This seminar offers a characterisation of reflexivity as a personal as well as an academic project, that can offer two ways of recognising and accounting for our positionality in our research: (i) by maximising the generalisability of the understandings generated in research projects, by eliminating the influence of our situated interpretive stance; or (ii) by maximising the authenticity and resonance of the understandings generated in research projects, through drawing attention to and building on the richness of our situated interpretive stance. The seminar considers how both approaches rely on the researcher’s development of reflexive practice, and what that involves. Building on recently published research and work in progress, I show how reflexive practice incorporates awareness on bodily, emotional, thought-focussed and relational levels, to support a cycle that moves between past-oriented and future-oriented perspectives. By developing options for applying these levels of practice, the seminar explores how researchers can situate their own approach to reflexivity in management and organization studies research.
