Organizing practices of reflection: A practice-based study

Abstract

This article extends debates of how organizing practices of reflexivity and collective mindfulness are encouraged and sustained for learning, critique and change. We present, in a practice-based study, a fourfold framework of anticipatory, deliberative, organizing and critically reflexive practices. Our empirical study illustrates how these multiple forms of reflexive practice can support and co-shape one another so that knowing what to do next emerges in the midst of practice. Our analysis demonstrates the value of going beyond the optical metaphor of reflection to that of critical reflexivity and the metaphor of diffraction. This approach extends understandings of reflective practice in ways that foreground entanglement, co-production and the relational qualities of practice. Diffraction encourages managers and practitioners to not only reflect on what has been done but to also map the effects of their practices and interventions. This orientation assists them to notice the impact of their actions and better understand the complexities of organized reflection-in-action.