In this, the first book to focus on 'Reflexivity', the following is discussed in detail: 1) Where does the ability to be 'reflexive' comes from? 2) What part do our internal reflexive deliberations play in designing the courses of action we take? 3) Is 'reflexivity' a homogeneous practice for all people and invariant over history? Throughout, contributors refer to influential thinkers like Habermas, Giddens, Bourdieu and Beck.

List of illustrations, List of contributors, 1. Introduction: The reflexive re-turn, PART I. Reflexivity and pragmatism, 2. Inner speech and agency, 3. Cartesian privacy and Peircean interiority, 4. Pragmatist and hermeneutic reflections on the internal conversations that we are, PART II. Reflexivity and realism, 5. Human reflexivity in social realism: beyond the modern debate, 6. Reflexivity and the habitus, 7. Can reflexivity and habitus work in tandem?, 8. Reflexivity after modernity: from the viewpoint of relational sociology, PART III. Modes of reflexivity, 9. The agency of the weak: ethos, reflexivity and life strategies of Polish workers after the end of state socialism, 10. Emotion, and the silenced and short- circuited self, 11. Self talk and self reflection: a view from the US, PART IV. Reflexivity in production and consumption, 12. 'Reflexive consumers': a relational approach to consumption as a social practice, 13. Organizational use of information and communication technology and its impact on reflexivity, Index