Exploring Reflective Subjectivity through the Construction of the 'Ethical Other' in Interview Transcripts

Bibliographic Data

ID2321891
AuthorsJennifer Burr (0000-0003-3053-3994, University of Sheffield, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume43
Issue2
Pages323-339
Publication date2009-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0385 • E-ISSN: 1469-8684
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0038038508101168
OpenAlexW2066646115
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited11

I aim here to explore the area of 'other people's voices' in interview text through a comparative discussion of the work of George Mead and the Russian philosopher and theorist Mikhail Bakhtin. Specifically, I aim to outline Mead and Bakhtin's theories of reflective subjectivity, or how we recognize our self by looking back upon our experience. To explore the relative concepts of reflective subjectivity, I analyse selective quotes from the transcripts of interviews conducted with people who have received donor insemination about their views and experiences of donor anonymity. I conclude that the choices demonstrated in the interview data are, to use Bakhtin's term, answerable. The anticipation of response in dialogic forms represented in other people's voices is a potentially creative process and more than seeking agreement with the generalized other of the community. Bakhtin's unique theorizing contributes to our understanding of the ethical dimensions of everyday life

Aesthetics · Ambivalence · Anonymity · Anticipation (artificial intelligence) · Dialogic · Epistemology · Interview · Pedagogy · Sociology · Subjectivity · Anthropology · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Psychology · Russian Literature and Bakhtin Studies · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub