Transcending objectivism, subjectivism, and the knowledge in-between: the subject in/of ‘strong reflexivity’

• Published in: Review of international studies Vol. 40; no. 1; pp. 153 - 175
• Main Author: HAMATI-ATAYA, INANNA
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.01.2014
• Subjects: Autobiographies; Autoethnography; Discipline; Empiricism; Epistemology; Ethics; Ethnography; Feminism; Feminist standpoint theory; Intellectuals; International relations; International studies; Knowledge; Objectivity; Ontology; Philosophical subject; Philosophy; Reflexivity; Scholarship; Social reflexivity; Social research; Social sciences; Sociology; Subjectivity; Tradition; Writing processes
• DOI: 10.1017/S0260210513000041
• ISSN: 0260-2105

This article addresses the problématique of the subject and the subject-object dichotomy from a post-objectivist, reflexivist perspective informed by a ‘strong’ version of reflexivity. It clarifies the rationale and epistemic-ontological requirements of strong reflexivity comparatively, through a discussion of autoethnography and autobiography, taken as representatives of other variants of reflexive scholarship. By deconstructing the ontological, epistemic, and reflexive statuses of the subject in the auto-ethnographic and auto-biographical variants, the article shows that the move from objectivism to post-objectivism can entail different reconfigurations of the subject-object relation, some of which can lead to subjectivism or an implicit positivist view of the subject. Strong reflexivity provides a coherent and empowering critique of objectivism because it consistently turns the ontological fact of the social situatedness of knowledge into an epistemic principle of social-scientific research, thereby providing reflexivist scholars with a critique of objectivism from within that allows them to reclaim the philosophical, social, and ethical dimensions of objectivity rather than surrender them to the dominant neopositivist tradition.