‘Burt's story reminded me of my grandmother’

The common elements that link the approaches to the practice of reflecting teamwork that have been developed in different contexts such as family therapy, anthropology, collaborative research and management education are that they are informed by poststructuralist and non-structuralist understandings of life and identity. Within such understandings, identity is a social and public achievement, negotiated within social institutions and communities and shaped by historical and cultural forces. In the reflecting team forum people have the opportunity to tell some of the significant stories of their lives and to experience how those stories affect, are familiar to, interest or stimulate memories of experiences for others. Dominant knowledges are challenged and local knowledge is valued as new layers of meaning emerge from the process. This chapter offers a critical evaluation of the experimental use of a reflecting team to teach narrative data analysis with a group of doctoral students. Drawing on my reflections and those of Alison and Titina, the two conversants, who stimulated the reflecting team conversations, it proposes that the reflecting team activity revealed much potential for development as a pedagogical practice.