Feminist Epistemology and Field Methods
This domain tests theories of knowledge and the practice of feminist fieldwork. Questions often ask how standpoint, reflexivity and situated knowledge change what counts as valid research.
Core concepts
- Feminist empiricism: uses conventional scientific norms to expose sexist bias in research.
- Standpoint theory: Harding, Hartsock and Collins argue that marginalised positions can yield less distorted knowledge of power, but not automatic truth.
- Strong objectivity: Harding's proposal to locate the researcher's standpoint and subject received knowledge to critical scrutiny.
- Situated knowledges: Haraway's argument that knowledge is partial and embodied, not a 'view from nowhere'.
- Epistemic injustice: Fricker's terms testimonial injustice (credibility deficit) and hermeneutical injustice (lack of interpretive resources).
- Field methods: reflexivity, positionality, rapport, informed consent, confidentiality, participatory action research and oral history.
Worked example
A researcher claims her study is objective because she has no standpoint. How should a feminist epistemologist respond? Reasoning: the claim is mistaken. All knowledge is situated; reflexivity makes the researcher's position visible and strengthens accountability. Standpoint theory does not say the marginalised are always right; it says their position can reveal relations of power that dominant positions miss.
Traps that cost marks
- Equating standpoint theory with relativism.
- Treating reflexivity as confessional autobiography rather than methodological rigour.
- Adding women to a study without revising its concepts.