Reflexive Practice

Reflexive practice offers another route to developing knowledge of and improving the practice of a field. One of the reasons a ‘field’ is defined separately from a discipline is exactly because it involves practice, but a practice which needs to be continuously developed in relation to the intellectual discourse which seeks to explain it.  Philosophically, it is related to 'praxis'. Such reflection often benefits from the collective discussion of shared or similar experiences.  This can be a feature of communication within communities of practice but, in as much as the articulation of different perspectives of an experience add value to the understanding of it, it can also be a feature of engagement itself. When done collectively, it contributes to the development of the field.  The Wellcome International Engagement Workshops could be seen as an example of reflexive practice and of the collective development of a field.