How to reference jQuery plugin instance dynamically?

Within my jQuery plugin execution flow I render this sidebar list of links.

//render method
var render = function(self){

  var sidebar = '';
  var main = '';

  /* Sidebar */        
  sidebar += '<ul>'
  sidebar += '<li><a href="javascript:self.data(activeFolder,1);self.data(render);">Rootobject 1</a></li>';

}

Only I don't want the link to print out self, but I want a reference to the object referenced by self instead.

------------- UPDATE ------------

I'll try to explain my problem in a different way.

If I had been working with this plugin from the body of the page, I could easily store a reference to it upon init

var myPlugin = $('.some-element').myPlugin();

and later do this:

<a href="javascript:myPlugin.render();">Rootobject 1</a>

Now, I want my plugin to prepare that same link, so how can I write a refrence from within the plugin to substitute the myPlugin var in this example above?

You can easily do this by following the best practice of removing obtrusive javascript anyway.

You can setup a delegate handler so event handling isn't tied to a specific element. Just setup a handler on the body element which will never get added or removed. Click events will eventually bubble up to body, then pass in a selector so you just pay attention to clicks that meet your criteria like this:

$("body").on('click', ".sidebar a", function() {
  $(this).data(activeFolder, 1)
         .data(render);
});