Title: Reflexivity for sustainability: appreciating entanglement and becoming relationally reflexive

Authors: Stephen Allen

Addresses: Hull University Business School, University of Hull, Hull, HU6 7RX, UK

Abstract: This paper attempts to open up new possibilities for reflexivity which can help promote adequate human responses to sustainability issues. It explores how predominant ideas about reflexivity are located within an individualistic perspective of bounded and independent selves. The relational thinking of Gergen (2009) and Hosking (2011) is discussed to consider the implications for approaching selves as unbounded and interdependent. It develops the concept of relational reflexivity which is argued to respect the social and material entanglements of selves and foster systemic intelligence and action.

Keywords: environmental sustainability; relational thinking; relational ontology; relational reflexivity; entanglement; unbounded selves; sustainable development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWI.2015.071191

International Journal of Work Innovation, 2015 Vol.1 No.2, pp.240 - 250

Received: 16 Jun 2014
Accepted: 09 Mar 2015
Published online: 16 Aug 2015 *

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