the three tenets reveal how as academics we are embedded in social norms, doxa and structures that we with time have embodied and objectified. However, as the tenets are informed by an ontological anchoring, we are able to develop awareness of how these constructs are intersubjective through intra- and inter-subjective dialogues about our self-, field and scholastic universe analysis,. Thus, we can reflexively scrutinize and possible also alter our academic self and how we live with and in an increasing accelerated, academic malaise.
Methodology
Relational reflexive autoethnography informed by social poetics
In this article, we apply a relationally reflexive autoethnographic method (Chang et al., 2012; Denzin, 2013; Ellis and Bochner, 2000) informed by social poetics that draws on our own experiences as academics while analysing our reflexive practice. We initiated a dialogue and intentional conversation that would enable us to develop a relationally critical-reflexive theory that can support fellow academics in adopting a reflexive approach in their classroom settings. The relational reflexive autoethnographic method is informed by social poetics that is an ontologically anchored approach to dialogues where it is acknowledged that: ‘We create our social realities, meanings, and selves in embodied and situated dialogue’. (Cunliffe, (2002a: 128). Thus, social poetics enable us to explore language to highlight relationally engaged dialogic experience, which is what we set out to do in this article. For Cunliffe (2002a: 133), social poetics embraces a radically reflexive ontological approach that ‘ . . . draws attention to the embodied nature of intra-linguistic practices and their impact on our sense-making and reality-constituting activities’. By inviting a social poetics perspective into our intra- and inter-subjective dialogues, we urge ourselves to explore the inherent nature of social poetics; to create, to imagine, multiple possible ways to make sense and move forward: Cunliffe (2002a: 133) asks: ‘How we come to know, be, and act in the world is both created in, and a product of, our responsive engaged action with others and self, that is a way of relation in talk (dialogic)’. It is at the interplay and tension between voices, sense-making and arresting moments that many possibilities arise through the ‘ways of talking, for example, metaphors, storytelling, and gestural statements’ (Cunliffe, 2002a: 128) of lived experiences of academics within their language collective, that is, our own repertoire of academic speech that influences how we write and speak. The focus is on the language used, styles, ways of speaking, experiencing, constructing meaning – they are embedded in the individual, the organization and cultural ways of talking. And since meaning is created uniquely in every situation, we also have the possibility to construct other meaning, act differently. Furthermore, incrementally shape what is embedded and embodied, as well as reobjectify the norms, doxa and structures that surround us. Social poetics seeks connections within our individual contexts, between ourselves and others and between our actions and sense-making and ‘emphasizes a practical, involved understanding’ (Cunliffe, 2002a: 134) of talk.
We suggest that connecting the concept of social poetics that ‘attempts to embrace and enact a dialogic approach’ (Cunliffe, 2002a: 129), whereby ‘potent dialogical practices, creating vivid images, immediate reactions and embodied responses leading to arresting moments in which possibilities arise for constructing shared significance’ (Cunliffe, 2002a: 137/8) with a relational reflexive autoethnography is meaningful. Autoethnography is research that displays multiple layers of consciousness, connecting the person to the cultural. Back and forth auto-ethnographers’ gaze, first through an ethnographic wide-angle lens, focusing outward on social and cultural aspects of subjective experience; then, they look inward, exposing a vulnerable self that is moved by and may move through, refract and resist cultural interpretations. (Ellis and Bochner, 2000: 739)
Holman Jones (2005: 765) suggests that autoethnography is setting a scene, telling a story, weaving intricate connections among life and art, experience and theory, evocation and explanation [. . .] and then letting go, hoping for readers who will bring the same careful attention to your words in the context of their own lives.
Autoethnography enables academics to collaborate to go beyond individual storytelling and reflection and embrace collective sharing and interaction as well as detailed analysis and theoretical interpretation of academic experience. Thus, a relational reflexive autoethnographic method informed by social poetics enable us to explore our own sayings and doings as academics from an intra-, intersubjective and social stance. In this process, we are not only able to understand the embedded and embodied aspect of the academic game, but also identify ways to alter it.
Engaging in intra- and inter-subjective dialogue
Like Hibbert et al. (2014) and Hibbert et al. (2019), we have sought to develop theory based on a relationally reflexive process of successive cycles of conversations and interpretations. Since our first meeting back in 2019, we have been involved in a long line of social poetics in our attempts to make explicit what we take for granted; our sayings and doings; doxa and nomos; relational position within our specialist field; and the objectified understanding of the academic self and academic malaise from a critical reflexive stance. Below is one example of how we engaged in intersubjective dialogues about our intra-subjective reflexivity. The excerpts stem from a written dialogue back in 2020, where we discussed: ‘How can we invite students to review, discuss and question their philosophical beliefs, practices and political interests?’ In the excerpts, Paul’s comments, which were added in the comment section of Microsoft Word, are inserted in between Marge’s response to the question to illustrate how the intersubjective dialogues informed and potentiated the intra-subjective academic reflexivity.
“To build on what we have previously discussed and corresponded about, I would like to add something a friend said to me today as we talked about what theory can do to practice. The way we sometimes include theory in discussions can unintentionally support a reflective process, where we use theory and philosophical beliefs to distance and take ourselves out of the specific conversation to explore the situation more objectively and from the “outside”.
To this Paul made the following comment in the document:
‘I think that this idea of distancing is key, whether it is through theory, via writing, drawing, using metaphors, discussing, etc. This dimension of distancing is an underpinning idea, I believe. This relates to Bourdieu’s ideas of objectifying. Maybe we should consciously try to objectify the manager/students to enhance reflection and reflexivity’.
Marge continued:
‘However, by doing that we create an objectified organizational reality where all the intra-and intersubjective issues that actually created the situation is taken away. If you take out the people and relations you take away the nerve, pulse and life in every situation. You take yourself out of the equation and that changes the situation entirely. If a reflective and objectified analysis is what is prioritized, this is fine, but if a reflexive questioning of philosophical beliefs, practices and political interests is what we seek, we need to support managers in keeping themselves within the situation’.
To this paragraph, Paul made the following comment:
‘I guess the question then is how can you objectify and then ensure that the manager/student re-appropriates the self to relive the situation/context to assess their position within the social space they are talking about, their own relational position within that field and how theory can help’.
Marge continued:
‘For us as faculty that would mean that we keep our theoretical landscape in the back of our heads and draw upon it as we invite managers to become reflexive about their arresting moments. BUT we engage in dialogues where we transform philosophy into everyday language’.
Paul commented this by writing:
‘Essentially, we, as faculty, have to downplay the theoretical frameworks and not fall into the “lecturer mode” and possibly use theory to help the manager structure their practice rather than presenting the theory as the manager may see the presentation of theory as a “kind of solution” to the critical arresting moment and not take the time to reflect on the critical incident’.
Marge’s last part of the response was:
‘Furthermore, hang on to our constant urge to engage in social poetics where questions that open up for new and unknown perspectives are explored instead of seeking closure through answers’.
Paul responded to this in the following way:
‘Here, I would suggest a coaching approach that incorporates various dimensions such as questions, goals, objectives, feedback and feed-forward, etc’.
The intention with presenting a bit of the written dialogue between us is twofold; First, it illustrates how the intersubjective dialogues between us enabled us to reflexively explore different perspectives on our embedded and embodied ways of inviting reflexivity into the classroom. The dialogues made it possible for us to use social poetics to potentiate the different ways we could invite reflexivity into the classroom. Second, even though we appreciate the result of the above, it also illustrates how experienced we are with turning our gaze on learner’s reflexivity. It is engrained in our self-, field and scholastic position analysis that what we as academics primarily work with reflexivity when it revolves around our learners. However, when trying to turn the gaze towards academic reflexivity and wanting to reflexively work with understanding and altering the academic self in the accelerated academic malaise we live in, we lack experience.
Thus, with the empirical data we present, we illustrate how we created a safe space that enabled us to shift focus from learner to academic reflexivity. Furthermore, slowly embark on being better at practicing what we preach even when this was a vulnerable process. Initially our written and oral dialogues were, like fellow researchers (Hibbert et al., 2022; Hibbert et al., 2019; Mavin et al., 2023; Morillas and Romani, 2022), rather unstructured and anchored in a shared passion for the concept of reflexivity with an emphasis on learner reflexivity. However, we quickly embarked on a more structured exploration of academic reflexivity via iterative intra-subjective stories about abstract and concrete concepts and intersubjective discussions from a critical reflexive stance. This ethnographic exploration consisted of three phases:
The first phase of our research involved, as the excerpt above illustrates, sharing intra-subjective stories by crafting texts separately by eliciting different didactics related to how we each supported learners’ reflexivity and discussing these intersubjectively. This phase was anchored in a shared interest in supporting learners’ but also a curiosity towards our own reflexivity.
The second phase was characterized by online intersubjective dialogues and commenting on each other’s intra-subjective stories. In this phase we analysed, questioned and critically explored how and why we each had chosen specific didactics. Furthermore, we shared our own reflections regarding these choices. This process was to a large degree inspired by a social poetics stance, where we jointly worked with unfolding, questioning and pondering on how we in both shared and different ways played the academic game (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). In this process, we re-engaged with the established literature around reflexivity and social poetics to structure our dialogues and tease out the different didactics we used. Thereby, we became aware of the wealth of these dialogues as it supported and strengthened our notion of our own location within the social space, the relational field position and our position within the scholastic field. We also became aware of how vulnerable such dialogues were as it became apparent to us that we are not accustomed to turning the gaze towards ourselves and sharing such personal experiences.
In the third phase of the research, we structured our dialogue via the analytical framework presented in this article. It was in this process that our focus really shifted from learner to academic reflexivity. We moved from sharing specific didactics to engaging in more critical reflexive questioning of our own bias, doxa and nomos and started not only thinking about what and how we taught but also about thinking in itself; hence, revealing the relational self of the narrator (Gubrium and Holstein, 2008) and embodying the richness of academic reflexivity.
Academics in dialogue
Before embarking on the three-pronged (self-, field and scholastic-position) analyses, it is worthwhile to mention that the purpose of showcasing parts of our intra- and inter-subjective reflexive dialogues is to illustrate how these processes enable us to start practicing academic reflexivity from an ontological stance. Through social poetics dialogues focusing on our self-, field and scholastic position analyses, we created a safe space to support each other in understanding and making explicit the academic selves and malaise we are embedded in and embody. Furthermore, we use these dialogues to potentiate the reflexive processes between us and support each other in reflexively and relationally rework our academic selves and the malaise we live in, one conversation at a time (Cunliffe, (2002b).
Self-analysis
Embarking on an initial introspective journey unfolds the intra-subjective stories each of us embody that shapes our academic trajectory. The initial phase of questioning focused on teasing out and making explicit what is taken-for-granted. This is illustrated by how the reflexive questioning uncovers assumptions (critical thinking for Paul; not knowing position for Marge), biographies (interdisciplinary prior education and research focus for Paul; paternalistic upbringing that prohibits control for Marge), academic identities and signature (critical leadership studies and pedagogy for both authors). We start the self-analysis with an example of intra-subjective reflexivity from Paul:
‘I teach and expect learners to be critical of all theories that are presented to them. Now that you have understood it, break it down, what are the assumptions behind this theory, whom does it serve, why it exists, etc. Do not take theory for granted because it is established and cited everywhere. Deconstruct, demolish, rebuild if need be, just don’t take it for granted. That way learners start to question everything. For example, we study Michel Foucault’s vision of surveillance, how power is institutionalised, how we shape reality, etc. We look beyond leadership studies per se to analyse philosophical and sociological considerations and question the “why of things”. I guess this interdisciplinary focus comes from my own trajectory as an academic/researcher as I work across various disciplines such as linguistics, management, culture and psychology in my teaching; and accounting, marketing and international business in my research interests, which affords me an inter-disciplinary vision of leadership scholarship that I value and espouse for the learner’.
Many of the personal values and beliefs Paul expresses here stems from his social origin, which has enabled him to embody an objectified understanding of what it means to be an academic with a coherent and relatively stable identity inviting reflexivity into the learning space (Bourdieu, 2001, 2004, 2022). Through intra-subjective scrutiny, Paul is invited to challenge his thinking on why he adopts an inter-disciplinary approach: ‘I guess this interdisciplinary focus comes from my own trajectory as an academic/researcher’. As Paul shares this with Marge, he achieves a greater understanding of his own academic self and becomes aware of how his need for inviting criticality into the learning space is embedded in his sayings and doings. In this way, Paul’s reflexivity makes the intra-subjective accounts become an object for further social inquiry. The objectification of the experience leads to an acknowledgement of how this kind of inter-disciplinary focus could mean that Paul is spreading himself too thin in his quest to provide students with complexified management practice examples.
The following excerpt illustrates how intersubjective dialogues can potentiate reflexivity among both Paul and Marge as they engage in a joint self-analysis. The excerpt revolves around how using reflexive journals to support learners’ reflexivity outlines Pauls’ need for control:
‘As regards my approach to teaching, I think the process needs to be structured for undergraduates. However, I realise that this is also one of my assumptions as an academic and it is by working with a colleague on the preparation of a leadership class that I realised that I need structure, whereas others are more open to letting the students figure out how to review, discuss and question for themselves. The first time I created a learning journal for students, it was a very closed structure. All the questions I wanted students to ask themselves were recorded in the journal with zero space for students to write down their own learnings. This has however evolved for me, and I now have a learning journal that is just a moleskin notebook. Students are free to create their own journal but as I write this, I think that this also is a framework that I have “imposed” on students. Maybe, some students would like to use alternative methods to record (or not) their own private notes. For me, it is about losing control of the journaling that frightens me slightly as this is a black box for a teacher. We have to trust the process and that is not always an easy task’.
As Paul’s wording clearly indicate, these kinds of intersubjective dialogues are sensitive: ‘For me, it is about losing control of the journaling that frightens me slightly as this is a black box for a teacher’. To move forward there is a need for a safe space, and therefore, Marge invites Paul into exploring some of the central concepts he mentions like ‘structure’ and ‘control’ from a social poetics stance to identify new ways to move forward. Below Marge invites a different understanding of control into the dialogue to potentiate reflexivity. What is also interesting in the excerpt below is that as Marge unfolds her practice, she becomes aware of how this practice is related to her social origin and paternalistic upbringing:
‘I am in a constant “not-knowing” (Anderson and Goolishian, 1992) relation with the learner in front of me, and if any of us should be able to engage in value-creating and reflexive conversations with each other, we are both utterly dependent on a joint effort. The learner and I both have to work on creating the trust that will enable us to bridge theory and practice, explore different perspectives and reach an understanding that enables the leader to act in sustainable ways. To get to know the leader in front of me, I have spent a lot of time learning to lose control and understand that I need to prepare myself to come unprepared – meaning, I will have to listen, be curious and pay attention to all the verbal and nonverbal signals being created among the learner and myself if I ever hope to raise a relevant question. I invite the learner into a learning experience that will enable the leader to explore different perspectives, try to resonate with other perspectives and engage in reflexive processes. Maybe it is the outcome of growing up in a very paternalistic family, where there was only one “right” understanding, and it never made sense to me. Not then and not now. Maybe using this approach and asking questions instead of presenting answers is the quiet rebel within that refuses to accept that anyone is privileged or entitled to articulate how others feel. I believe questions trigger reflexivity and curiosity differently than answers do. However, it also makes me think that sometimes I am confronted with learners or colleagues who find it odd that a professor raises questions rather than presenting answers. Maybe this is an undeliberate way of changing the game . . .’
As Paul and Marge jointly explore different ways to potentiate reflexivity through social poetics, they become aware of how their sayings and doings in the classroom are connected to their social origin. The intra- and inter-subjective self-analysis Marge and Paul engage in makes it possible for them to objectify and in social poetic ways explore what they each embody: a fear of losing control regarding learner reflexivity (in Paul’s case), and how a paternalistic upbringing influences how reflexivity is invited into the classroom (in Marge’s case). The issue of control is important here as Paul vacillates between controlling or not controlling learners and the fact of losing control of journaling paralyzes Paul as he feels it bodily, while Marge asserts clearly a ‘not knowing’ position that is more maturely justified in paternalism and reified in psychological theories. The joint self-analysis makes it obvious to Paul and Marge how their way of working with learner reflexivity is connected to their biographies, key assumptions, values, beliefs and social origin. A process that leads to a greater self-awareness for Paul and Marge as they come to realize that they, through social poetics, can imagine and develop other meaningful ways to move forward. Finally and more importantly, by engaging in this shared, self-analyses of their academic self, Paul and Marge feel less alone in their academic malaise. They remind each other that they are able to relationally responsively use social poetics to invite multiple different ways to enact their entrepreneurial self into academia.
Field analysis
The purpose of the field analysis provided here is to illustrate how Marge and Paul used the dialogues between them to investigate their position within their respective institutions and field of inquiry. Through their intersubjective dialogues about their respective fields, they develop greater awareness on how they see themselves within their disciplines. As with the self-analysis, we start with an intra-subjective example of a field analysis. In the mail to Paul below, Marge shares a teaching experience where she must change her doxa and nomos and position herself differently:
‘I am a professor at the same business school where I took my master’s degree. It is a business school that prioritises close collaboration with practice and informal relationships between educators and learners. I am aware of the power relationships between me and the learners, but always rely on a pedagogical approach where the students’ have been given the freedom of choice regarding their opinions of philosophy of science and theoretical perspectives as we are fellow learners. Furthermore, written assignments during the courses have been voluntary and an invitation to the learners. However, during one Spring master’s course, I experienced that the number of written assignments decreased as the course developed, and this struck me because I had not experienced that before. I made a mid-term evaluation of the course with the masters’ students, and during that process, several of the groups expressed that the written assignments had been a meaningful possibility for them to reflect and be reflexive regarding the theoretical themes we had covered during class and become more aware of their own perspectives and taken-for-granted assumptions. However, they asked me to make the assignment mandatory rather than voluntary. This initiated a discussion about positional and personal power and the objectified discourse we jointly developed during that midterm evaluation challenged what I have always taken-for-granted and invited me into questioning how I invite reflexivity into the classroom. And what I took away with me and pondered about subsequently was how I had to revisit and change my way of inviting reflexivity into the classroom if I genuinely wanted to achieve what I aimed for. It challenged what I took for granted and in a paradoxical way put me in a different “not-knowing” position, where I and the students had to gesture and respond in different ways if we jointly wanted to create a learning space where the students could be as reflexive as we both found meaningful’.
Marge unfolds how her taken-for-granted and tacit assumptions were challenged, hence plunging her into reflexive questioning on how she invited reflexivity into the classroom. The field she had been socialized into as a postgraduate at the same university (essentially her academic upbringing) rendered certain doxa and nomos as taken-for-granted. Student feedback invited Marge to question and alter her stance by changing her sayings and doings to potentiate the learners’ reflexive processes. What became obvious to Marge was that certain, taken-for-granted assumptions about the student-teacher relation were embedded in the field and taken-for-granted on the societal level, and Marge had to respect these – at least in the short run–if she wanted to support the students in working in reflexive ways. An acknowledgement that might not have surfaced if Paul and Marge had not been engaged in intra- and inter-subjective dialogues about academic reflexivity.
The following excerpt is an illustration of how intersubjective dialogues between Paul and Marge invited Paul into scrutinizing an experience he had as he travelled to Denmark to teach a class as a guest lecturer in one of Marge’s modules. During the class Paul taught, he experienced several of his doxa and nomos being challenged, and this was an experience that led to several dialogues between the authors on the importance of the field where the academic game is played. During the class, Paul was instinctually struck by the design of the learning space, which being so different from his home institution, hindered him in playing the away game:
‘What I have always appreciated within my faculty in my business school and indeed across the business school in general is the consideration and importance given over to the type of learning space based on the learning aims and objectives, the material dimensions and dispositions of the learning space and the size of teaching groups. Faculty discuss the learning space in faculty meetings. This is imperative to me as when teaching leadership, the learning space and the room setup affords interaction, collaboration, serious play, creation of collective wisdom and knowledge sharing. Students are extremely active within this space as they work through the various theory and practical exercises at their group tables, with other groups and with me. When I taught in Denmark, I was struck by the design of the room (an elongated rectangular classroom with rows of fixed immovable tables and chairs with a central teacher’s desk and two green boards on either side). I felt impeded in my movement, the students all eyes on me facing forwards sitting in rows waiting for instructions and to be led; the students were silent unless called upon. I felt paralyzed and extremely restricted even constrained by the space. Much that I usually take for granted as I teach was challenged and I was not able to fore-see what would happen and how the students would react’.
Paul was struck by the difference in design of the learning space between the business school in France and in Denmark. Taken-for-granted doxa and nomos from two different fields clashed and it made Paul become aware of how significant the physical environment where reflexivity is invited into the classroom is. For Paul, the learning space has a dialectical dimension (Foucault, 1980) that incorporates concerns regarding representations, symbols, materiality and performativity. Thus, the physical space can accommodate or hinder learning outcomes. For Marge and Paul this became a striking moment where they realized how they both were socialized into fields and institutions. Furthermore, they had stopped questioning how the learning spaces they inhabit, have a practical and embodied dimension both symbolically and materially to enact a certain learning performance (Lefevbre, 1991). By inviting social poetics in the exploration of this teaching session, Paul and Marge suddenly became aware of how the field also played a role in how they enacted their entrepreneurial and academic selves in different ways. And by experiencing firsthand how they worked with learner reflexivity in various ways, they were able to connect to power positioning and learning structures that constrict or enable their academic work. Looking at some of the words Paul used as he shared his experience: ‘I felt impeded in my movement . . . I felt paralyzed and extremely restricted even constrained . . .’ illustrate how this moment was sensitive – maybe even vulnerable. Marge, who attended the teaching session was able to witness firsthand Paul’s feeling of paralysis and restriction based on Paul’s verbal and nonverbal communication. Sharing this experience called for a safe space based on trust if the nuances of the various ways to potentiate reflexivity based on the field experience were to be explored and shape their academic selves. However, despite the vulnerability of this, we would still argue that these kinds of field analyses are significant as they give academics not only the possibility to practice what they preach but also focus on their well-being. Thus, it reminds us that even doxa and nomos are relationally responsive, they can be altered – as can the doxa and nomos that have led to the increased acceleration of academia and the malaise that we live in and with.
Scholastic position analysis
The purpose of exemplifying what can happen when academics engage in scholastic position analysis is to illustrate that even though these analyses consider the greater scholastic universe and eco-system, where we are embedded in specific categories, ideologies and practices, there is still room for reflexivity. Furthermore, what both Marge and Paul discover through this tenet is that the voice of others can trigger in-depth social poetics when processes are observed from afar and above. This is not an easy task as Marge and Paul both are part of the scholastic universe they are scrutinizing. However, these kinds of analyses feed directly into attempts to deal with and assuaging potential loneliness and academic malaise.
In the first excerpt, Marge unfolds a vulnerable situation where it became apparent for her how the scholastic field is always present and how it both hinders and enables us to think, say and do specific things. Furthermore, how it can lead to academic loneliness:
‘It is ingrained in me that a practical dimension to leading and strategizing is pivotal when theory and practice have to be bridged in reflexive ways. This means that I invite guest lecturers and real-time cases into the classroom to complexify the neater textbook presentations. In the course evaluations, the students respond to this with feedback like: “Very inspiring with practical examples from how organisations have worked with strategy in real life”. (MBA Exec. student, 2022) and “Inviting guest lectures into the class has been really inspiring”. (Master’s student, 2nd semester, 2022). Amongst my fellow academics at the business school, I am often being described as the researcher who cares a lot about and spends much time in practice. During a strategy workshop in my research group, we discussed societal impact and a colleague of mine turned towards me and said: “This is right down your alley, I know it is really important to you that we prioritise this”. This comment triggered something in me, and it made me a bit sad. Because in a way I personally took it as an acknowledgment, but in a research context, the keen interest for societal relevance is not always considered as the true craftmanship of research. And during the meeting as the dialogue continued, I found myself zooming out as I began thinking about the categories we have in our heads and impose on ourselves, our students and each other and the impact of the scholastic positions’.
For Marge, being positioned by a peer this way, enabled her to consider how she felt imprisoned within the societal rules of academia where intellectual contributions are the main currency and everything else is perceived as activities you perform more con amore. It became obvious to Marge how we all embody a kind of ethnocentrism that makes us generate certain intellectualist bias. These biases can easily lead to academic malaise as Marge in this case felt sad as her actions and preferences were perceived to be more on the periphery of real science than at the core. This initiated an intersubjective dialogue with Paul where Marge shared this experience and it became a possibility for them to think about the thinking itself and in social poetic ways explore the different categories being imposed on the world. During the dialogue Paul shared how he also experienced being positioned in a similar manner, and how this has led to a situation where Paul invests more energy in inviting partners, guest lecturers, and companies into the classroom than investing in being part of the scholastic universe where intellectual contributions such as the amount of high-ranked journal articles, citations, H-index and one’s ability to attract external funding are being perceived as the most valuable currency:
‘For over 20 years, I have been asking companies to offer my students real-life cases in my leadership class or I have been inviting leaders to provide testimonies in the classroom. It takes time, but I still prioritize this because it opens different perspectives of leadership and the co-creation of materials, modules and courses offers a vision of different approaches’.
Bridging theory and practice and giving a voice to significant others is central to Paul’s scholastic positioning. The rationale behind this is to extend the scholastic universe beyond the academy, raise awareness of the applied nature of a discipline to discover how the discipline is embodied and enacted by others. When discussing this, Marge and Paul were mindful of the different categories they were imposing on themselves and others. This was a process where Marge and Paul continually reminded each other that what they know and take for granted is always only partial and anchored in parts of a scholastic universe. And if they are not critically reflexive towards this, they would miss out on possibilities to potentiate reflexive processes both with respect to their academic selves and regarding classroom settings.
Furthermore, Marge and Paul worked in social poetic ways to acknowledge how the aim of the analysis was not to reach one unified understanding of academia, but to explicate how the different institutionalized ideologies and practices legitimize some world views and not others. Thus, when we experience academic malaise and loneliness, then academic reflexivity is a possibility to potentiate and legitimize different sayings and doings that can mobilize pathways to self-care and more well-being within academia at an institutional and individual level.
Discussion
This article provides a structured framework that proposes a new perspective on academic reflexivity anchored in ontological reflexivity and a social poetics approach to language that can support academics in inviting reflexivity into the classroom. It also becomes possible to illustrate and discuss how reflexivity entails individual, intersubjective and organizational aspects (Morillas and Romani, 2022), and how dialogues among peers on an intra- and inter-subjective level can potentiate these reflexive processes and assuage academic loneliness and malaise. The article offers academics a framework to enact peer dialogue to discuss both management teaching and learning praxis. In their dialogues, Paul and Marge have created a safe academic space where they can enact open communication about themselves (self-analysis); their teaching and research (field analysis); and all the other broader meta-level issues that concern academics (scholastic-position analysis). This space is vital for all academics in the context of the neo-liberal, performative and managerialist business school. This dialogic academic space means we have a confidante that understands the challenges of academic work. We call on academics to reflect on their entrepreneurial academic self, on their present academic work, and the impact of this self on their well-being. We encourage academics to find that person, with whom they can dialogue, or even better, form a group of academics in their discipline to engage in collaborative reflexive practice using the framework outlined in this article. We would suggest that the person works at another institution in another culture (if possible), as this means that both academics can draw on different social, cultural and academic perspectives, which helps in making sense of their own local academic work and academic malaise. In the methodology section, we outline the steps academics can take to enact dialogue, namely (1) sharing intra-subjective stories in the written form, essentially via journaling; (2) having intersubjective dialogues online in order to comment on, critically analyse and question academic work; the entrepreneurial self in academia, the field and relational and scholastic position; and (3) structuring the dialogues along the Bourdieusian analytical framework to unearth bias, doxa and nomos, and hence, interrogate the why of academic work and the potential academic malaise.
We see this article as making two major contributions to the existing conversation: (1) how to use dialogue to potentiate reflexive praxis and (2) how to use a structured framework to support academics in engaging in reflexive, intra- and inter-subjective dialogues. We start with the latter.
How to use a structured framework to support academics in engaging in reflexive intra- and inter-subjective dialogues
In this article, we extend the research carried out by Iszatt-White et al. (2017) and Hurd and Singh (2021) both methodologically and theoretically. Iszatt-White et al. (2017), via their ‘dialogic testimonio’ narrative inquiry (Clandinin and Connolly, 2000) approach, captured their emerging understanding and shared experience on the introduction of reflexive pedagogy into a leadership programme. Hurd and Singh (2021) adopt a reflexive dialogue through the exchange of vignettes. This article also uses dialogue and intentional conversations as part of a relationally reflexive autoethnographic method (Chang et al., 2012; Denzin, 2013; Ellis and Bochner, 2000), but the research presented here is heavily informed by social poetics. The purpose of this is to draw on intersubjective experiences as academics while analysing our own reflexive practice. By integrating social poetics, we explore language to highlight relationally engaged dialogic experience and autoethnography. This means we can go beyond narrative inquiry to embody collective sharing and interaction as well as detailed analysis of theoretical interpretation. By theorizing our approach around Bourdieu’s (2001, 2004, 2022) three-pronged analytical framework and Cunliffe’s (2002a) social poetics, we have outlined how structured intra- and inter-subjective dialogues between academics can be leveraged to scrutinize the academic self and malaise from a reflexive stance. These dialogic excerpts between Paul and Marge highlight the revelation of their intra-subjective stories discussed intersubjectively from a critical-reflexive stance to bolster their shared generative learning. As Bourdieu (2022) argued, reflexivity is a collective enterprise rather than an individual one. We argue that making academics more aware of their own didactics and pedagogy in their field of inquiry can be greatly enhanced when we engage in not only intra- but also intersubjective self-, field, and scholastic position analyses. Self-analysis invites academics to become more mindful of self and academic identity and how this impacts their scholarship. Field and scholastic position analysis raises keen awareness of authority, pedagogical power, learning space design and dovetailing theory and practice beyond the academy.
How to use dialogue to potentiate reflexive praxis
The question we must ask now is how academics can operationalize this in their own academic work to stave off academic malaise and loneliness. Hadley and Wright (2024) suggest that one of the remedies of loneliness at work is the creation of a culture of social connection. This social connection can be created by enacting structured, intersubjective, academic peer dialogue to scrutinize, understand and explicate reflexive practices that constitute academic reflexivity. By creating a safe space to be curious, academics can use these dialogues to design shared learning spaces that not only support but also potentiate further reflexive processes in business education. As the excerpts illustrate, being reflexive about oneself is, as Hibbert et al., (2022) and Hibbert et al., (2019) outline, emotional work where our ways of making sense of a situation is being questioned. To be able to engage in such a collective reflexivity is an active move towards acknowledging how that kind of vulnerability and sharing with fellow academics is a process of ‘becoming comfortable with feeling uncomfortable’ (Mavin et al., 2023: 20). This calls for a bit of courage. In the excerpts presented in this article, Marge and Paul not only explore but also question how the personal values, primary socialization, norms and taken-for-granted assumptions they each embody and have embedded shape the way they enact reflexivity. Thus, this kind of intra- and inter-subjective reflexivity is a process of relationally supporting each other in teasing out new possible future ways to move forward to potentiate reflexivity and the enactment of the academic self. This is a process where academics also incrementally find different ways to express their entrepreneurial self and live with and in the academic malaise. Developing academic reflexivity involves asking reflexive questions to provoke alterity (Cunliffe, 2018) and providing alternatives to dominant, taken-for-granted and tacit social and academic nomos, doxa and objectifications. Anchored within an ontology of language lies the understanding of how our lives, identities, bodies and stories are never stable or finished, but on the contrary, alterable and transformative. Thus, academic reflexivity is also a process of embracing how we cannot be sure where the introspective self-, field or scholastic position analysis will take us. However, we need to trust the process and remain open to alternatives. As the most valuable currency at business schools is publishing high-ranking journal articles, attracting external funding and theory building (Tourish, 2011, 2020) many academics may not take the time nor want to embark on reflexive and emotionally laden, intra- and inter-subjective dialogues with colleagues that expose the academic self. However, we believe reflexive dialogues as outlined in this article to be extremely beneficial. Academics and academic managers are both aware of their increasing workload, and experience firsthand the acceleration of academic life with the consequent malaise at both an institutional and individual level. They both play a crucial role in making room for academic reflexive dialogues. Academic managers can impact structures and incentives, and thereby invite academics into changing the culture and rework the academic malaise one conversation at the time. However, for real change to take place, academics need to do the hard work it entails to turn the gaze towards themselves, find fellow peers and engage in these kinds of intra- and inter-subjective dialogues to potentiate reflexive dialogues. We hope that this article will help both groups to appreciate the value of academic reflexivity and foster reflexive dialogues between academics.
Further research would involve applying the framework outlined in this article empirically across different faculties other than management and leadership to ascertain how it can support and open spaces for greater self-care and well-being. Collective reflexive practice could also be researched with groups of academics in a business school in a specific country or across different cultures.
Conclusion
This article uses an auto-ethnographical method informed by social poetics via illustrative empirical dialogue data with the outcome of producing a methodological trajectory for fellow academics to enable potentiating reflexive practice. The article builds on existing literature on reflexivity that is more learner-focused and flips the coin to turn the gaze towards academic reflexivity. Through a relationally reflexive autoethnographic approach, we unfolded and explored how the Cunliffe (2002a, 2002b, 2004[2016], 2008, 2009, 2014, 2018) understanding of individual reflexivity could be combined with Bourdieu’s (2001, 2004, 2022) three levels of reflexivity to tease out how to potentiate reflexive practices in classroom settings by turning the gaze towards academic reflexivity. We extend an invitation to academics to engage in intra- and inter-subjective dialogues to potentiate reflexive dialogues with their peers. By presenting a structured three-pronged framework and explicating three analytic levels (self-, field and scholastic position analysis) and the interplay between them, academics can support each other in scrutinizing the sayings and doings they are embedded in and embody, and hereby, potentiate reflexive processes. Furthermore, we need to become aware of how the academic malaise we live in is an objectification that is possible to alter incrementally one dialogue at a time. This kind of intra- and inter-subjective reflexivity revolves around curiously questioning the academic self and social biography to reveal one’s academic signature and espoused knowledge; interrogating one’s relational position within the field via a field analysis to query the field and the scholarship; and examining the wider scholastic universe and scholarly space. Engaging in such dialogues calls for a safe space among academics as academic reflexivity is emotional work, and to support this process, a structured framework was developed based on the authors’ own academic reflexive experiences. We would recommend similar endeavours by other academics so that they can unpack their sayings and doings through intra- and inter-subjective dialogues with peers to potentiate reflexivity and not feel so alone (Jandrić, 2022) in academia.
