Search results
1 – 10 of over 5000Reflexivity involves critical reflection by the qualitative researcher as to the influence of the researcher's culture, history and belief on the conduct and outcome of the…
Abstract
Purpose
Reflexivity involves critical reflection by the qualitative researcher as to the influence of the researcher's culture, history and belief on the conduct and outcome of the research. It is often seen as a practice exercised in the analysis of results in order to attempt to objectify the research. The purpose of this paper is to argue that the value of reflexivity is located in its practice in the field encounter as a means of recognising and embracing subjectivity. In order to widen reflexivity as hermeneutics, the paper draws on Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics as developed in “Truth and Method”.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper which distils critical themes from Gadamer's truth and method and applies them to the concept of reflexivity as applied in the field.
Findings
The paper suggests that reflexivity is an important component in the field encounter. Immersion in the language and terms of the field is critical to understanding meaning; who I am, my past, my lived experience are essential inputs to my research; the researcher's opinions, ideas and outspoken statements are part of the fabric of qualitative research; qualitative interpretation as a creative exercise; qualitative research should bring insight and understanding that can be applied to catalyse change.
Practical implications
Understanding and applying reflexivity in the field will provide innovative insights which can be carried through to the data analysis.
Originality/value
This study uniquely applies Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics to reflexivity and the field encounter.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to expand upon prior debates on reconceptualising reflexivity in order to encompass research communities and prospective thinking, based upon an…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to expand upon prior debates on reconceptualising reflexivity in order to encompass research communities and prospective thinking, based upon an analysis of the development of a research question (RQ).
Design/methodology/approach
Ontologically, the author regards the development of a RQ as an inter-subjective process; epistemologically, the author regards investigating such processes as possible by identifying their relationality and dialogism “from within”; methodologically, the author constructed and abductively analysed data by performing an auto-ethnography as a PhD student.
Findings
The author suggests that developing an RQ evolves as relational learning and academic rationality. While the former concerns relations within a research community, the latter concerns prospective thinking. The author introduces the notion of an academically accepted RQ to suggest that this part of knowledge construction is shaped as much by research communities and prospective thinking as it is by the researcher.
Research limitations/implications
The author introduces and discusses the notion of social reflexivity as a possible way forward in the debate on reconceptualising reflexivity. Such notion encourages the exploration of relational learning and academic rationality in the construction of knowledge. It implies exposing issues related both to processes of assimilating prevailing academic literature and to contextual pressures faced when writing new ones.
Originality/value
While introducing social reflexivity, the author suggests a possible way to overcome the challenges of reconceptualising reflexivity. Also, the author provides a detailed description of how the author crafted the analysis of an inter-subjective process.
Details
Keywords
Alexander Styhre and Janne Tienari
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on reflexivity in organization and management studies by scrutinizing the possibilities of self‐reflexivity.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on reflexivity in organization and management studies by scrutinizing the possibilities of self‐reflexivity.
Design/methodology/approach
By means of auto‐ethnography, the authors analyze their own experiences as (pro‐)feminist men in the field of gender studies.
Findings
The authors argue that self‐reflexivity is partial, fragmentary and transient: it surfaces in situations where the authors’ activities and identities as researchers are challenged by others and they become aware of their precarious position.
Originality/value
The paper's perspective complements more instrumental understandings of self‐reflexivity, and stimulates further debate on its limits as well as potential.
Details
Keywords
This paper advances what is known about emotional experiences and challenges when researching work-caused trauma in organisations and illustrates learning for researchers of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper advances what is known about emotional experiences and challenges when researching work-caused trauma in organisations and illustrates learning for researchers of work-related trauma. Viewing vulnerability as strength could be conceived as an oxymoron. The paper explains how vulnerability can lead to strength for researchers/participants and focuses on researcher reflexivity in relation to one interview with a woman leader in a small-scale qualitative study.
Design/methodology/approach
The research protocols of the qualitative study are outlined: pre-interview briefings, participant journaling and semi-structured interviews. Researcher reflexivity, following Hibbert's (2021) four levels of reflexive practice (embodied, emotional, rational and relational), is applied to an interview with a woman leader.
Findings
The paper illustrates how research design and recognising vulnerability as strength facilitates considerable relational work and emotional experiences. Researcher reflexivity conveys impact of work-caused trauma on participants and researchers. The paper advances understandings of vulnerability as strength in practice, emotional experiences and challenges of work-caused trauma research.
Research limitations/implications
In this paper, a single case of researcher reflexivity is considered.
Practical implications
There are practical implications for researcher relationships with participants; demonstrating emotional awareness; responding to traumatic stories, participant distress and impact on the researcher; issues of vicarious/secondary traumatic stress; having safe psychological systems; scaffolding a process which recognises vulnerability as strength and becoming personally and methodologically vulnerable; risk of embodied and emotional impact; commitment to reflexivity and levels of reflexive practice.
Originality/value
There is lack of researcher reflexive accounts of practice when studying trauma. Few scholars suggest ways to support researchers in challenging and difficult research. There is silence in research exploring leaders' experiences of work-caused trauma. This paper provides a reflexive account in practice from a unique study of women leaders' experiences of work-caused trauma.
Details
Keywords
Paul Hibbert, Christine Coupland and Robert MacIntosh
The paper seeks to support a better understanding of the types (or processes) of reflexivity which may be involved in the practice of organizational research, and the implications…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to support a better understanding of the types (or processes) of reflexivity which may be involved in the practice of organizational research, and the implications of reflexive practice for organizational researchers.
Design/methodology/approach
A characterization of reflexivity as a process is developed from extant research, in four steps. First, the principal dimensions of reflexivity – reflection and recursion – are identified and delineated. Second, recursion is shown to have two modes, active and passive. Third, reflection is shown to have both closed, self‐guided and open, relational modes. Fourth, through integrating the detailed characterizations of each of the dimensions, different types of reflexivity are identified and defined.
Findings
The paper shows how different types of reflexivity may be experienced sequentially, as a progressive process, by organizational researchers. Implications for research practice are derived from a consideration of this process.
Originality/value
The paper develops a novel conceptualization of reflexivity as a process with individual and relational aspects. This conceptualization supports important insights for the conduct and legitimation of reflexive research.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to deconstruct the current discourse on researcher positionality in disaster research and it aims to enhance disaster researchers’ reflexivity, using…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to deconstruct the current discourse on researcher positionality in disaster research and it aims to enhance disaster researchers’ reflexivity, using Bourdieu’s capital, field and habitus theories.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper relies on secondary literature from empirical and theoretical works and incorporates critical self-reflection from author’s own research experience.
Findings
As Bourdieu would argue, one’s habitus is interactive and responsive to contexts (field and other agents’ habitus and capital), thus reflexivity requires more than the acknowledgement of one’s ascribed and achieved social characteristics. Bourdieu’s theories help disaster researchers enhance their reflexivity and better understand the nature of researcher positionality: contextual, dynamic and negotiated.
Originality/value
This research provides a critical and theoretical discussion of researcher positionality in disaster research. Drawing from Bourdieu’s theories, researcher positionality can be framed in relation to not only researcher’s structurally differentiated insider–outsider status but also how interactions with the research participants and contexts in which the research is conducted influence that positionality.
Details
Keywords
Elizabeth M. Pope and Stephanie Anne Shelton
Qualitative research is well-established and widely adopted across a range of disciplines; however, there is little discussion of the teaching of qualitative research methods…
Abstract
Purpose
Qualitative research is well-established and widely adopted across a range of disciplines; however, there is little discussion of the teaching of qualitative research methods. What engagements there are primarily focus on methods rather than core concepts that inform ethical and effective use of those approaches. “Subjectivity” and “reflexivity” are pervasive concepts taken up in numerous textbooks, handbooks, and journal guidelines. But, despite being an expected and critical aspect of qualitative methodologies, few scholars consider how researchers might learn to engage with these necessary aspects effectively.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper written from the authors' experiences teaching qualitative research to graduate students at the master's and doctoral levels.
Findings
This conceptual paper offers an andragogical discussion of how novice and student researchers might learn to consider the concepts of reflexivity and subjectivity. Additionally, it considers how the deep and critical reflection inherent in both subjectivity and reflexivity are valuable aspects in extending discussions and applications of qualitative research in various disciplines.
Originality/value
This paper offers a fresh and unique consideration of teaching novice researchers how to practice reflexivity and examine their subjectivities using the work of Alan Peshkin as a model.
Details
Keywords
In this paper I explore the notion of reflexivity in two main domains. In the first, I explore my struggles as a trained objective, positivist researcher trying to embrace and…
Abstract
In this paper I explore the notion of reflexivity in two main domains. In the first, I explore my struggles as a trained objective, positivist researcher trying to embrace and appreciate subjective qualitative research practices. In the second section, I explore the dynamic relationship between myself, the researcher and my participants, focusing on issues related to ethnicity and power. Generally, research that explores ethnicity and power relationships commonly depicts the researcher as the privileged self compared with the participants as the marginalised other. However, in this paper I illustrate how this relationship in a multiethnic, multicultural and multilingual research context is much more complex and multifaceted than usually acknowledged. Moreover, this was further complicated by the researcher’s own experience in relation to the issue under investigation, which was different from that of the participants.
Details
Keywords
Amon Barros, Adéle de Toledo Carneiro and Sergio Wanderley
The purpose of this paper is to present the role of reflexivity in relation to archives and narratives.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the role of reflexivity in relation to archives and narratives.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors problematize the concept of “archive,” by engaging with debates in philosophy and the archival theory. The authors also revisit historical theories and debates on the role of the narrative within historiography. Finally, the authors consider reflexivity as a methodological attitude taken by the researcher at all stages of the investigation from challenging theoretical assumptions of empirical materials to questioning the very narrative that is created when looking for alternative ones.
Findings
This paper poses questions about documents and archives that emerge from reflexivity. The authors claim that reflexivity is an ethos that allows researchers to keep the multiple narratives in which they are entangled in check. The paper brings a framework that allows researchers to use reflexivity to become more conscious of the complexities and ambiguities within the research process that leads to the writing of historical narratives.
Research limitations/implications
This paper points to the need to enhance the reflexivity at every stage of the research, including “interrogating” the archives and documents, which are compiled under a narrative.
Practical implications
The authors highlighted the multiple characteristics of archives, their meanings and the possibilities of writing narratives about them through reflexivity. The authors have the historical narrative as one possible reconstruction of a historical object, which is connected to the production conditions of the text. Through reflexivity, the authors discussed the socially constructed nature of the documents and the archives. Finally, the authors believe that debates around the production of this knowledge should continue, focusing especially on building bridges with the field of history.
Social implications
Historical narratives do not depend on the scientific character of historical sources, but it considers reflexivity by the researcher regarding the search, collection, reading and analysis of historical documents. In addition, it is necessary to think about the use of documents and archives and histories in a reflective way for a writing of history and, indirectly, for a contextual understanding of the time observed and as forged sources – or discarded – and made available.
Originality/value
Challenging the use of documents and archives in a reflexive way for the writing of historical narratives and for contextual understanding of the past is key to a richer relationship between management and history. This paper points to the role of reflexivity in relation to archives and narratives in the practice of (re)constructing the organizational past from memories and silences. It also highlights how reflexivity can be incorporated in the research process to enrich the writing of the historical narrative.
Details
Keywords
Although the epistemology of researcher reflexivity has been championed as crucial to research for some 30 years, it remains controversial and often ill-defined. In the 1980s, …
Abstract
Purpose
Although the epistemology of researcher reflexivity has been championed as crucial to research for some 30 years, it remains controversial and often ill-defined. In the 1980s, “reflexivity” was championed by the hermeneutically and epistemologically savvy to try and break the strangle hold of naïve positivism. Nowadays, reflexivity most often refers to the turn-to-affect and to the researcher’s ability and willingness to radically sensitivize “self” to others and circumstances. The purpose of this paper is to specify what non-representational research has brought to the reflexivity debate and then focus on Brosseau’s particular rendition of reflexivity, which is seen as far more demanding, problematic and valuable.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach followed in this paper is a hermeneutic reflection based on Thrift’s and Brosseau’s oeuvres. The perspective is historical, qua research methods’ take on reflexivity and qua Brosseau textual production.
Findings
Five differences between Thrift’s and Brosseau’s reflexivities are highlighted. Brosseau brings us much further in applying affective reflexivity to research writing than does Thrift.
Originality/value
A polemic calling for and warnings about the complexities of affective reflexivity, presented as demanding, dangerous and complex.
Details