The Problem of Reflexivity: The Boundary between Ethnomethodology and Socio-analysis

Departing from the numerous insistences – on the one hand, those of Bourdieu on the need for a ‘sociology of sociology’ or for a reflection on the social conditions and the limits of scientific knowledge and practical action, and on the other, those of ethnomethodologists represented by Garfinkel, on the ‘embodied reflexivity’ of the ‘competent member’ – the text views reflexivity as a praxeological problem in and for their sociological analyses.Retaining the perspective given by Bourdieu, reflexivity is thematised as a ‘constitutive trait’ of ‘scientific habitus’ as well as an essential feature of the habitus of the agent who is practically acting outside the scientific field.In the ethnomethodological context, the thematisation of reflexivity is focused in ‘embodied reflexivity’ defined as a ‘singular feature of practical actions, practical circumstances, of common sense knowledge of social structures, and the practical sociological reasoning’ (Garfinkel).Choosing these perspectives was motivated by the intention to outline a praxeologically oriented conception of the actually, in practice, deploying of reflex reflexivity which borrows its ‘embodied’ character from ethnomethodology but analysed in the context of a socialized corporeality.