It cannot be denied that reflexivity has become a must in social science methodological discourse in recent decades. The uses and functions of reflexivity in the research process have been well addressed historically, be it with regard to researchers’ subjectivity, their perspectivity shaped by social origin and biographical life path, or their possible asymmetrical power relations with investigated actors. Nevertheless, we see an urgent need to discuss these issues. We claim that the practice of reflexivity, seriously shaken by the current transformation of (the understandings of) academic knowledge production, has become a challenging duty to fulfill. There is no straight and easy answer to the big questions of “for whom” and “for what purpose” do we produce “what kind of” knowledge and “how.” Struggling for an appropriate positioning within global societal developments, we dedicate this special issue to the search for a critical, and the exploration of a lucid, (self-)reflection of academic research. In this respect, this HSR Special Issue sets out to explore how coexisting yet diverse conceptions of academic research and knowledge production can be reflexively considered and related to each other from an epistemological, ethico-normative, and ontological point of view.
CONTENTSpecial Issue Séverine Marguin/Juliane Haus/Anna Juliane Heinrich/ Antje Kahl/Cornelia Schendzielorz/ Ajit Singh Positionality Reloaded: Debating the Dimensions of Reflexivity in the Relationship Between Science and Society: An Editorial. doi: 10.12759/hsr.46.2021.2.7-34
Jörg Niewöhner Making Evidence in the Future Perfect: Provincialising Climate Impact Science in the Quest for More-Than-Human Liveability. doi: 10.12759/hsr.46.2021.2.35-58
Hubert Knoblauch Reflexive Methodology and the Empirical Theory of Science doi: 10.12759/hsr.46.2021.2.59-79
Franz Breuer Scientific Research Activity and its Self-Reflexive Consideration. doi: 10.12759/hsr.46.2021.2.80-105
Andreas Langenohl Algorithmic Reflexivity: The Constitution of Socio-Technical Accountability in Financial Pricing. doi: 10.12759/hsr.46.2021.2.106-125
Frédéric Lebaron Geometric Data Analysis as a Tool for Reflexivity. doi: 10.12759/hsr.46.2021.2.126-154
Stephan Gauch The Ironic Becomings of Reflexivity – The Case of Citation Theory in Bibliometrics. doi: 10.12759/hsr.46.2021.2.155-177
Jon Dean Reflexivity and Its Limits in the Study of Social Inequalities. doi: 10.12759/hsr.46.2021.2.178-185
Hella von Unger Ethical Reflexivity as Research Practice. doi: 10.12759/hsr.46.2021.2.186-204
Nina Baur Decolonizing Social Science Methodology. Positionality in the German-Language Debate. doi: 10.12759/hsr.46.2021.2.205-243
Manuela Boatcă Counter-Mapping as Method: Locating and Relating the (Semi-)Peripheral Self. doi: 10.12759/hsr.46.2021.2.244-263
Tanja Bogusz & Moritz Holtappels Third Knowledge Spaces between Nature and Society: A Dialogue. doi: 10.12759/hsr.46.2021.2.264-286
Ulrich Dirnagl, Philipp Misselwitz, Lisa Ruhrort & Dagmar Simon Crossing Borders, Creating Together: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Transdisciplinary Knowledge Production. doi: 10.12759/hsr.46.2021.2.287-312