Standpoint+Theory+(Weiss)

__Background__

Standpoint theory offers two types of useful perspectives on natural sciences.

First, it exposes how scientific hypotheses and methods are constructed to uphold the power structures of dominant social groups (such as patriarchal or eurocentric interests), thereby contributing to "distorted and partial accounts of nature’s regularities and underlying causal tendencies"(Harding, 2004, 26) that run counter to the stated ideals of scientific pursuits. It is not just in "bad science" that this happens (Harding, 2008, 109); in fact, many standards of "good science" do not recognize the influence that this "modest" perspective projects. Second, standpoint theory claims that the growth of knowledge is promoted by the recognition of social and political factors, rather than hindered by their inclusion (Harding, 2004, 26).

Standpoint theory originated to fill the needs of women to access and create knowledge for women. Not only were women traditionally treated as objects to be viewed by masculine scientific pursuits (often representing "Nature" to be conquered, tamed, and/or interrogated), but scientific knowledge production expected speakers from within to shed non-objective perspectives and represent "generic humans," which really were men. These inherent conceptual frameworks did not just ignore women, but they often actively undermined their interests. Men were also negatively impacted by this blindness to women's concerns because gender relations and constructions relied on the interactions between different groups. This approach can be and has been expanded to address concerns of other marginalized groups, such as members of minority ethnicities and people in non-Western, non-Northern nations.

By "studying up," starting from culturally specific positions situated in women's lives, scholars were able to gain a more complete understanding of dominant institutions and structures because of the change in perspective. For example, barriers and restrictions that only were imposed on women would have been invisible or oversimplified in their representation to male researchers, either from lack of access to women's spaces (like the kitchen, which in many cultures is enforced as solely the domain of women) or from lack of recognition of significance. But when approached from the perspective of those affected by such constructions, new insights could be gained. This emphasizes the difference between "perspectivalism" and standpoint theory (Harding, 2004, 30): rather than "studying down" ethnographically, this process "studies up" to look at dominant social groups from the underside.

Four features of standpoint theory emphasize its innovativeness:

1) Goal of "studying up" - mapping the practices of power and the way dominant institutions maintain oppressive social relations. 2) Locates a distinctive insight into the workings of hierarchical social structures by recognizing material, political, or social disadvantages/disempowerment. 3) Good research requires doing more than literally recording what members of oppressed groups say because hierarchical power structures affects everyone's perceptions. 4) More focused on the creation of groups' consciousness than about shifts in the consciousnesses of individuals.

__Controversy__

“Standpoint theory may rank as one of the most contentious theories to have been proposed and debated in the twenty-five-to-thirty-year history of second-wave feminist thinking about knowledge and science." -- Alison Wylie (2003)

As described in Harding's article, "A Socially Relevant Philosophy of Science? Resources from Standpoint Theory’s Controversiality," standpoint theory had encountered strong criticism across the disciplinary spectrum. But Harding responds to the controversial treatment of standpoint theory by highlighting the benefits of the increased discourse and debate.

Three sites of controversy are addressed by Harding: 1) Should philosophy of science be reduced to epistemology? 2) The role of group consciousness in the production of knowledge 3) Reasonable constructionism

1) Harding points to standpoint theory's emphasis on the "logic of (certain kinds of) discovery," which emphasizes the context surrounding scientific discovery. Whether influenced by socially stratifying ideologies or by directed institutional funding, this context has significant impacts on how research progresses, and therefore affects the process and content of discovery. In this way, standpoint theory avoids focusing on "rational individuals," as is the case in philosophical epistomology, and instead looks to collective factors, like "consciousness of an age."

2) The shift in emphasis from the "rational individual" to group action by standpoint theory “opens a space of a different kind for polemics about the epistemological priority of the experience of various groups or collectivities,” according to Fredric Jameson. This is possible because the importance of a group's experience is emphasized, and because the sterility of Western science is problematised (Jameson, 1988, 64).

3) According to Haraway, "the problem for feminists “is how to have simultaneously an account of radical historical contingency for all knowledge claims and knowing subjects, a critical practice for recognizing our own ‘semiotic technologies’ for making meanings, and a non-nonsense commitment to faithful accounts of a ‘real’ world” (1991, 187). Harding clarifies that relying excessively on social constructionism of the world leads to unproductive relativism, but shows that standpoint theory avoids this by promoting a "constructionist materialism." By recognizing theories like agential realism (Barad), standpoint theory is able to serve as a "transitional epistemology and philosophy of science that points toward a world where truth and power do not issue from the same social locations" (Harding, 2004, 39).

Harding concludes that "philosophies of science, like any other form of human thought, are always already socially and politically situated, whether or not their authors intend them to be" (2004, 39).

This concept ties in to "strong objectivity", Harding's claim that recognizing the context of scientific research strengthens, rather than weakens the standards of objectivity.

__Authors and Writings__ Sandra Harding, //Sciences from Below//; //The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader//

__References__ Haraway, Donna. 1991. "Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspectives." In //Simians, cyborgs and women//. New York: Routledge. Harding, Sandra. 2008. //Sciences from Below: Feminisms, Postcolonialities, and Modernities//. Duke University Press. Harding, Sandra. 2004. "A Socially Relevant Philosophy of Science? Resources from Standpoint Theory’s Controversiality" //Hypatia//. 19(1):25-47. Jameson, Fredric. 1988. "History and class consciousness" as an unfinished project. //Rethinking Marxism// 1 (1): 49–72. Wylie, Alison. 2003. "Why standpoint matters." In //Science and other cultures: Issues in philosophies of science and technology//, ed. Robert Figueroa and Sandra Harding. New York: Routledge.