Discursive Reflexivity in the Ethnography of Communication: Cultural Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This article is a creative reconstruction of reflexivity as it operates for some practitioners of the ethnography of communication. Our central concern is conceptualized as “discursive reflexivity”; with that concept, we foreground communication both as primary data and as our primary theoretical concern. As a result, we treat reflexivity as a process of metacommunication, that is, as a reflexive process of using discourse at one level to discuss discourse on another. Following current and past research, we explore how dimensions of discursive reflexivity differently configure into five types of ethnographic practice, these being theoretical, descriptive, interpretive, comparative, and critical inquiry. Each is discussed as analytically distinct from the others, yet all coalesce experientially or, in other words, all coexist in one’s experience as an ethnographer. Relationships are discussed between discursive reflexivity and self-reflexivity, including various modes of ethnographic reporting and future directions for inquiry.