Patricia hill collins describes epistemology as the standards used to assess knowledge or why we believe what we believe to be true also the ways in which power relations shape who is believed and why 270. Pdf on sep 1, 2006, andrea doucet and others published feminist methodologies and epistemology find, read and cite all the research you need on researchgate. Centering lived experiences and the use of dialog imply that knowledge is built around ethics of caring, collins third characteristic of black feminist knowledge. In addition to collins investigation of epistemology, the distinction that she makes between epistemology and black feminist challenges the.
A phenomenological study of black girls talking with an attitude. Feminist perspectives on epistemology, metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science pp. Feminist standpoint epistemology has been criticized for implying there is an essential woman collins 2000, for giving epistemic pri vile ge to gender oppres. Sitting on my throne, i proudly presided over a court of children portraying birds, flowers, and the other,lesser seasons. Yet whether such a confirmation would amount to reaffirming womens epistemic marginality is a more subtle issue. Information, pdf download for integrating feminist epistemologies.
Black feminism aims to empower black women with new and on critical ways of thinking that centered how racism and sexism worked together to create black womens social issues and inequalities. She uses this epistemology to supply black women with selfrepresentations that enable them to resist demeaning racist and sexist images of black women, and to take pride in their identities. Nancy is one of the founding members and cochair of femmss feminist epistemology, metaphysics, methodology and sciences studies. Women such as sojourner truth exemplify black feminist activism in the nineteenth century. Feminist epistemology and the politics of knowledge. Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment, 2nd ed. Toward a politics of empowerment 273 notes 291 glossary 298 references 302 index 326 contents. Pdf this paper is a primer for community psychologists on feminist research. The central concept of feminist epistemology is of situated. Although black women may be denigrated within whitemalecontrolled academic institutions, other institutions, such as black families and churches, which encourage the expression of black female power, seem to do so, in part, by way of their support for an afrocentric feminist epistemology. W hen i was five years old, i was cho sen to play spring in my preschool pageant.
Investigating information systems research through the lens of. In black feminist epistemology, the story is told and preserved in narrative form and not torn apart in analysis collins, 2000, p. This dominant, white male controlled knowledge validation process, which collins closely associates with positivist epistemology, suppresses black feminist thought on the grounds that it is not credible research for new knowledge claims must be consistent with existing bodies of knowledge that the dominant group accepts true. Journal of language and literacy education online, 82, 2646. Thus, collins 1990 grounds black feminist epistemology in black womens personal experiences of racism and sexism. Black feminist thought the flame by unite youth dublin. Feminist epistemology and the search for liberating knowledge. Feminist epistemology refers to the feminist engagement with questions of truth, objectivity, method, and the knowing subject. In the past two decades, feminists and other science critics have challenged the. Though feminist thought was largely ignored in mainstream social theory until the last few decades, feminist social theory has a history as long and storied as feminist movements themselves. On the place of feminist epistemology in philosophy of. She has written a book on black feminist thought that combines the theory with the most immediate in feminist practice. Signs patricia hill collins has done the impossible. Feminist epistemology tuin major reference works wiley.
She has also worked with wittenberg university philosophy majors to develop step. As caretakers of socialscientific knowledge, white elite males not only control the limits of. This paper takes up the recent epistemological turn in femi nist theory and some of the problems thereby raised. The epistemic advantage of the oppressed is sometimes founded onbifurcated. Thus, requiring a thorough rethinking of our conceptions of objectivity and rationality, feminist epistemologies need to be carefully considered in. Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science stanford. She is completing a manuscript, actions which change the face of the world, from which the article in this volume is drawn.
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