Reflexive discourse analysis: A methodology for the practice of reflexivity
| Author | Audrey Alejandro |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066120969789 |
| Date | 01 March 2021 |
| Published date | 01 March 2021 |
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066120969789
European Journal of
International Relations
2021, Vol. 27(1) 150 –174
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066120969789
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Reflexive discourse analysis:
A methodology for the
practice of reflexivity
Audrey Alejandro
London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
Abstract
How to implement reflexivity in practice? Can the knowledge we produce be
emancipatory when our discourses recursively originate in the world we aim to
challenge? Critical International Relations (IR) scholars have successfully put reflexivity
on the agenda based on the theoretical premise that discourse and knowledge play a
socio-political role. However, academics often find themselves at a loss when it comes
to implementing reflexivity due to the lack of adapted methodological and pedagogical
material. This article shifts reflexivity from meta-reflections on the situatedness of
research into a distinctive practice of research and writing that can be learned and
taught alongside other research practices. To do so, I develop a methodology based on
discourse: reflexive discourse analysis (RDA). Based on the discourse analysis of our
own discourse and self-resocialisation, RDA aims to reflexively assess and transform
our socio-discursive engagement with the world, so as to render it consistent with
our intentional socio-political objectives. RDA builds upon a theoretical framework
integrating discourse theory to Bourdieu’s conceptual apparatus for reflexivity and
practices illustrated in the works of Comte and La Boétie. To illustrate this methodology,
I used this very article as a recursive performance. I show how RDA enabled me to
identify implicit discriminative mechanisms within my discourse and transform them
into an alternative based on love, to produce an article more in line with my socio-
political objectives. Overall, this article turns reflexivity into a critical methodology
for social change and demonstrates how to integrate criticality methodologically into
research and writing.
Keywords
Reflexivity, Discourse Analysis, Methodology, Critical Research Methods, Writing,
Love
Corresponding author:
Audrey Alejandro, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A
2AE, UK.
Email: a.alejandro@lse.ac.uk
969789EJT0010.1177/1354066120969789European Journal of International RelationsAlejandro
research-article2020
Article
Alejandro 151
What does it take to implement reflexivity in practice? Despite demands for increased
reflexivity in and beyond International Relations (IR), the relative absence of methodo-
logical and pedagogical material developed specifically for the implementation of reflex-
ivity contrasts with the abundant literature focusing on other research practices such as
research design, data collection or data analysis. As a result, scholars and students inter-
ested in implementing reflexivity in a rigorous manner that goes beyond the mere
acknowledgement of one’s situatedness, often find themselves at a loss. This article aims
to supplement philosophical and ethical conceptions of reflexivity by developing a meth-
odology for the practice of reflexivity.
Reflexivity has experienced a rapid process of legitimation in IR. Having been con-
signed to the margins of the field early on (Keohane, 1988: 173), reflexivity has more
recently been recognised as one of the discipline’s four ‘philosophical ontologies’
(Jackson, 2011) and has become the focus of numerous publications (Amoureux and
Steele, 2016). Since the 1980s, scholars have developed a wide range of interpretations
and definitions of reflexivity: as a historical event or product of social trajectories
(Alejandro, 2016; Beck et al., 1994), a buzzword driving academic debates (Tickner,
2013), or a process of observing one’s positionality (Sjolander and Cox, 1994). ‘From
constructivists to realists to feminists and post-structuralists’ (Amoureux and Steele,
2016: 1), reflexivity has shown itself capable of offering new routes for theorisation and
empirical innovation on topics as varied as ‘states, sovereignty, political identity, secu-
rity’ (Peterson, 1992: 1). Peterson (1992) has highlighted, for example, how the absence
of reflexivity might lead to the reproduction of unconsciously gendered representations.
A consensus seems to have emerged around the idea that reflexivity serves two pur-
poses: an epistemological and a socio-political one. The former deals with the assess-
ment of biases that limit the validity of knowledge claims. The latter refers to the
awareness that knowledge and discourse co-produce the socio-political world they refer
to. To put it simply, reflexivity enables scholars to do a ‘good job’ and to account for the
role of social sciences ‘in shaping social reality and hierarchies’ (Leander, 2002:
602–604).
However, and despite the success of reflexivity as a research programme, the litera-
ture focusing on how to implement reflexivity in practice is scarce and scattered. The few
works that have formalised ways to ‘do reflexivity’ have only done so in connection with
specific topics. This specificity makes it difficult for readers to apply these insights to
other domains. Consider, for example, the body of work that advances a reflexive
approach to ethics (Amoureux, 2015; Lynch, 2008), which includes Ackerly and True
(2008: 694) who develop a research ethic grid for ‘scholars who wish to engage in fem-
inist-informed inquiry’. As underlined by Leander, this relative absence and the associ-
ated ‘problems linked to’ the practice of reflexivity runs the risk of scholars ‘rejecting
sociological reflexivity out-of-hand’ rather than providing them with ‘a reason to explore
the issue further’ (Leander, 2002: 604). These concerns join the broader literature argu-
ing for the need to develop methodologies that are adapted to the diversity of IR theoreti-
cal frameworks and account for the premise within critical theories that knowledge and
discourse produced by scholars are not neutral (Ackerly et al., 2006; Aradau and
Huysmans, 2014; Brincat, 2012).
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