This chapter contains sections titled: Highlights of Past Literature Current Work Future Work.

**No longer the current version available on SEP; see revised version by Sharon Crasnow** -/- Feminists have a number of distinct interests in, and perspectives on, science. The tools of science have been a crucial resource for understanding the nature, impact, and prospects for changing gender-based forms of oppression; in this spirit, feminists actively draw on, and contribute to, the research programs of a wide range of sciences. At the same time, feminists have identified the sciences as a source as (...) well as a locus of gender inequalities: the institutions of science have a long tradition of excluding women as practitioners; feminist critics of science find that women and gender (or, more broadly, issues of concern to women and sex/gender minorities) are routinely marginalized as subjects of scientific inquiry, or are treated in ways that reproduce gender-normative stereotypes; and, closing the circle, scientific authority has frequently served to rationalize the kinds of social roles and institutions that feminists call into question. -/- Feminist perspectives on science therefore reflect a broad spectrum of epistemic attitudes toward and appraisals of science. Some urge the reform of gender inequities in the institutions of science and call for attention to neglected questions with the aim of improving the sciences in their own terms; they do not challenge the standards and practices of the sciences they engage. Others pursue jointly critical and constructive programs of research that, to varying degrees, aim at transforming the methodologies, substantive content, framework assumptions, and epistemic ideals that animate the sciences. The content of these perspectives, and the degree to which they generate transformative critique, depends not only on the types of philosophical and political commitments that inform them but also on the nature of the sciences and subject domains on which they bear. Feminist perspectives have had greatest impact on sciences that deal with inherently gendered subjects—the social and human sciences—and, secondarily, on sciences that study subjects characterized in gendered terms, metaphorically or by analogy (projectively gendered subjects), chiefly the biological and life sciences. Feminist perspectives are relevant to sciences that deal with non-gendered subject matters, but perspectives vary substantially in content and in critical import depending on the sciences and the particular research programs they engage. (shrink)

This essay argues that the material conditions of capitalist patriarchal societies are more integrally linked to institutionalized heterosexuality than they are to gender. Building on the critical strategies of early feminist sociology through the articulation of a materialist feminist theoretical framework, the author provides a critique of contemporary sex-gender theory. She argues that the heterosexual imaginary in feminist sociological theories of gender conceals the operation of heterosexuality in structuring gender and closes off any critical analysis of heterosexuality as an organizing (...) institution.... every sociological concept and thesis, as well as the overall patterning of these concepts and theses, is potentially open for reconsideration... With the emergence of feminist sociological theory, the critical emphases in sociology are strengthened by an insistence that sociological work be critical and change-oriented... in an intensely reflexive way towards sociology itself (Lengermann and Niebrugge-Brantley 1990:318). We must produce a political transformation of the key concepts, that is of the concepts which are strategic for us (Wittig 1992:30). (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article:Theory competition and intercultural articulation: methodological reflections on Louts and Legends: Essay reviewSeeking a rationale for schooling: A review of Why go to school?:James Marshall.Positivism or pragmatism: Philosophy of education in New Zealand. Marshall, James D.Educating reason.Hobbes and….

What can one expect to unfold when they choose to do a face-to-face study of children on the farm and their use of space in rural southwestern Ontario? The process of getting the research off the ground from an ethics point of view was one where it was anything but normative, and to a large extent, a grueling process. This article situates the researcher’s dilemma and lays out the unfolding of the research process with reference to the Tri-Council Policy Statement (...) on Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans and the major components found to trouble a research ethics board on a university campus. Last, academic freedom and the rights of researchers are considered in the context of undertaking the proposed research agenda. (shrink)

The feminist goal of challenging inequality requires distinctive methods such as combining social action with research and using participatory approaches. These methods strengthen scientific standards of good evidence and open debate, but they conflict with elitism and careerism in academia and hence are rarely used. Nonhierarchical structures must be created.

This paper offers an account of how to engage one phenomenologically orientated version of relational research based on ideas from existential phenomenological philosophy as well as Gestalt theory, relational psychoanalysis, intersubjectivity theory and feminist methodology. Relational dynamics (both conscious and unconscious) between researcher and co-researcher are explored reflexively using illustrations from various phenomenological projects in which the author has been involved. The relational approach to phenomenology described involves attending to four interlinked dimensions: open presence, embodied intersubjectivity, dialogic co-creation and entangled (...) selves. The paper aims to show the importance of retaining an open, empathic, embodied presence to another's personhood while acknowledging the power of dialogue to bring to life new realities. Data is seen to emerge out of the researcher/co-researcher relationship and is mutually co-created in this encounter as each touches and impacts on the other. What we can learn and know about another arises within the intersubjective space between. In this zone of ambiguity and uncertainty, the unforeseen hovers and layered meanings invite discovery. (shrink)

The effort to “appreciate” phenomenology and feminism in the study of quiltmaking discourse self-reflexively joins a philosophy of experience with a politics of women's experiences. At the same time it reveals method to be an embodied practice which involves knowledge as power, and it discovers power relations between researchers and the researched within particular contexts and relationships. For phenomenology, these reflections may encourage closer attention to the en-gendering and situating of the subject within social and cultural conditions. Also they may (...) challenge us to ask: who benefits from phenomenological understanding? For feminism, this effort may encourage greater self-critique in regard to the phenomena of women's experiences. Simultaneously, these reflections may temper an uncritical embracing of phenomenological methods. Perhaps these reflections can best be seen as a working out of a pattern that joins phenomenology, feminism, and their compatible and contradictory relations like the three layers of a quilt. In this embodied and ongoing labor of piecing and quilting I have attempted to expose the seams and the gaps rather than smooth over their differences. Research, like quiltmaking, functions as both a noun and a verb, a product and a practice, engaged bodily and mindfully as a project in the world. (shrink)

As in other fields, scholarly publication in sociology is not only the key to career success but also the route by which feminist analyses and perspectives become known to others in the discipline. A growing literature has analyzed women's and men's rates of publication, but the gender politics of the prepublication production of research and gender differences in reputation building after publication remain underexplored. This report reviews the current state of knowledge about sociological publishing at three phases: prepublication, the publication-seeking (...) phase, and postpublication. It concludes with critical questions to be addressed in developing a comprehensive model of gender effects on sociological publishing. (shrink)

This paper will suggest some key elements needed to adequately ground a concept of oppression relevant to the ethics of the social professionsFootnote11. The ‘social professions’ is a useful phrase employed by Sarah Banks (2004) and includes social work, community and youth work, and other professions where human services are offered., and demonstrate how a coherent account of such a concept can be offered, drawing on recent work in social, moral and political philosophy: an account that both supports and challenges (...) the social professional. The ethical commitment of social professionals in many countries to an ‘anti-oppressive’ approach to their work has not always been well understood by those who have supported the idea, or by those critical of it. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding and development of anti-oppressive values and practice in the social professions through a review of recent work relevant to the concept of oppression. It argues that a substantial, critical concept of oppression should underpin any social professional ethics. (shrink)

This article draws attention to the importance of enchantment in business ethics research. Starting from a Weberian understanding of disenchantment, as a force that arises through modernity and scientific rationality, we show how rationalist business ethics research has become disenchanted as a consequence of the normalization of positivist, quantitative methods of inquiry. Such methods absent the relational and lively nature of business ethics research and detract from the ethical meaning that can be generated through research encounters. To address this issue, (...) we draw on the work of political theorist and philosopher, Jane Bennett, using this to show how interpretive qualitative research creates possibilities for enchantment. We identify three opportunities for reenchanting business ethics research related to: moments of novelty or disruption; deep, meaningful attachments to things studied; and possibilities for embodied, affective encounters. In conclusion, we suggest that business ethics research needs to recognize and reorient scholarship towards an appreciation of the ethical value of interpretive, qualitative research as a source of potential enchantment. (shrink)

Qualitative research from a feminist perspective in the postmodern era: methodological, ethical and reflexive concerns Developing methodology is an ongoing process in certain types of qualitative research. This paper describes the process in a study of single midlife women, detailing reflexive concerns on the ethics of data collection and dissemination of research findings from a feminist postmodern perspective, as well as the way in which modification of techniques of analysis occurred as the study progressed. Beginning research questions were concerned with (...) identifying the impact of menopausal symptoms, and the debate surrounding HRT on the lives and decision‐making processes of single midlife women. Initial analysis of data, using grounded theory techniques, indicated a need to place greater emphasis on the way the women constructed or talked about the self, including the embodied self. This led to an exploration of the literature relating to reflexivity, identity construction and embodiment, including feminist poststructuralist interpretations of the discursive and embodied construction of self, and informed both the theoretical framework and the method. The way in which a type of analysis fitting under the broad rubric of discourse analysis, that is one that gave added emphasis to gendered subjectivity, directed further analysis is discussed, as well as the influence on the women of social and scientific discourses in circulation. (shrink)

Many feminists have aruged that researchers must “give voice” to hitherto silenced women by adopting “the view from below.” Critically reviewing the literature on feminist methodology, the author argues that this perspective, while absolutely essential, is not sufficient. Confining research to induction-based methods ignores the limits to such research: Ideologies of oppression are often internalized, while the underlying structures of oppression are hidden. Marxist approaches may help reveal hidden determinants of oppression, but they risk exacerbating inequalities between researcher and researched. (...) Women's experience of a world shaped by structures of inequality produces contradictory relationships among researcher and researched and requires a methodology that deals with difference and the blindness of privilege among women. Women's oppression is “a complex of many contradictions” and necessitates a new standpoint-based methodology, created by researchers and participants of diverse race, class, and other oppressed groups, refocusing and re-visioning knowledge based on theory, action, and experience. (shrink)

This article is concerned with the use of correspondence as research data. It focuses on the author's own experience of this method and considers the methodological implications of correspondence as a research method for research in general and feminist research in particular. We argue that at present this method is not often used, even though it provides rich data and is a potential powerful tool for feminist research.

Massage and sexuality in nursingThis paper draws upon data from a students' massage workshop, focuses on the students' discourse as they positioned diem‐selves as masseurs and considers relationships between nursing discourses and genderized self‐hood. For some students, there was a conflation of sex and massage. Massage was more heavily laden with implicit sexual meaning for male students than for female students. The latter were able to negotiate the ambiguities of working with people's bodies in a more comfortable way. This research (...) has implications for teaching students of nursing, particularly in relation to massage, and also nursing practice that involves care for the patient's body. (shrink)

Marjorie Shostak's ethnography, Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman, is analyzed as a case study of feminist social science. Three principles of feminist research are suggested as standards for evaluation. After discussion of the principles and analysis of the text, I raise a criticism of the principles as currently sketched. The entire project is framed by the question of how best to resolve conflict between researcher and participant accounts.

Who owns feminist theory? and just what is meant by the idea of ‘theory’? We explore these fundamental questions as part of interrogating some emergent orthodoxies about feminist theory, proposing that there is a ‘missing revolution’ in feminist thinking, for while ideas about feminist epistemology, methodology and ethics have been fundamentally reworked, those concerning feminist theory have not. Our purpose is to stimulate a debate about the form of feminist theory, rather than the more usual controversies about its content; and (...) thus our concern is with promoting the development of feminist metatheory. We argue that the now-dominant version of feminist theory is a parallel project to that of mainstream/malestream social theory, and that a feminist autocritique of this and related developments is needed, with the aim of achieving a transformation of the fundamental categories of feminist theory. (shrink)

Within recent feminist theorizing the significance of social location has been overestimated, while the power of argument has been underestimated. We do not need to retreat to notions of ‘story-telling’ as the strongest claim to knowledge possible by feminist analysis. Rather, we should draw on the power of argument. This article addresses some dilemmas in debates around the projects of recognition, redistribution and transformation, and the claims to knowledge made in each. Further, it argues for the integration of the concerns (...) of equality and difference. The theoretical argument is supported by examples drawn from practical politics, including the development of democratic procedures, postcolonialism, the UNDP indicators sometimes used in development policy and suffrage movements. (shrink)

In this paper I question the tendency within some feminist circles to criticise attempts to develop typologies that delineate different feminist theoretical perspectives. I agree that many of the criticisms are valid, but only if typologies are viewed in a particular way. This particular way is when typologies are regarded as ahistorical, all-encompassing entities containing discrete categories that are designed for the once and for all fixing of individuals and their work in one box. Reading Max Weber through Karl Mannheim's (...) work on the sociology of knowledge, I argue that typologies, as ideal-types, are indispensable, socially situated practical tools for measuring similarities, differences and developments in thought within and across time and space. Despite being noted as an “attractive” argument by at least some of those who are otherwise critical of typologies (for example, Liz Stanley and Sue Wise), I believe that the “attractiveness” of this particular position has not been granted serious consideration. (shrink)

This article addresses the challenges of developing methodologies which build on the insights of early feminist research and methods, but which also incorporate some of the new innovations in sociological, qualitative research. Feminist research has emphasized the need to capture the everyday lives of women (and others) but this is not so easy once it is realized how ‘messy’ everyday life may be and that we may also not have tools adequate to the art of listening and the task of (...) ‘story telling’. In particular there is a need to incorporate a wide range of sensibilities into the creation of feminist/sociological accounts of everyday lives. These include accounting for emotions, memories, intersubjective meanings, and other intangibles. Finally, the article argues that debates over methodologies should not stop with questions of collecting and analysing data, but must also address the problems of how to write the lives of people differently. (shrink)

This paper scrutinises the many ways in which ‘success’ is portrayed in representing assisted reproductive technology (ART) services and illuminates how these definitions differ from those held by participant couples. A qualitative approach informed by feminist perspectives guided this study and aimed to problematise the concept of ‘success’ by examining literature from ART clinics, government reports on ART, and by analysing narratives of couples who have accessed ART services. As many ART services have varying definitions of ‘success’ and as statistics (...) are manipulated to promote further patronage of ART services, the likelihood of ‘success’ is often overstated. This paper is concerned with the effects this promotion has on the participants. We suggest that this very mobilisation of statistical success changes the ability of those who access ART services to make productive decisions about themselves inside these treatment regimes, as the basis for decision‐making is hidden by the way numbers, objectivity and clinical reasoning operate to maintain participation in the program. In such an operation, the powerful mix of hope and technology kept participants enrolled far longer than they originally planned. Moreover, how success rates are manipulated raises ethical issues for all involved: clients, counsellors, and nursing and medical professionals. (shrink)

The paper situates the new field of men's studies in the context of the evolution of women's studies. It argues that men's studies' distinctive feminist approach to men is a necessary complement to women's studies, citing paradigmatic examples of new perspectives. In tracing women's studies' development, the paper argues that reconceptualizations of "gender" resolve tensions between much of women's studies' non-essentialist empirical social science describing "sex roles" and much of feminist theory's essentialist celebrations of women's core selves.