The International Journal of Sustainability Policy and Practice Volume 10, 2015, www.onsustainability.com, ISSN: 2325-1166 © Common Ground, Martin Karlsson and Marasu Yarime, All Rights Reserved Permissions: cg-support@commongroundpublishing.com Reflexivity in Development Assistance: The Obstacles Dual Accountability and Communicative Asymmetry to Achieving Reflexive Governance Martin Karlsson, The University of Tokyo, Japan Masaru Yarime, The University of Tokyo, Japan Abstract: The concept of reflexivity has been brought forward as a key component of sustainability science and sustainability governance, being indispensable for sustainability as a process and a goal. The reflexive governance research field has started to produce some insight into what reflexivity could mean in practice when brought out from the hallowed halls of science into the messy arena of governance, but so far attention has been focused on First-World cases. This paper will explore how reflexive governance relates to the reflexivity concept, and how it can be applied within Official Development Assistance (ODA), especially in ODA evaluations. Two main obstacles to reflexive knowledge production in ODA are identified, being the duality of accountability in ODA and the resulting knowledge incentives, and the asymmetry in communicative capacity. Lastly recommendations are made to address these obstacles, so that evaluations can assist in achieving sustainable development. Keywords: Reflexivity, Reflexive Governance, Sustainable Development, ODA Reflexivity for Sustainability he adjective reflexive describes something able of reflection. Reflecting, in the cognitive sense of the word, means pondering or thinking about something in depth. The verb has the prefix re-, which indicates a repeated or backwards-moving action. The word reflexive is derived from the Latin word reflexus, which means to bend back (Nazaruk 2011, p.74). Reflexivity was introduced into the social sciences when the Polish anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski challenged the dichotomy between objectivity and subjectivity in his writings about anthropology. Malinowski argued that an anthropologist could not fully understand a social setting without understanding the experience and emotions of the people who make up that setting from the inside. The anthropologist’s main task, according to Malinowski, is to combine the perspective of the people compromising the society being studied with a macro-level understanding available to the outsider scientist (Malinowski 1922). A different, more descriptive meaning of reflexivity emerged with Anthony Gidden’s description of reflexive modernisation. Reflexive modernisation describes the new phase in modern history, in which societies are more restrained and have to focus more energy overcoming troubles created by human societies themselves, rather than the external environment. Reflexivity has become a key concept used to understand how scientifically produced knowledge and information can assist society in creating solutions to sustainability problems. Reflexivity, most fully explored in the articles of Jerneck et al. (2011) and Spangenberg (2011), has a distinct meaning in sustainability science. Reflecting on the inadequacies of the products of science and engineering in addressing sustainability issues is a natural aspect, if not the original raison d´être of sustainability science. However, the importance of action over reflection has often been stressed in sustainability science literature, achieved through a reflective, goal- oriented application of scientific knowledge (Spangenberg 2011, p.276). Initially sustainability science was focused on the practical application of transdisciplinary scientific knowledge on real-world sustainability problems. (Kates et al 2001; Ostrom et al 2007, 15177). This meant an T