ABSTRACT
In this chapter, two key concepts, ‘reflection’ and ‘reflexivity’, will be interrogated, and their implications for the practical theological researcher examined. Researchers are integrally implicated in their research at all points in the process. Their awareness of themselves and their own subjectivity as an integral part of coming to know is a key to arriving at research questions that are practically and theologically important and vital to the research process itself, as well as the outcomes and uses to which research may be put. To be properly reflexive is to move beyond reflection, traditionally a very important part of practical theology, into a space that is potentially transformative. This is one of the most exciting, demanding and daunting aspects of contemporary practical theological research.
