Case study: reflexive practice in PhD research

The exploration of doctoral research in Chapter 5 leads to the conclusion that reflexive practices do not need, necessarily, to be understood and named according to a particular scheme in order to go on. However, it also establishes that having a way to recognise and name the reflexive practices in play does help us to be aware of them, even when we are using memory and documentary traces to try to retrieve insights long after the study has been completed. Often the need to demonstrate and give an account of our research reflexivity becomes clear later in the study. With an appropriate framework of reflexive practices to shape a retrospective description, it is possible to give an effective account of reflexivity in the research process, even if the benefits of a more informed, aware, and contemporaneous engagement have been missed.