Abstract
To build adequate knowledge, we need to be explicit about our epistemological assumptions so we can use these to critically assess our methodological choices. Of the four epistemologies in circulation, two, Positivism and Postmodernism, are inadequate for gender scholars’ goals. Positivist assumptions that we can minimize the impact of the subjectivity of the knower are undermined by social science findings. Postmodernist rejection of the possibility of achieving a rational understanding of the known undercut the very purpose of social science. So we are left with two choices—Critical Realism and Standpoint Theory. Critical Realism offers a nuanced and dynamic theory of the known but it is blind to the impact of the knower’s position in social relations of power. Standpoint Theory’s analysis of the knower as operating from a specific physical, social, and cultural context makes up for that deficit. Integrating the two in a Critically Realistic Standpoint Epistemology implies four methodological principles: (1) begin inquiry from the standpoint of the marginalized, (2) ground each person’s interpretation of phenomena in their material interests and experience, (3) maintain a strategically diverse discourse, and (4) create knowledge that empowers the disadvantaged.
Keywords
- Feminist methodology
- Standpoint epistemology
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.
Buying options
References
Acker, J. (2005). Class questions, feminist answers. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
Aguilar, D. D. (2012). Tracing the roots of intersectionality. MRZine.
Alcoff, L. (1989). Justifying feminist social science. In N. Tuana (Ed.), Feminism and science (pp. 85–103). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Aptheker, B. (1989). Tapestries of everyday life: Women’s work, women’s consciousness, and the meaning of daily experience. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Bar On, B.-A. (1993). Marginality and epistemic privilege. In L. Alcoff & E. Potter (Eds.), Feminist epistemologies (pp. 83–100). New York: Routledge.
Beoku-Betts, J. (1994). When black is not enough: Doing field research among gullah women. NWSA Journal, 6(3), 413–433. https://doi.org/10.2307/4316353.
Bhavnani, K.-K. (1988). Empowerment and social research: Some comments. Text, 8(1–2), 41–50.
Carli, L. L. (1990). Gender, language, and influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 941–951.
Clough, P. T. (1993). On the brink of deconstructing sociology: Critical reading of Dorothy Smith’s standpoint epistemology. The Sociological Quarterly, 34(1), 169–182.
Collier, A. (1994). Critical realism: An introduction to Roy Bhaskar’s philosophy. London; New York: Verso.
Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Desai, M. (2009). Gender and the politics of possibilities: rethinking globalization, The gender lens series. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
DeVault, M. L. (1990). Talking and listening from women’s standpoint: Feminist strategies for interviewing and analysis. Social Problems, 37, 96–116.
Edwards, R. (1990). Connecting method and epistemology: A white woman interviewing black women. Women’s Studies International Forum, 13(5), 477–490.
Ferguson, A. A. (2000). Bad boys: Public schools in the making of black masculinity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Frauley, J., & Pearce, F. (Ed.). (2007). Critical realism and the social sciences: Heterodox elaborations. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press.
Glenn, E. N. (1992). From servitude to service work: Historical continuities in the racial division of paid reproductive labor. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (18).
Glucksmann, M. (1994). The work of knowledge and the knowledge of women’s work. In M. Maynard & J. Purvis (Eds.), Researching women’s lives from a feminist perspective (pp. 149–165). London and Bristol, PA: Taylor and Francis.
Griffith, A. (1995). Mothering, schooling, and children’s development. In M. Campbell & A. Manicom (Eds.), Knowledge, experience, and ruling relations: Studies in the social organization of knowledge (pp. 108–121). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599.
Harding, S. (1983). Why has the sex/gender system become visible only now? In S. Harding & M. B. Hintikka (Eds.), Discovering reality: Feminist perspectives on epistemology, metaphysics, methodology, and philosophy of science (pp. 311–24). Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Harding, S. (1991). Whose science? Whose knowledge? Thinking from women’s lives. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Harding, S. (1998). Is science multicultural? Postcolonialisms, feminisms, and epistemologies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hartsock, N. C. M. (1983). Money, sex, and power: Toward a feminist historical materialism, Longman series in feminist theory. New York: Longman.
Hartsock, N. C. M. (1985). Money, sex, and power: Toward a feminist historical materialism. Boston: Northeastern.
Hertz, R. (Ed.). (1997). Reflexivity and voice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Longino, H. (1989). Feminist critiques of rationality: Critiques of science or philosophy of science? Women’s Studies International Forum, 12, 261–269.
Mascia-Lees, Sharpe, F. E. P., & Cohen, C. B. (1989). The postmodern turn in anthropology: Cautions from a feminist perspective. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 15, 7–33.
McCall, L. (2005). The complexity of intersectionality. Signs, 30(3), 1771–1800.
McCall, M., & Wittner, J. (1989). The good news about life histories. In H. Becker & Michal McCall (Eds.), Cultural studies and symbolic interaction (pp. 46–89). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Morgan, D. (1981). Men, masculinity, and the process of sociological inquiry. In H. Roberts (Ed.), Doing feminist research (pp. 83–113). London, Boston, and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Norris, C., Bhaskar, R., & Baggini, J. (1999). The new realism. The Philosophers’ Magazine, 8.
Ribbens, J. (1989). Interviewing—An ‘unnatural situation’. Women’s Studies International Forum, 12(6), 579–592.
Russell, D. (1984). Sexual exploitation. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Smith, D. E. (1990). The conceptual practices of power: A feminist sociology of knowledge. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Smith, D. E. (2005). Institutional ethnography: A sociology for people. Lanham, Md: Altamira.
Sprague, J. (2016). Feminist methodologies for critical researchers: Bridging differences (2nd ed.). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Visweswaran, K. (1988). Defining feminist ethnography. Inscriptions, 3(4), 27–44.
Walby, S. (2001). Against epistemological chasms: The science question in feminism revisited. Signs, 26(2), 485–509.
Wolf, D. L. (1996). Situating feminist dilemmas in fieldwork. In D. L. Wolf (Ed.), Feminist dilemmas in fieldwork (pp. 1–55). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Wolf, M. (1992). A thrice-told tale: Feminism, postmodernism, and ethnographic responsibility. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Zavella, P. (1996). Feminist insider dilemmas: Constructing ethnic identity with chicana informants. In D. L. Wolf (Ed.), Feminist dilemmas in fieldwork (pp. 139–159). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sprague, J. (2018). Feminist Epistemology, Feminist Methodology, and the Study of Gender. In: Risman, B., Froyum, C., Scarborough, W. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Gender. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76333-0_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76333-0_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-76332-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-76333-0
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)