Making our Way through the World: Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility

by Margaret S. Archer

• ISBN13: 9780521696937
• ISBN10: 0521696933
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-07-23
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

How do we reflect upon ourselves and our concerns in relation to society, and vice versa? Human reflexivity works through 'internal conversations' using language, but also emotions, sensations and images. Most people acknowledge this 'inner-dialogue' and can report upon it. However, little research has been conducted on 'internal conversations' and how they mediate between our ultimate concerns and the social contexts we confront. Margaret Archer argues that reflexivity is progressively replacing routine action in late modernity, shaping how ordinary people make their way through the world. Using interviewees' life and work histories, she shows how 'internal conversations' guide the occupations people seek, keep or quit; their stances towards structural constraints and enablements; and their resulting patterns of social mobility.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. viii
Introduction: reflexivity as the unacknowledged condition of social life	p. 1
	p. 23
Reflexivity's biographies	p. 25
Reflexivity in action	p. 62
Reflexivity and working at social positioning	p. 100
	p. 143
Introduction to Part II: how 'contexts' and 'concerns' shape internal conversations	p. 145
Communicative reflexives: working at staying put	p. 158
Autonomous reflexives: upward and outward bound	p. 192
Meta-reflexives: moving on	p. 229
	p. 267
Internal conversations and their outworks	p. 269
Conclusion: reflexivity's future	p. 314
Methodological appendix	p. 326
Index	p. 337
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