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Socialization as reflexive engagement: a radically discursive point of view

par Zienkowski, Jan
Editeur scientifique González, Ana Marta
Référence Margaret S. Archer sobre cultura y socialización en la Modernidad Tardía, EUNSA Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, page (151-176)
Publication Publié, 2015

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Résumé :

This article engages with Margaret S. Archer’s critically realist approach to reflexivity and agency from the point of view of poststructuralist discourse studies. More specifically, it focuses on her idea of socialisation as a form of reflexive engagement with an increasingly complex world. It subscribes to Archer’s point that socialization implies emotional and practical engagements with values, others and with the world in general, but points out that an understanding of such engagements cannot bypass questions of ideology and discourse. It points out that Archer’s realist appraisal of structuralist and poststructuralist theories of subjectivity lead her to ignore the reflexive dimension of discursive identification processes. In turn, this leads to a neglect of the discursive strategies that allow people to orient themselves to the multiple layers that constitute their subjective experience of physical, spatial, temporal, social and inter-textual aspects of reality. This article will address the question of socialisation as reflexive engagement from a discursive point of view. Against Archer, it argues that poststructuralist understandings of the self do not necessarily imply a loss of agency and reflexivity but rather clear the ground for a dynamic and empirical understanding of the heterogeneous ways subjects may articulate a more or less coherent sense of self.