1 FEMINIST RESEARCH Exploring, Interrogating, and Transforming the Interconnections of , Methodology, and Method

Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber

Feminist Voices and worse. I want to add my testimony to that of abler pens to convince the people of the Free States what Visions Across the Centuries Slavery really is. Only by experience can anyone This Handbook begins with voices, visions, and realize how deep, and dark, and foul is that pit of experiences of feminist activists, scholars, and abominations. May the blessing of God rest on this researchers, speaking to us across the decades imperfect effort in behalf of my persecuted people! of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. They pro- (Harriet Jacobs, 1861/1987, pp. 1–2) vide a legacy of feminist research, praxis, and activism. There lies within these voices a femi- Harriet Jacobs calls for the alignment of nist consciousness that opens up intellectual women across their racial, class, and geographi- and emotional spaces for all women to articu- cal differences to fight the abomination of slav- late their relations to one another and the wider ery. Through her words, Jacobs demonstrates society—spaces where the personal transforms how the concrete lived experience is a key place into the political. from which to build and foment social change. I do earnestly desire to arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two It was thus that I found myself walking with millions of women at the South, still in bondage, extreme rapidity across a grass plot. Instantly a suffering what I suffered, and most of them far man’s figure rose to intercept me. Nor did I at first

Author’s Note: Much appreciation and gratitude to Alicia Johnson, Hilary Flowers, Abigail Brooks, and Deborah Piatelli, who contributed their academic insights and skillful editing and editorial advice. 2 Chapter 1 Feminist Research–•–3

understand that the gesticulations of a curious- Women [were] largely excluded from the work of looking object, in a cut-away coat and evening producing the forms of thought and the images shirt, were aimed at me. His face expressed horror and symbols in which thought is expressed and and indignation. Instinct rather than reason came ordered. . . . The circle of men whose writing and to my help: he was a Beadle; I was a . Thus talk was significant to each other extends back- was the turf; there was the path. Only the Fellows wards in time as far as our records reach. What men and Scholars are allowed here; the gravel is the were doing was relevant to men, was written by place for me. (Virginia Woolf, 1929, p. 258) men about men for men. Men listened . . . to what one another said. (Dorothy Smith, 1978, p. 281) Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not Feminist perspectives also carry messages regarded as an autonomous being. . . . For him she of empowerment that challenge the encircling of is sex—absolute sex, no less. She is defined and knowledge claims by those who occupy privi- differentiated with reference to man and not he leged positions. Feminist thinking and practice with reference to her; she is the incidental, the ines- require taking steps from the “margins to the sential as opposed to the essential. He is the center” while eliminating boundaries that privi- Subject, he is the Absolute—she is the Other. lege dominant forms of knowledge building, (, 1952, pp. xviii, xxiii) boundaries that mark who can be a knower and The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in what can be known. For Virginia Woolf, it is the the minds of American women. It was a strange stir- demarcation between the “turf” and the “path”; ring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that for Simone de Beauvoir, it is the line between women suffered in the middle of the twentieth cen- the “inessential” and the “essential”; and for tury in the United States. Each suburban wife strug- Dorothy Smith, it is the path that encircles gled with it alone. . . . she was afraid to ask even of dominant knowledge, where women’s lived herself the silent question—“Is this all?” For over experiences lie outside its circumference or fifteen years there was no word of this yearning in huddled at the margins. the millions of words written about women, for women, in all the columns, books, and articles by Working right at the limits of several categories experts telling women their role was to seek fulfill- and approaches means that one is neither entirely ment as wives and . . . . We can no longer inside or outside. One has to push one’s work as ignore within women that voice that says: “I want far as one can go: to the borderlines, where one something more than my husband and my children never stops, walking on the edges, incurring con- and my home.” (, 1963, pp. 15, 32) stantly the risk of falling off one side or the other side of the limit while undoing, redoing, modify- Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, and ing this limit. (Trinh T. Minh-ha, 1991, p. 218) Betty Friedan, speaking many decades later, express their deep feelings of exclusion from the To engage in and praxis dominant avenues of knowledge building, seeing means to challenge knowledge that excludes, their own experiences, concerns, and worth dimin­ while seeming to include—assuming that when ished and invalidated by the dominant powers of we speak of the generic term men, we also mean their society. women, as though what is true for dominant In some ways, the origins of feminist groups must also be true for women and other research’s epistemological and methodological oppressed groups. Feminists ask “new” ques- focus draws on these insights and struggles; tions that place women’s lives and those of feminist , standpoint theories, post- “other” marginalized groups at the center of modernism, and transnational perspectives all social . Feminist research disrupts tradi- recognize the importance of women’s lived tional ways of knowing to create rich new mean- experiences to the goal of unearthing subjugated ings, a process that Trinh (1991) terms becoming knowledge. Each perspective forges links between “both/and”—insider and outsider—taking on a , activism, and the academy and wom- multitude of different standpoints and negotiat- en’s everyday lives. ing these identities simultaneously. 4–•–HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST RESEARCH

The history of research from many indigenous “in this capitalist culture, feminism and feminist perspectives is so deeply embedded in coloniza- theory are fast becoming a commodity that only tion that it has been regarded as a tool only of the privileged can afford” (p. 71). Audre Lorde colonization and not as a potential tool for self- (1996) provides a path to empowerment by urg- determination and development. For indigenous ing an embrace of difference through an “inter- peoples, research has a significance that is embed- dependency of different strengths, acknowledged ded in our history as natives under the gaze of and equal” (p. 159). Western science and colonialism. (Linda Tuhiwai Smith, 2005, p. 87) The tensions between opposing theories and polit- ical stances vitalize the feminist dialogue. But it Feminists bob and weave their threads of may only be combined with respect, partial under- understanding, listening to the experiences of standing, love, and friendship that keeps us “the other/s” as legitimate knowledge. Feminist together in the long run. So mujeres think about research is mindful of hierarchies of power and the carnalas you want to be in your space, those authority in the research process, hierarchies whose spaces you want to have overlapping that are so well described by Linda Tuhiwai yours. (Gloria Anzaldúa, 1990, p. 229) Smith (2005), including those power differentials that lie within research practices that can rein- Indeed, it is our acknowledgment and appre- force the status quo, creating divisions between ciation of difference that sustains our ability to colonizer and colonized. navigate uncharted terrain toward meaningful social change. Gloria Anzaldúa (1990) employs I continue to be amazed that there is so much a “sandbar” metaphor to capture traversals of feminist writing produced and yet so little femi- the difference divide: nist theory that strives to speak to women, men Being a sandbar means getting a breather from and children about ways we might transform our being a perpetual bridge without having to with- lives via a conversion to feminist practice. (bell draw completely. The high tides and low tides of hooks, 1994, pp. 70–71) your life are factors which help decide whether or Advocating the mere tolerance of difference where you’re a sandbar today, tomorrow. . . . A between women is the grossest reformism. It is a sandbar is more fluid and shifts locations, allow- total denial of the creative function of difference ing for more mobility and more freedom. Of in our lives. Difference must be not merely toler- course there are sandbars called shoals, where ated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities boats run amuck. (p. 224) between which our creativity can spark like a dia- lectic. Only then does the necessity for interde- Although Anzaldúa now envisions herself pendency become unthreatening. Only within that turning into a sandbar, her own stance on differ- interdependency of different strengths, acknowl- ence fluctuates between a “persistent ridge,” a edged and equal, can the power to seek new ways “drawbridge,” or even “an island.” For Anzaldúa of being in the world generate, as well as the cour- (1990), traversing the difference divide becomes age and sustenance to act where there are no a process—with its own range of connections charters. (Audre Lorde, 1996, p. 159) and disconnections as “each option comes with its own dangers” (p. 224). The quotations used in this chapter contain a Feminist research shares some common angles quality of agency that challenges dominant dis- of vision that are “connected in principle to femi- courses of knowledge building, urging women nist struggle” (Joey Sprague & Mark Zimmerman, to live and invite in differences, to embrace the 1993, p. 266), often with the intent to change the creativity and knowledge building that lies basic structures of oppression. But there is no within the tensions of difference. Difference single or methodology. matters. Author (1994) implores Instead, multiple feminist lenses wake us up to feminists to root their scholarship in “transfor- layers of sexist, racist, homophobic, and colonial- mative politics and practice,” pointing out that ist points of view. Some lenses provide radical Chapter 1 Feminist Research–•–5

insights into knowledge building that upend tradi- and social sciences. These feminist scholars and tional and methodologies, offering researchers, known as feminist empiricists, more complex understandings and solutions embarked on projects to “correct” these biases toward subjugated knowledge. by adding women into research samples and Feminists engage both the theory and prac- asking new questions that enabled women’s tice of research—beginning with the formula- experiences and perspectives to gain a hearing. tion of the research question and ending with the Margrit Eichler and Jeanne Lapointe’s (1985) reporting of research findings. Feminist research research primer, On the Treatment of the Sexes encompasses the full range of knowledge build- in Research, provides a critique of empirical ing that includes epistemology, methodology, research as well as a checklist for the inclusion and method. An epistemology is “a theory of of as a category of analysis in social knowledge” (, 1987b, p. 3) that research. Their work provides many important delineates a set of assumptions about the social nuggets of advice concerning what not to do (p. 9). world—who can be a knower and what can be These include the following: known. These assumptions influence the deci- sions a researcher makes, including what to study •• Treating Western sex roles as universal (based on what can be studied) and how to con- •• Transforming statistical differences into innate duct a study. A methodology is “a theory of how differences research is done or should proceed” (p. 3). A •• Translating difference as inferiority method is “a technique for (or way of proceed- ing in) gathering evidence” (p. 2). Very often, Feminist empiricist researchers did much to the term method is used as an umbrella term to “deconstruct” what they perceived as errors, or refer to these three different components of the examples of androcentrism, across a range of research process, which can make the use of academic disciplines and professional fields. the term somewhat confusing. Feminist empiricists’ insights into androcen- Feminist research takes many twists and turns trism, and their goal of eradicating sexist as a mode of social inquiry. In this introduction, research, cascaded across the disciplines of psy- we provide a brief overview of some of the chology, philosophy, history, sociology, educa- “critical moments” in the legacy of feminist tion, and anthropology, as well as the fields of theory and praxis. We take up the dialogues sur- law, medicine, language, and communication. rounding issues of epistemology, methodology, The 1970s and 1980s saw the publication of and method. Feminist research begins with ques- many groundbreaking anthologies critical of tioning and critiquing androcentric bias within androcentric research. In 1975, Marcia Millman the disciplines, challenging traditional research- and Rosabeth Moss Kanter coedited the volume ers to include gender as a category of analysis. Another Voice: Feminist Perspectives on Social Subsequently, through this shift in perspective, Life and . In their editorial intro- we can observe the beginnings of an overall duction, they compare traditional knowledge challenge to the itself and the building with the story of “The Emperor’s New emergence of new of thinking about Clothes.” They note, basic foundational questions: What is Truth? Who can be a knower? What can be known? Everyone knows the story about the Emperor and his fine clothes; although the townspeople per- suaded themselves that the Emperor was elegantly costumed, a child, possessing an unspoiled vision, eminist esearchers hallenge F R C showed the citizenry that the Emperor was really Androcentric Bias Across naked. . . . The story also reminds us that collec- the Disciplines tive delusions can be undone by introducing fresh perspectives. (p. vii) In the 1960s through to the 1980s, feminist scholars and researchers called attention to Sociologists Millman and Kanter (1975) examples of androcentric bias within the sciences criticize the androcentric bias of sociology by 6–•–HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST RESEARCH noting how sociology uses certain “field-defining Dale Spender’s (1981) anthology Men’s models” that prevent the asking of new ques- Studies Modified: The Impact of Feminism on tions. They note, for example, that the Weberian the Academic Disciplines focuses on gender and concept of rationality, used to understand an knowledge building across the disciplines. individual’s motivations and social organiza- Spender notes, tion, “defines out of existence, from the start, the equally important element of emotion in Most of the knowledge produced in our society social life and structure” (p. ix). Their edited has been produced by men. . . . They have created volume presents a range of new feminist per- men’s studies (the academic curriculum), for, by spectives on the social reality to “reassess the not acknowledging that they are presenting only basic theories, paradigms, substantive concerns, the explanation of men, they have “passed off” and methodologies of sociology and the social this knowledge as human knowledge. (p. 1) sciences to see what changes are needed to make social theory and research reflect the mul- In writing this volume, Spender hoped to draw titude of both female and male realities and attention to cutting-edge research across the interests” (p. viii). The works in this volume disciplines that began to “alter the power con- also point out how sociology emphasizes the figurations in the construction of knowledge in “public sphere” of society and “leaves out the society” (p. 8). private, supportive, informal, local social struc- Many anthologies quickly followed, includ- tures in which women participate most fre- ing Sandra Harding’s (1987a) edited volume, quently” (p. xi). A stark example of this comes Feminism and Methodology. In the preface to this from a research article in their volume by Arlie volume, Harding raises a central issue, namely, Hochschild (1975), “The Sociology of Feeling “Is there a unique of inquiry?” and Emotion: Selected Possibilities.” Hochschild She suggests that at the heart of feminist inquiry demonstrates how the frequency of specific are the emergent questions and issues that femi- emotions is not distributed evenly across social nists raise about the social reality and the prac- structures. She explores the gendered, raced, tices of traditional research. She asserts, and classed aspects of emotional expression. She notes, for example, that anger tends to flow A closer examination of the full range of feminist down the social structure, while love flows up social analyses reveals that often it is not exactly the social hierarchy. In effect, those at the bot- alternative methods that are responsible for what is tom of the social ladder become “the complaint significant about this research. Instead, we can see clerks of society, and . . . for the dwellers at the in this work alternative origins of problematics, top, the world is more often experienced as a explanatory hypotheses and evidence, alternative benign place” (p. 296). She notes in particular purposes of inquiry, and a new prescription for the the role of gender in emotional expression appropriate relationship between the inquirer and whereby women “receive not only their hus- his/her subject of inquiry. (p. vii) band’s frustration displaced from the office to home, but also the anger of other women who If we look inside Harding’s volume, we find are dissimilarly displaced upon” (p. 296). In a several articles that interrogate the relationship later work, Hochschild (1983), a prime mover in between gender and the social sciences. Carolyn establishing the field known as “the sociology Wood Sherif’s (1987) article calls attention to of emotions,” demonstrates how emotions are androcentric research being conducted in the often co-opted for commercial benefit. For field of psychology. Sherif begins her analysis example, those women employed in female- of bias by quoting Naomi Weisstein’s thesis of dominated clerical, service, and sales occupa- the 1960s that “psychology has nothing to say tions often find that “emotional work” is a part about what women are really like, what they of their job in addition to their more formal job need and what they want, essentially because description. They are expected to keep things psychology does not know” (p. 38). In seeking functioning smoothly by managing the emo- to raise the status of their discipline, psycholo- tional climate at work—by smiling and com- gists began to emulate the theories and prac- porting an upbeat and friendly demeanor. tices of the more prestigious hard sciences. This Chapter 1 Feminist Research–•–7

reliance on biological and physical science analysis also provides historians with a more models of inquiry invariably led to biased theo- complex understanding of history’s influence ries about women and gender. Bonnie Thornton on both sexes. Dill’s (1987) article in this same volume points Nancy Tuana’s edited volume Feminism & to the tendency of researchers, including some Science (1989a) contains a range of readings feminist researchers, to generalize women’s that critique the gendered of the sciences. social situation, leaving out differences of race, In the preface to her volume, Tuana notes, class, and cultural context. She uses the exam- “Although feminists were not the first to reject ple of “” and explains how the con- the traditional image of science, we were the cept has been dominated by images of white first to carefully explore the myriad ways in middle- and upper-middle-class conceptions of which sexist biases affected the nature and prac- womanhood. She provides alternative frame- tice of science” (p. xi). Nancy Tuana’s own works for analyzing the concept by taking research article in this volume reveals the extent women’s race, class, and cultural context- to which “scientists work within and through bound differences into account. Joan Kelly- the worldview of their time” (1989b, p. 147). Gadol’s (1987) article in Harding’s edited Tuana examines theories of reproduction from volume provides a critique of the androcen- to the preformationists and shows how trism of historical method by illustrating the these theories justify women’s inferiority. She myriad ways in which feminist research ques- notes, “Aristotle set the basic orientation for tions historical work. Kelly-Gadol focuses on the next 2000 years of embryological thought . . . historians’ use of field-defining concepts such the gender/science system is woven tightly into as “periodization,” a particular set of events the fabric of science” (p. 169). historians chose to focus on (usually those Emily Martin’s (1987) monograph The activities men were engaged in, such as diplo- Woman in the Body, published around the same matic and constitutional history, as well as time as Nancy Tuana’s book, also provides a political, economic, and cultural history). She feminist analysis of science, but through an troubles the concept of periodization by includ- examination of medical discourse. Martin ing gender as a category of analysis that opens exposes the range of sex-biased assumptions the possibility of asking new questions: Was the embedded within reproductive medical texts that period called the Renaissance beneficial for serve to disempower women and compares these women? Although the Renaissance brought images to women’s perceptions of their reproduc- dramatic changes in social and cultural life that tive lives. She discovers that medical texts benefited many men, a growing division employ an image of birth as “production,” with between private and public life meant that most the uterus likened to a “machine.” Within this women, even those of the upper class, experi- framework, menstruation and menopause become enced increasing segregation from men and a “failed production.” Martin also finds that white loss of power and freedom in the public sphere. middle-class women are most apt to accept these Kelly-Gadol’s vision of including women in dominant images. Like Tuana’s work, Martin’s history challenges the fundamental way histori- research underscores the androcentrism embed- ans visualize historical periods. In addition, our ded in scientific literature and research and dem- understanding of social change also shifts when onstrates the extent to which the “hard” sciences we conceive of women as agents of historical exist within value-laden social contexts that change. Kelly-Gadol does not include a specific affect their practices and findings. discussion of other differences such as race, class, and sexual preference in her vision of historical method. However, by decentering Turn Toward Feminist white male concerns and activities as the cen- Epistemologies and Methodologies tral focal point of historical inquiry and by making sex a category fundamental to histori- Although we have barely touched on the range cal analysis, she (and others) paved the way for of contributions of feminist scholarship, it is alternative viewpoints to reconfigure the his- clear that the decades of the 1970s and 1980s torical landscape. Including sex as a category of contributed to the deconstruction of traditional 8–•–HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST RESEARCH knowledge frameworks—taken-for-granted know­ asserts that the discipline of sociology can create ledge across several disciplines. In contrast to the same objective conditions that exist in the this endeavor, the 1980s and 1990s saw femi- natural sciences. He codifies by pro- nists launching other important challenges to viding social scientists with specific rules and knowledge building, starting with a basic foun- guidelines that will enable them to conduct dational question: value-free research, to separate from values, and to discover what he terms “social facts”— •• What is the nature of the social reality? facts that “have an independent existence outside the individual consciousness” (p. 20). According Positivism is a traditional research to Durkheim, discarding sensation (feelings, val- based on “the scientific method,” a form of ues, and emotion) is an imperative aspect of knowledge building in which “there is only one knowledge building: of science, to which any intellectual activ- ity aspiring to the title of ‘science’ should fol- It is a rule in the natural sciences to discard those low” (Russell Keat & John Urry, quoted in data of sensation that are too subjective, in order Lawrence Neuman, 2000, p. 66). Positivism’s to retain exclusively those presenting a sufficient model of inquiry is based on logic and empiri- degree of . Thus the physicist substi- cism. It holds out a specific epistemology of tutes, for the vague impressions of temperature knowing—that truth lies “out there” in the and electricity, the visual registrations of the ther- social reality waiting to be discovered, if only mometer or the electrometer. The sociologist must the scientist is “objective” and “value free” in take the same precautions. (p. 44) the pursuit of knowledge building. It posits “causal relationships” between variables that Feminist researchers do not necessarily depend on the testing of specific hypotheses embrace or eschew the practice of a positivist deduced from a general theory. The goal is to mode of inquiry. Some feminist researchers generalize research findings to a wider popula- warn that the practice of positivism can lead to tion and even to find causal laws that predict “bad science.” This idea was the very motiva- human behavior. Positivists present their results tion of feminist empiricists who urged scholars in the form of quantified patterns of behaviors and researchers across the disciplines to be reported in the form of statistical results. Early mindful of who is left out of research models’ on, the social sciences (e.g., sociology and psy- generalized claims and to tend to issues of dif- chology) wanted to establish themselves as ference in the research process (see, e.g., the pre- “scientific” in consort with the natural sciences ceding critique of androcentrism and Hundleby, (e.g., biology and chemistry). Chapter 2, this volume). Other feminist scholars (1798–1857), known as the father of French and researchers have critiqued positivism’s ten- positivism, sought to incorporate the primary dency toward dualisms—between quantitative tenets of positivism into the discipline of sociol- and qualitative research, between the subject and ogy. Comte envisioned knowledge building object of research, and between rationality and passing through the “law of three stages”: the emotion. Sprague and Zimmerman (1993) argue, “theological” or “fictitious” stage, characterized for example, that by setting up a subject-object by beliefs in the supernatural; the “metaphysical” split, whereby the researcher is removed from or “abstract” stage, a transitional state of the research process and placed on a different knowledge building in which nature and its plane, the practice of positivism promotes a hier- abstract forces are at work; and, finally, the archy between the researcher and the researched “positivist” or “scientific” stage, the pinnacle of that mimics patriarchy. Sprague and Zimmerman knowledge, through which we seek to uncover also challenge the positivist exclusion of emo- the laws that govern social behavior (Comte, tions and values from the research process and 1896/2000, p. 27). call for an integration of quantitative and quali- Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) also aspired to tative research. make sociology more scientific. In The Rules of On the other hand, positivism per se is not Sociological Method, Durkheim (1895/1938) the enemy of all feminist inquiry; rather, the Chapter 1 Feminist Research–•–9 adversary is how positivist principles of practice as feminist researchers began to interrogate, dis- are deployed in some mainstream research proj- rupt, modify, and, at times, radically challenge ects. Some feminist researchers see positivism existing ways of knowing within and across their as having merit, especially as it adds validity to disciplines, creating a shift in the tectonic plates feminist research projects. Feminist empiricists of mainstream knowledge building. Beginning continue to draw on positivist traditions (see in with a critique of positivism’s concept of scien- this volume Miner, Jayaratne, Pesonen, & tific objectivity—and from the idea of a “value- Zurbrügg; Rosser; and Cole & Stewart). Addi­ free” science with its stress on the detachment of tionally, some research questions may call forth the researcher from the researched—the feminist a positivistic framework, especially if the goal movement toward alternative epistemologies of the research project requires the testing of a began to take shape. Feminists went to the heart specific research hypothesis across a broad of some basic foundational questions, namely, spectrum of data with the aim of generalizing who can know? What can be known? findings to a wider population. Some feminist Instead of working to improve the accu- social policy advocates have also argued for its racy, objectivity, and universality of mainstream inclusion. For example, Roberta Spalter-Roth research by including women, feminists started and Heidi Hartmann (1996), in their social pol- to challenge the viability and utility of concepts icy work on women and welfare, call for the like objectivity and universality altogether. “strategic” use of a quantitative paradigm in Knowledge is achieved not through “correct- conjunction with a qualitative one to “heighten ing” mainstream research studies by adding consciousness and to provide credible numbers women, but through paying attention to the that can help advocates to mobilize political specificity and uniqueness of women’s lives and support” (p. 221). experiences. Finally, sociologist Janet Saltzman Chafetz (1988), Sandra Harding (1999) objects to the confounding of positivism (1993), and Kum-Kum Bhavnani (1993) argue, with such terms as “instrument of social con- for example, that objectivity needs to be trol” and “masculine knowledge building.” She transformed into “feminist objectivity.” Donna attributes these misrepresentations to the confu- Haraway defines feminist objectivity as “situ- sion surrounding the meaning of the term: ated ”: knowledge and truth are partial, situated, subjective, power imbued, and In part this has happened because of the erroneous relational. The denial of values, biases, and confusion of this term with the kind of mindless politics is seen as unrealistic and undesirable empiricism that has marked so much sociological (see also Bhavnani, 1993, p. 96; Harding, 1993, research. I believe that theory development and p. 49). Historian Joan Scott (1999) disputes the well-crafted, theoretically oriented research go positivist notion of a one-to-one correspondence hand-in-hand, and that this is in what “posi- between experience and social reality. Instead, tivism” is all about. (p. 327) she asserts, experience is shaped by one’s par- ticular context—by specific circumstances, con- According to Saltzman Chafetz (1999), there ditions, values, and relations of power, each is “nothing in the view that patterned behaviors influencing how one articulates “experience.” and processes exist, can be measured, and can be Scott ushered in a “linguistic turn” in our under- explained in substantial measure cross-culturally standing of social reality by pointing out how and pan-historically that automatically deni- experience is discursively constructed by domi- grates or controls people” (pp. 327–328). Instead, nant ideological structures. Tracing the dis- Saltzman Chafetz sees the positivistic perspec- course surrounding experience provides a tive working for feminist ends. method for examining the underlying mecha- made important contri- nisms of oppression within society that, in fact, butions toward uncovering androcentric bias in may provide new avenues of resistance and social research by encouraging the practice of transformation. “good” science. A more radical set of feminist In addition to valuing women’s unique and epistemologies and methodologies was to come, situated experiences as knowledge (Gloria 10–•–HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST RESEARCH

Bowles & Renate Duelli-Klein, 1983; Smith, the way results of research are reported, and so 1987, 1990; Liz Stanley & Sue Wise, 1983), on.” And to practice strong objectivity requires some feminists make the case for validating the all researchers to self-reflect on what values, importance of emotions and values as a critical attitudes, and agenda they bring to the research lens in research endeavors (Alison Jaggar, 1997; process—strong objectivity means that “the Sprague & Zimmerman, 1993). Alison Jaggar subjects of knowledge be placed on the same recognizes emotion as a central aspect of knowl- critical causal plane as the objects of knowl- edge building. According to Jaggar (1997), it is edge” (p. 69). How do a researcher’s own his- unrealistic to assume emotions and values do not tory and positionality influence, for example, surface during the research process. Our emo- the questions she or he asks? It is in the practice tions, in fact, are an integral part of why a given of strong self-reflexivity that the researcher topic or set of research questions is studied and becomes more objective. how it is studied. The positivistic dualism Feminist philosopher Lorraine Code (1991), between the rational and the emotional becomes in her book What Can She Know? Feminist a false dichotomy: Theory and the Construction of Knowledge, offers yet another viewpoint regarding posi- Values and emotions enter into the science of the tivism’s “objectivity” claim. She argues for a past and the present not only on the level of scien- “mitigated relativism” that avoids charges of tific practice but also on the metascientific level, “objectivism” and “relativism.” as answers to various questions: What is Science? How should it be practiced? And what is the status I prefer to characterize the position I advocate as of scientific investigation versus nonscientific a mitigated relativism, however, or the freedom modes of enquiry? (p. 393) it offers from the homogenizing effects of tradi- tional objectivism, in which differences, discrep- Sandra Harding’s (1993) concept of “strong ancies, and deviations are smoothed out for the objectivity” is a specific example of how to sake of achieving a unified theory. With its com- practice the basic premise of “feminist objectiv- mitment to difference, critical relativism is able ity.” Harding critiques the traditional, or positiv- to resist reductivism and to accommodate diver- ist, concept of objectivity because its focus gent perspectives. Mitigated in its constraints by resides only on the “context of justification” in “the facts” of material objects and social/political the research process—how the research is car- artifacts, yet ready to account for the mechanisms ried out and making sure that the researcher’s of power (in a Foucauldian sense) and prejudice values and attitudes do not enter into this pro- (in a Gadamerian sense) that produce knowledge cess. What is left out of consideration is the of these facts, and committed to the self-critical extent to which values and attitudes of the stance that its mitigation requires, such relativ- researcher also enter into the “context of discov- ism is a resourceful epistemological position. ery,” that part of the research process that asks (pp. 320–321) questions and formulates specific research hypotheses. Donna Haraway (1988) character- By disclosing their values, attitudes, and izes this positivist tendency as the “god trick,” biases in their approaches to particular research and notes that it is “that mode of seeing that questions and by engaging in strong reflexivity pretends to offer a vision that is from every- throughout the research process, feminist where and nowhere, equally and fully” (p. 584). researchers can actually improve the objectiv- By contrast, Harding (1993) argues that through- ity of research. Feminists have forged new out the research process, subjective judgments epistemologies of knowledge by incorporating on the part of the researcher are always made women’s lived experiences, emotions, and “in the selection of problems, the formation of feelings into the knowledge-building process. hypotheses, the design of research (including We now turn to take a more in-depth look at the organization of research communities), the the branch of feminist epistemology that cen- collection of data, the interpretation and sorting ters on women’s experience as a primary source of data, decisions about when to stop research, of knowledge. Chapter 1 Feminist Research–•–11

Feminist Standpoint Epistemology: many different iterations over time. The concept Feminist Research Grounded in the of multiple standpoints has been introduced. Later versions of standpoint are open to com- Experience of the Oppressed paring and understanding the interlocking rela- tionships between racism, , heterosexism, Feminist standpoint epistemology borrows and class oppression as additional starting points from the Marxist and Hegelian idea that indi- into understanding the social reality (see Hard­ viduals’ daily activities or material and lived ing, Chapter 3, this volume; Wylie, Chapter 26, experiences structure their understanding of the this volume). The current dialogue (Harding, social world. Karl Marx viewed knowledge as 2004), ongoing development, and diversity of historically constructed and relative because it approaches to feminist standpoint epistemology is based on a given “mode of production.” notwithstanding, by calling attention to wom- Elites (owners of the “means of production”) en’s lived experiences of oppression as the start- shape knowledge and ideology to justify social ing point for building knowledge, feminist inequality. For both Marx and Hegel, the mas- standpoint scholars and researchers provided a ter’s perspective is partial and distorted, new way to answer two epistemological ques- whereas the worker/slave’s is more complete tions: Who can know? and What can be known? because the worker/slave must comprehend his or her own world and that of the master—the worker/slave must know both worlds to sur- vive. Feminist standpoint scholars argue that it Feminist Epistemologies and is a woman’s oppressed location within society Methodologies: The Challenge and that provides fuller insights into society as a Possibilities of the Postmodern Turn whole; women have access to an enhanced and more nuanced understanding of social reality We can think of postmodernism as a theoretical than men do precisely because of their structur- paradigm that serves as an “umbrella term” for ally oppressed location vis-à-vis the dominant a variety of perspectives from critical theory to group, or men. Dorothy Smith (1987), an early post-structural theory to postmodern theories. proponent of the standpoint perspective, What creates unity among these perspectives is stresses the necessity of starting research from their concern for highlighting the importance of women’s lives: taking into account women’s researching difference—there is an emphasis on everyday experiences through paying particular including the “other” in the process of research attention to and finding and analyzing the gaps (Hesse-Biber, Leavy, & Yaiser, 2004, p. 18). that occur when women try to fit their lives into The perspectives contained within this umbrella the dominant culture’s way of conceptualizing term call for, in a range of degrees, the transfor- women’s situation. By looking at the difference mative practices of research that lead toward between the two perspectives, the researcher both challenging dominant forms of knowledge gains a more complex and theoretically richer building and empowering subjected understand- set of explanations of the lives of the oppres- ings. But there is also variation and contestation sors and the oppressed. among and between perspectives within this Early critics of standpoint epistemology umbrella term. For example, critical theory is argued that it collapses all women’s experiences especially cognizant of the role that power plays into a single defining experience and pays little in producing hegemonic knowledge. Critical attention to the diversity of women’s lives, espe- theorists seek to expose dominant power rela- cially to the varied experiences of those women tionships and knowledge that oppress with the who differ by race, class, sexual preference, goal of “critical emancipation”—creating an and so on. Still others raised questions such as environment in which oppressed groups “gain the following: If knowledge starts out from the the power to control their own lives in solidarity oppressed, how does one ascertain who is the with a justice-oriented community” (see Joe most oppressed? Feminist standpoint scholars Kincheloe & Peter McLaren, 2000, p. 282). and researchers have responded to these concerns, However, some might consider critical theory’s and standpoint epistemology has undergone emphasis on emancipation to be inconsistent 12–•–HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST RESEARCH with the tendency of postmodern and post- Destablizing Theory: Contemporary Feminist structural theories to deconstruct dominant Debates, note, discourse. These variations in postmodern per- spectives are compared and contrasted in more The fear now expressed by many feminists is that detail in Gannon and Davies (Chapter 4, this vol- the changing theoretical fashions will lead us ume). Gannon and Davies point out how labels towards abdicating the goal of accurate and sys- such as postmodernism, post-structuralism, and tematic knowledge; and that in legitimate critique critical theory are often confusing, and how prac- of some of the earlier assumptions, we may stray titioners of these perspectives don’t always agree too far from feminism’s original project. (p. 6) on what these terms mean. They note, Christina Gilmartin, Robin Lydenberg, and These frameworks are, however, quite slippery and I point out in our book Feminist Approaches hard to pin down. . . . There is, then, no orderly, to Theory and Methodology (Hesse-Biber, agreed upon, and internally consistent set of ideas Gilmartin, & Lydenberg, 1999) how the destabi- that sits obediently under each of these headings. lizing of these binary categories served to polar- But each of them, along with the disputed ground ize feminist theory: between them, has produced new ideas that have helped feminists break loose from previously French feminists like Hélène Cixous and Catherine taken-for-granted assumptions. (p. 65) Clément (1986), (1991), and (1986) were accused by social construc- In Feminist Perspectives on Social Research tionists of biological , of establishing (2004), Patricia Leavy, Michelle Yaiser, and I the female body and maternity as foundational point out the affinity of postmodernism with and symbolic sources of woman’s psychic and feminist research pursuits. We note that post- sexual difference. . . . post-structuralist critics, modernism’s emphasis on bringing the “other” like , expose even the materiality of into the research process the body as “already gendered, already con- structed.” Extending her argument that gender and meshes well with the general currents within the sex are the result of the “ritualized repetition” of feminist project itself. Feminists from all tradi- certain behaviors designed to render the body tions have always been concerned with including either “intelligible” (normative, heterosexual) or women in their research in order to rectify the abject (unthinkable, homosexual), Judith Butler historic reliance on men as research subjects. This asserts that the body itself is “forcibly produced” is a general feminist concern. (Hesse-Biber et al., by power and discourse (Butler, 1993, p. xi). 2004, p. 18) (Hesse-Biber et al., 1999, p. 4)

In addition, postmodernism’s emphasis on The challenge for feminism is to dialogue the empowerment of oppressed groups is con- around these tensions and to be open to different gruent with feminists’ emphasis on social change points of view. Gannon and Davies (this volume) and social justice. This congruence is also par- examine the opportunities that open up for femi- ticularly the case with postmodern feminists, nist theory and research when the postmodern including postcolonial feminists who seek to meets the feminist terrain of theory and praxis. explore “political cultural resistance to hierar- chical modes of structuring social life by being attentive to the dynamics of power and knowl- Feminist Epistemologies and edge” (Hesse-Biber et al., 2004, p. 18). Although postmodern and post-structural per- Methodologies: The Turn spectives invigorate feminist theory and praxis, Toward Difference in Feminist there is also a tendency for them to destabilize it Theory and Practice (Barrett & Phillips, 1992). For example, post- structural theorists have challenged essentialist The positivist paradigm assumes the viability of categories: women, sex, gender, and the body. the value-neutral and objective researcher, who Michèle Barrett and Ann Phillips (1992), in can obtain generalized findings or universal Chapter 1 Feminist Research–•–13 truths. Based on these assumptions, positivism white world, but, at the same time, they are con- has very specific answers to epistemological stantly aware of their marginalized position in questions. Certain types of “knowledge” are not terms of their race and gender. In contrast, socio- considered scientific knowledge, certain ways of logical insiders, because of their privileged posi- obtaining knowledge are not valid, and certain tionality, are “in no position to notice the specific people may not posses knowledge. Because posi- anomalies apparent to Afro-American women, tivism was the dominant paradigm in social sci- because these same sociological insiders pro- ence for many years, certain people, knowledge, duced them” (p. 53). Along with this epistemol- and methods have been excluded from social sci- ogy, develops a “matrix of ence research. These “others” and the knowledge domination” framework for conceptualizing dif- they possess are not considered valid or valuable. ference along a range of interlocking inequalities Feminists initiated their critique of positiv- of race, class, and gender. These factors affect ism by (1) calling attention to the fact that each other and are socially constructed. It is only women had been left out of much mainstream through collectively examining the intricately research and (2) valuing the perspectives, feel- connected matrix of difference that we can truly ings, and lived experiences of women as knowl- understand a given individual’s life experience. edge. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, some Feminists of color challenged and changed white feminists warned against the tendency to reduce feminist scholarly research and the conceptual- all women to one category with shared charac- ization of feminist standpoint epistemology by teristics. Yes, it was important to give voice to asking this question: Which women? For exam- women who had been left out of mainstream ple, Patricia Hill Collins’s conception of “stand- research models and to recognize women’s life point” as relational, and including multiple stories as knowledge. But which women’s sto- systems of oppression, forced white feminists to ries were being told—whose life experiences examine white privilege as an element of oppres- were included, and whose were left out? sion (see McIntosh, 1995). Through feminism’s interaction with postcolo- Bonnie Thornton Dill and Marla Kohlman nialism, post-structuralism, and postmodernism, (Chapter 8, this volume) expand and elaborate there occurred a turn toward difference research. on the early work of scholars like Hill Collins Feminists became increasingly conscious of the with a focus on analyzing the interconnections diversity of women’s experiences. They argued of differences among race, class, and gender. against the idea of one essential experience of They employ the term to women and began to recognize a plurality of “[emphasize] the interlocking effects of race, women’s lived experiences. class, gender, and sexuality, highlighting the Feminist research on difference stressed issues ways in which categories of identity and struc- of difference regarding race, class, and gender. tures of inequality are mutually constituted and Feminists of color critiqued the failure of early defy separation into discrete categories of anal- feminist research to explore the important inter- ysis.” Their chapter traces the impact of diver- connections among categories of difference in sity on disciplinary and interdisciplinary terms of gender, ethnicity, and class (see, e.g., scholarship over the past several decades and Anzaldúa, 1987; hooks, 1990; Mohanty, 1988). As charts some future directions for knowledge Hirsch and Keller (1990) observed, “Feminists of building that embody a vision of intersectional- color have revealed to white middle-class feminists ity within academic institutions. the extent of their own racism” (p. 379). Sociologist Patricia Hill Collins (1990) stresses the signifi- cance of black feminist thought—“the ideas pro- Feminist Epistemologies and duced by Black women that clarify a standpoint Methodologies: The Turn of and for Black women” (p. 37). Listening to the Toward Globalization experiences of the “other” leads to a more com- plete understanding of knowledge. Black women, Feminist scholars and researchers continue to argues Collins, are “outsiders within.” To navi- engage issues of difference across gender, ethnic- gate socially within white society, black women ity, and class. As Bonnie Thornton Dill (1987) have to cope with the rules of the privileged reminds us, “Our analysis must include critical 14–•–HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST RESEARCH accounts of women’s situation in every race, Feminists working in a global context call class, and culture—we must work to provide for a heightened attention to power and differ- resources so that every woman can define prob- ence. But what about the potential for women lematics, generate concepts and theories” (Dill, to come together across difference and to forge 1987, p. 97). In the first decade of the 21st cen- social change? Some feminist researchers call tury, feminists expanded their focus on difference for employing a type of “strategic essential- to include issues of sexual preference and dis- ism” in their research projects (Spivak, 1994). ability, as well as nationality and geographical Susan Bordo (1990) encourages the strategic region. There is also a growing awareness among use of essentialism for women to promote feminist researchers of the importance of wom- their political agenda (see also Spivak, 1990, en’s experiences in a global context with respect p. 10). She argues that “too relentless a focus to issues of imperialism, colonialism, and national on historical heterogeneity . . . can obscure the identity (see the chapters in this volume by transhistorical hierarchical patterns of white, Bhavnani & Talcott, Mendez & Wolf, and Dill & that have informed the creation Kohlman). Frequently, analyses that incorporate of the Western intellectual tradition” (Bordo, race, class, and gender differences ignore the 1990, p. 149). diversity among women with regard to their par- (1999) also employs the strategic use of essen- ticular geographical or cultural placement across tialism, using three case studies of third world the globe. women involved in the global division of labor. Mohanty shows how ideologies of •• How do we conceptualize and study difference domesticity, femininity, and race are employed in a global context? by capitalists to socially the “domes- •• What research frameworks serve to empower ticated woman worker”—the dominant per- and promote social change for women? ception of women as “dependent housewives” allows the capitalist to pay them low wages. Feminists doing international research, who By having women identify with each other as attempt to speak for “the other/s” in a global con- “women” and through their shared material text, should be particularly mindful of the inher- interests as “workers,” they are able to over- ent power dynamics in doing so. In what sense come differences of nationality, race, and does the researcher give voice to the other, and to social class. These identifications across dif- what extent is that privilege one that is taken for ference provide a rethinking of third world granted by “the other/s”? Postcolonial feminist woman as agents rather than victims. Mohanty Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1990) notes: argues for political solidarity among women workers as a potential “revolutionary basis for On the other side of the international division of struggles against capitalist re-colonization” labor, the subject of exploitation cannot know and (see also Hesse-Biber, 2002). speak the text of female exploitation even if the Locating the intersections where women’s absurdity of the nonrepresenting intellectual mak- differences cross is a way that some feminists ing space for them to speak is achieved. The have begun to research difference in a global woman is doubly in shadow. (p. 894) context and to empower women’s voices. Kum- Kum Bhavnani and Molly Talcott (Chapter 7, Historian Deniz Kandiyoti (1999) discusses this volume) suggest the need to look for inter- the tendency of some Western feminist connections between women, and they do not researchers to “universalize” disciplinary con- believe that using an “intersecting” metaphor cepts, ignoring the ethnocentrism that lies deep works well to empower women’s lives. In fact, within constructs such as patriarchy. Kandiyoti the concept of an “intersection” implies the image also calls for the employment of a historical- of a crossroad, whereby those who meet are comparative lens to strengthen our understand- coming from and going to a given destination, ing of the cross-cultural context of conceptual which is defined by the route that these roads meaning across Western and non-Western soci- take. This metaphor does not provide a way for a eties (Mohanty, 1988). new road to be charted. A race-d/gender-ed person Chapter 1 Feminist Research–•–15 stands at the crossroad (that point where race Feminist Praxis: A Synergistic and gender routes intersect), yet, as Bhavnani Perspective on the Practice of and Talcott note, Feminist Research

A crossroads metaphor . . . directs the gaze to the Feminist praxis refers to the varied ways feminist intersections of the roads and the directions in research proceeds. Feminist perspectives chal- which they travel and meet. . . . This matters lenge the traditional research paradigm of posi- because, if we are not only to analyze the world tivism, which assumes a unified truth with the but to change it, then the easiest way to imagine idea of testing out hypotheses. There is little the shifts in the relationships between race/ethnicity room for the exploration of personal feelings and and gender is to imagine the roads being moved to experiences, given the strict observance of objec- form new intersections. tivity as a basic tenet of positivism. Yet, as we have seen, new theoretical contributions from They suggest that a more empowering meta- feminist (Harding, Chapter 3, phor might be to think of these roads as this volume; Wylie, Chapter 26, this volume), post­ interconnections that configure [which] connotes colonial theory (Bhavnani & Talcott, Chapter 7, more movement and fluidity than lies in the meta- this volume; Mohanty, 1999), and postmodern- phor of intersection, as well as offering a way of ism (Gannon & Davies, Chapter 4, this volume), thinking about how not only race and gender but for example, ask new questions that call forth also nation, sexuality, and wealth all interconnect, getting at subjugated knowledge, particularly as configure, and reshape each other. this relates to issues of difference. Early on, feminists saw the need to make a radical break in Much of the theorizing and many research positivism’s traditional research paradigm. Helen studies on the concerns of women in a global con- Roberts’s (1981) edited volume Doing Feminist text, however, remain fragmented. Black femi- Research asks the question “What is feminist nists, third world feminists, and global, postc­ olonial, research?” Roberts’s pathbreaking volume puts a or transnational feminists often remain uninformed feminist sociological lens onto the research pro- about each other’s theories, perspectives, and cess and notes, “The accounts in this collection research (see Mendez & Wolf, Chapter 31, this point to the theoretical, methodological, practical volume). What remains a challenge for feminist and ethical issues raised in projects where the research is the creation of links between these investigator has adopted, or has at least become strands of knowledge building so as to gather a aware of, a feminist perspective” (p. 2). Ann more complex understanding of the workings of Oakley’s (1981) now classic article “Interviewing racism, imperialism, and neocolonialism across Women: A Contradiction in Terms?” in Roberts’s historical and cultural contexts. What are the mod- volume, demonstrates the importance of breaking els of knowledge building that will allow feminist down the hierarchical power relationship between researchers to study these interconnections? To do the interviewer and the researched that she views this requires an understanding of how feminists as characteristic of a positivist research paradigm carry out their research practices and of what over- and antithetical to the view of women as agents arching principles guide their work. of social change with their own set of experi- The journey we have only briefly outlined ences. She argues that interviewing is “not a one- thus far opens a window into feminist thinking way process where the interviewer elicits and on issues of epistemology and methodology. receives, but does not give information” (p. 30). Feminists have employed new ways of thinking Liz Stanley and Sue Wise’s (1983) visionary and have modified our understanding of the volume Breaking Out: Feminist Consciousness nature of the social world—providing new ques- and Feminist Research calls for feminist research- tions and angles of vision by which to under- ers to “upgrade the personal as an object of stand women’s issues and concerns. Feminist study.” They argue for a “naturalist” as opposed epistemology and methodology directly affect to a “positivistic model” of research to study feminist praxis. women’s experiences, or what they term “feminist 16–•–HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST RESEARCH consciousness,” in which “feeling and experience” and Activist Research. Each volume highlights are the primary guideposts for feminist research how feminist researchers create a tight link (p. 178). For Stanley and Wise, there is no demar- between the elements of the research process— cation between “doing feminism” and “doing epistemology, methodology, and method. We feminist research.” Patti Lather’s (1991) book see this linkage unfolding by looking at how Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy feminists engage with the research process— Within/In the Postmodern takes up the issue of starting with the research questions they devise, power in research and teaching practices. She how research methods are practiced, and the combines insights from feminism and postmod- special attention given to issues of power, author- ernism with the goal of “emancipatory” knowl- ity, reflexivity, , and difference in the prac- edge building, during which the researcher and tice, writing, and reading of feminist research. researched cocreate meaning through “reciprocity In all these volumes, feminist epistemologies and negotiation.” She is interested in what research and methodologies inform research practices. A designs, teaching practices, and curricula produce feminist empiricist perspective on knowledge “liberatory knowledge” and “empower” the building informs the practice of survey methods researched and the pedagogical process. by interrogating the male bias of some survey Other works on the intersection of feminism questions as well as the power differentials and methods quickly followed and span the next between the researcher and researched in the several decades. Some of the most notable vol- survey interview. A feminist standpoint episte- umes, to name only a few, are Patricia Hill mology questions whether the research sample Collins’s (1990) Black Feminist Thought: and research questions of a particular method are Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of responsive to issues of difference and whether the Empowerment; Joyce McCarl Nielson’s (1990) findings are interpreted in a way that includes Feminist Research Methods: Exemplary Read­ the experiences of marginalized populations. ings in the Social Sciences; bell hooks’s (1990) Increasingly, feminists are tweaking old methods Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics; and inventing new methods to get at women’s Liz Stanley’s (1990) Feminist Praxis: Research, experience. We see this most vividly in how Theory, and Epistemology in ; feminists practice interview methods. In Marjorie Mary Margaret Fonow and Judith A. Cook’s DeVault’s (1999) volume as well as in her coau- (1991) Beyond Methodology: Feminist Scho­l­ thored chapter with Glenda Gross, “Feminist arship as Lived Research; Sherna Berger Gluck Qualitative Interviewing: Experience, Talk, and and Daphne Patai’s (1991) Women’s Words: The Knowledge” (Chapter 11, this volume), there is Feminist Practice of Oral History; Shulamit an awareness of the importance of listening dur- Reinharz’s (1992) Feminist Methods in Social ing the interview process: Research; Mary Maynard and June Purvis’s (1994) Researching Women’s Lives From a One of feminism’s central claims is that women’s Feminist Perspective; Sandra Burt and Lorraine perspectives have often been silenced or ignored; Code’s (1995) Changing Methods: Feminists as a result, feminist researchers have been inter- Transforming Practice; Diane L. Wolf’s (1996) ested in listening for gaps and absences in wom- Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork; Louise en’s talk, and in considering what meanings might Lamphere, Helena Ragone, and Patricia Zavella’s lie beyond explicit speech. (p. 217) (1997) Situated Lives: Gender and Culture in Everyday Life; Marjorie L. DeVault’s (1999) By listening through the gaps in talking and Liberating Method: Feminism and Social by attending to what is not stated, but present— Research; Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s (1999) Deco­l­ such as the hidden meanings of terms like “you onizing Methodologies: Research and Indi­ know?”—DeVault suggests one can get at “sub- genous Peoples; Elizabeth A. St. Pierre and jugated knowledge.” What each of these books Wanda S. Pillow’s (2000) Working the Ruins: also demonstrates is that feminists use a range Feminist Poststructural Theory and Methods in of methods, and some even employ multiple Education; and Nancy A. Naples’s (2003) Feminism methods within the same, concurrent, or follow- and Method: Ethnography, Discourse Analysis, up research projects, to answer complex and Chapter 1 Feminist Research–•–17 often novel questions. Feminist research, then, are particularly keen on getting at issues of can be qualitative or quantitative or a combina- power and authority in the research process, from tion of both. question formulation to carrying out and writing Shulamit Reinharz (1992), in her classic text up research findings (see Roof, Chapter 25, this Feminist Methods in Social Research, notes that volume). Focusing on our positionality within the “feminism supplies the perspective and the dis- research process helps to break down the idea ciplines supply the method. The feminist that research is the “view from nowhere.” researcher exists at their intersection” (p. 243). Feminist research practitioners pay attention Although feminist research is multiple, complex, to reflexivity, a process whereby researchers quantitative, and qualitative, nevertheless, if we recognize, examine, and understand how their were to examine inductively the range of research social background, location, and assumptions studies and topics cited in these works and affect their research practice. Practicing reflex- within this volume, which are by no means ivity also includes paying attention to the spe- exhaustive of the population of feminist research, cific ways in which our own agendas affect the we could discern some common principles of research at all points in the research process— feminist research praxis. from the selection of the research problem to the selection of method and ways in which we ana- Feminists Ask New Questions That lyze and interpret our findings (see Hesse-Biber & Piatelli, Chapter 27, this volume). Hesse- Often Get at Subjugated Knowledge Biber and Leckenby’s (2004) work on the The women’s movement of the 1960s, as well importance of self-reflexivity on the part of the as increasing globalization, forged new feminist researcher notes, theoretical perspectives (see Part I of this Handbook). Feminist standpoint theory (Harding, Feminist researchers are continually and cyclically Chapter 3, this volume; Wylie, Chapter 26, this interrogating their locations as both researcher volume), (Bhavnani & Talcott, and as feminist. They engage the boundaries of Chapter 7, this volume; Mendez & Wolf, Chapter 31, their multiple identities and multiple research this volume), postmodernism, ethnic studies, aims through conscientious reflection. This engage- queer studies, critical theory, and critical race ment with their identities and roles impacts the theory (Gannon & Davies, Chapter 4, this vol- earliest stages of research design. Much of feminist ume) serve to upend traditional knowledge by research design is marked by an openness to the asking new questions that expose the power shifting contexts and fluid intentions of the research dynamics of knowledge building. “Subjugated” questions. (p. 211) knowledge is unearthed and issues of race, class, sexuality, nationality, and gender are taken into Ethical discussions usually remain detached account. These types of questions are different from a discussion of the research process; some from those questions feminist empiricists ask in researchers consider this aspect of research an that they go beyond correcting gender bias in afterthought. Yet, the ethical standpoint or moral dominant research studies. In asking new ques- integrity of the researcher is a critically important tions, feminist research maintains a close link aspect of ensuring that the research process and a between epistemology, methodology, and methods. researcher’s findings are “trustworthy” and valid. The term “ethics” derives from the Greek word Feminist Praxis Takes Up “ethos,” which means “character.” A feminist Issues of Power, Authority, ethical perspective provides insights into how ethical issues enter into the selection of a research Ethics, and Reflexivity problem, how one conducts research, the design Feminist praxis builds on the understanding of one’s study, one’s sampling procedure, and the of difference and translates these insights by responsibility toward research participants. emphasizing the importance of taking issues of Feminist ethical issues also come into play in power, authority, ethics, and reflexivity into the deciding what research findings get published practice of social research. Feminist researchers (see Preissle & Han, Chapter 28, this volume). 18–•–HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST RESEARCH

Feminist Researchers Often Work at and Leckenby, 2004, p. 221). As the articles in the Margins of Their Disciplines this Handbook demonstrate, most feminist researchers seek to connect their research to Feminist research, while breaking out of the social transformation and social change on behalf traditional circle of knowledge building, remains of women and other oppressed groups. Patti on the margins of discussion within mainstream Lather (1991) notes that feminist researchers methods texts. In 1962, published “consciously use . . . research to help participants The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which understand and change their situations” (p. 226). he argued that science is enmeshed in a particu- We begin the Handbook with a historical lar mode of thinking—a paradigm or world- grounding in the diverse range of theoretical view—that tends to dominate a given field of and epistemic perspectives that make up the his- science. Those insiders who practice within a tory of feminist engagement with research. We reigning paradigm do get recognition and gain provide an overview of historical contributions legitimacy for their work through a range of of feminists to the knowledge-building process. institutional structures—from promotions and tenure committees within the academy and main- stream journals within their field to monetary Part I. Feminist Perspectives rewards from granting agencies and foundations. on Knowledge Building For feminist epistemologies and methodologies This section traces the historical rise of femi- to gain greater recognition and rewards in and nist research and begins with the early links outside the academy and to harness these gains between feminist theory and research practice. into social policy changes for women, feminists We trace the contours of early feminist inquiry must work at multiple levels. Work must be and introduce the reader to the history of, and done within and outside the circle to ensure that historical debates within, feminist scholarship. women’s scholarship is recognized and rewarded This section also explores the political process as legitimate scholarship within their disciplines of knowledge building by introducing the reader and within the social policy initiatives of fund- to the links between knowledge and power rela- ing agencies: tions. Several questions guide our selection of theoretical and research articles for this section: Feminist researchers may need to be strategic about their mission and goals concerning how to •• How have feminist scholars redefined tradi- organize as a research movement toward social tional paradigms in the social sciences and change for women. Issues of difference in the humanities? research process need to be carefully addressed as •• What new theoretical and research models this discussion proceeds. Issues dealing with power guide their work? and control both within the research process and discussions of differences and similarities among In this section, we will explore the nature of different/competing feminist epistemologies and methodologies, frameworks, and presumptions methodologies would be productive and energetic dominant within the social sciences and humani- beginnings toward raising the consciousness of the ties. We will point out what we think are the feminist research communities. (Hesse-Biber & critical turning points in feminist research: “add- Leckenby, 2004, p. 225) ing women and stirring,” feminist standpoint theory, the inclusion of difference, and the Feminist Research Seeks Social debates surrounding method, methodology, and epistemology. Feminist research endeavors often Change and Social Transformation began by pointing out the androcentrism in the Sandra Harding (1991) speaks of “emancipa- sciences. This research approach is often referred tion” as one important goal of feminist research; to as feminist empiricism, as we shall see in knowledge building in pursuit of this goal does philosopher Catherine Hundleby’s chapter not lean in the direction of the dominant groups “Feminist Empiricism.” Here, she explores the but instead toward democratic ends (Hesse-Biber specific challenges feminists pose for traditional Chapter 1 Feminist Research–•–19 models of knowledge building. She investigates of these perspectives into their own theoretical the concept of “objectivity” in the research pro- work and research. Gannon and Davies also illu- cess and how some feminist researchers have minate several feminist critiques of these per- developed alternatives to traditional objectivity. spectives, such as relativism, a lack of a political Feminist empiricists work within a positivistic vision, and a tendency to reinforce the status quo. model of knowledge building with the goal of Aiding Mary Hawkesworth’s exploration of creating “better” science. This better and more feminist epistemology (Chapter 5, this volume) objective science is achieved through the appli- are analyses of feminist methodology. Working cation of more rigorous practices, incorporating through notions of objectivity and truth in terms difference into the research process, and more of the feminist critiques that have been raised strictly following the basic tenets of positivism. against them, Hawkesworth considers their Sandra Harding’s article, “Feminist Stand­ implications for feminist research. Feminist points,” looks at the origins of standpoint theo- empiricists, stand­point theorists, postmodernists, ries, which grew out of feminist activism of the scholars, and those who are inter- 1960s and 1970s, and examines the antipositivist ested in the “posthuman” have all thought “histories, sociologies, and philosophies of sci- through objectivity and truth and developed their ence” emerging in Europe and the United States. possibilities within feminist research projects. Harding provides us with a history of the devel- Kum-Kum Bhavnani and Molly Talcott opment of the standpoint perspective, which (Chapter 7, this volume) are specifically con- begins with research questions (methodologies) cerned with the emergence of the visibility and rooted in women’s lives—their everyday exis- audibility of women’s experience in feminist tence. Drawing on the Marxist theory of the research. Using a global feminist ethnographic master-slave relationship, approach, Bhavnani and Talcott ask, “Which (1983), for example, argues that, because of women’s lives are being analyzed, interrogated, women’s location within the sexual division and even evaluated?” Accounts of difference, this of labor and because of their experience of chapter argues, should be reconceptualized and oppression, women have greater insights as broadened within a global context. By pointing to researchers into the lives of other women. studies on women and development, Bhavnani Dorothy Smith (1987) stresses the importance of and Talcott emphasize the importance of transna- creating knowledge based upon the standpoint tionality and the utility of a global perspective in and experience of women. In this volume, examinations of oppression. Feminist researchers Harding also takes up the critiques against a are better able to approach the full range of standpoint perspective. Some critics are uncom- women’s experience by widening their field of fortable with giving up positivism’s claim of inquiry to include global perspectives. universal truth. If, as standpoint theory suggests, Elizabeth Anderson’s and other feminist research­ ­ there are multiple subjectivities, won’t this per- ers’ and scholars’ claim that “gender . . . ought to spective lead to chaos? Others charge that stand- influence our conceptions of knowledge” is con- point theory is too essentialist and Eurocentric in troversial (2011; cited in Koertge, Chapter 6, this that it distills all women’s experience into a sin- volume), and Noretta Koertge (Chapter 6, this gle vision (Western, white women’s). volume) argues that gendering epistemology The following five chapters address a range may not always be beneficial to feminist of issues, including understanding the diversity research. Taking into account the influence of of women’s experiences and the feminist com- gender on inquiry and challenging the works of mitment to the empowerment of women and Andrea Nye, Sandra Harding, and Helen other oppressed groups. Susanne Gannon and Longino, all of whom conclude that a feminist Bronwyn Davies (Chapter 4, this volume) dis- epistemology is necessary, Koertge warns cuss postmodern, post-structural, and critical against gendered epistemology. perspectives regarding cultural theory. They Bonnie Thornton Dill and Marla Kohlman look at how some feminist theorists, such as (Chapter 8, this volume) offer an account of Butler, Grosz, and Briadotti (as cited in Gannon intersectionality as a conceptual tool within & Davies, this volume) incorporate the insights feminist theory and practice. For research that 20–•–HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST RESEARCH sets out to look at, for example, intersections of by traditional sociologists; however, these race, class, gender, and sexuality within identity, methods have been tweaked and modified in intersectionality is particularly appropriate various ways to uncover women’s issues and because it assumes difference and recognizes that concerns. The labeling of certain methods as such concepts are mutually constitutive and traditional or feminist by social scientists and the inseparable. Intersec­tionality as a conceptual use of specific methods by feminist researchers model has provoked debates about its theory and are the focus of Part II. practice, and this chapter seeks to both trace the This section also stresses the idea that femi- development of intersectionality and speak to its nist researchers come from a variety of episte- future in feminist research. mological positions. Feminist researchers use Feminist perspectives on knowledge building multiple tools to gain access to and understand- have pushed against the dominant circles of ing of the world around them and may use mul- knowledge, cautious about re-creating hegemonic tiple methods within the same study. The knowledge of the past, sometimes stumbling, but selections chosen for this section are not exhaus- committed to pushing past the boundaries of tive of all feminist research or all the methods traditional knowledge. Feminists do not always feminists use. These selections do, however, agree on the specific paths to travel, and there provide a broad context within which to exam- remain significant tensions among feminists ine feminist research. Deborah Piatelli and I concerning how best to research and represent provide a detailed introduction and theoretical women’s issues and concerns, as well as how to and research context for Part II in our chapter, confront the power dynamics that continue to “The Synergistic Praxis of Theory and Method.” reinforce hegemonic forces that serve the status Part II starts off with a look at ethnographic quo. What is clearly needed from examining the methods, as Wanda S. Pillow and Cris Mayo range of perspectives feminists offer onto the (Chapter 10, this volume) put forth the history landscape of knowledge building is a dialogue and development of feminist ethnography in among feminists. Where are the points of agree- order to locate their examples of feminist ethno- ment? Disagreement? How can we foster a more graphic research. Issues of definition and method transdisciplinary approach to knowledge build- in terms of women’s lives remain at the forefront ing? How do we construct a climate where femi- of Pillow and Mayo’s presentation of feminist nist theorists and researchers listen to each ethnographic research. In addition to promoting other? How tolerant are feminists of each other’s the challenging practice of feminist ethnography, points of view? These are the issues that we this chapter accounts for its current status and its address in Part I of this Handbook. future in research endeavors. The interview has been used frequently by feminist research as a way for researchers and Part II. Feminist Research Praxis participants to work together to illuminate expe- Part II of this Handbook debates the issue of rience. Marjorie L. DeVault and Glenda Gross whether or not there is a unique feminist method. (Chapter 11, this volume) discuss the complexity What makes a method feminist? What are the of the interview encounter and how the interview unique characteristics feminists bring to the has been implemented in feminist research proj- practice of this method? What are the strengths ects. Specifically paying attention to how iden- and challenges in practicing feminist research? tity, social location, reflexivity, and active What is gained and what is risked? This section listening operate in the interview, DeVault and looks at how feminists use a range of research Gross suggest ways of engaging in ethical, col- methods in both conventional and unconven- laborative interviews. Ethicality is significant in tional research studies. Many feminist research this chapter, as DeVault and Gross emphasize the projects have used survey methods and quantita- accountability and responsibility of the inter- tive data analysis—two traditionally androcen- viewer to the participants and to social change. tric methods—to produce very women-centered Structurally different from the interview, the results. Methods such as intensive interviewing, survey can play an important role in feminist the collection of oral histories, and qualitative research projects. In their chapter regarding data analysis are often labeled feminist methods quantitative data, Kathi Miner, Toby Epstein Chapter 1 Feminist Research–•–21

Jayaratne, Amanda Pesonen, and Lauren Zurbrügg relationships between coresearchers, processes of (Chapter 12, this volume) point to the survey as reflection, and change for communities and policy. offering useful applications to feminist research. PAR is manifested in many different ways, and The history and criticisms of survey research are Lykes and Hershberg analyze work that is charac- presented, as are the influences of feminism on teristic of feminist PAR while identifying its limi- survey practices. Miner et al. flesh out the survey tations and possibilities. method and how feminist perspectives may be The combination of qualitative and quantita- best applied to survey research. tive methods has emerged in research praxis, and The fact that the scientific community has Elizabeth Cole and Abigail Stewart (Chapter 17, come to accept that its practices are biased by this volume) discuss how such combinations values (gender being only one) is evidence, for contribute to feminist research. They identify Sue Rosser (Chapter 13, this volume), of femi- various ways of mixing methods in order to nism’s contribution to the areas of science, tech- demonstrate the many possibilities of combining nology, and medicine. Rosser explores the qualitative and quantitative methods and to impact of feminist theories on different stages of emphasize how widely such combinations may the scientific method. To illustrate feminism’s be applied. Cole and Stewart propose that femi- effects on scientific practice, she highlights theo- nist research may benefit from the use of both ries that have incorporated feminist viewpoints qualitative and quantitative approaches. to modify their experimental methods. Situational analysis, an extension of grounded According to Sharon Brisolara and Denise theory, brings notions of post-structuralism to Seigart (Chapter 14, this volume), feminist feminist theories in order to highlight difference evaluation is still an emerging and developing and power. Adele Clarke (Chapter 18, this vol- model within feminist research. In order to ume) expands upon the definition of grounded understand feminist evaluation fully, these theory and emphasizes its intrinsic links to authors single out and highlight contributions to feminist theory. Clarke shows how grounded research projects that use multiple theoretical theory’s ties to feminism have been transformed models. Among its possibilities for feminist from implicit to explicit by feminist research research projects, evaluation research can allow projects, and then she shows how situational for new questions to arise regarding its aims, analysis, similarly, is feminist. methods, and results by paying attention to, for Social movement research, Sarah Maddison example, its ethics and possible biases. and Frances Shaw (Chapter 19, this volume) Deboleena Roy (Chapter 15, this volume) believe, can benefit from further connections to delves into the development of feminist research feminist epistemology and methodology. While practices within the natural sciences as influ- feminist social movement scholars have brought enced by feminist engagements with ontological a gendered focus to social movement scholar- and ethical questions. The feminist researcher ship and theory, research on collective identity should, as this chapter argues, consider ques- can further incorporate feminist standpoints in tions of ethics and ontology while practicing the order to reconfigure its analytic method, and scientific method. Proposing the inclusions of Maddison and Shaw use a case study to show “playfulness” and “feeling around” in feminist the intersection of feminism and social move- research, Roy suggests that the feminist labora- ment research. tory researcher may work to connect himself or Lynn Weber and Jenn Castellow (Chapter 20, herself with the research at hand and with other this volume) present, first, feminist research bent researchers. on working against health disparities and then, Not only looking at participatory action strategies for better locating feminist intersec- research (PAR) in terms of feminist usage in recent tional health research in dialogues around health research, Brinton Lykes and Rachel Hershberg science and public policy. Looking at recent (Chapter 16, this volume) also summarize the ori- scholarship that refines feminist critiques of gins of this research method, which is a resource health science research and policy and at devel- for critical inquiry in working toward improving opments in feminist health theory and practice, social systems and ameliorating social inequali- Weber and Castellow examine the contributions ties. PAR is deeply bound up with issues of and influences of feminist research on health 22–•–HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST RESEARCH science practices and policies. Studies relating to a historical context for looking at how feminist recent health developments (e.g., the HPV vac- researchers have framed issues of power and cine and the Patient Protection and Affordable authority and argues that feminists are “trad- Care Act of 2010) help to show how feminist ing between the authority of science and the engagement with health-related policies and power of experience.” In particular, she notes practices are able to draw attention to power the tensions between “the impersonal practices hierarchies within social relationships. of generalization and the more problematic Dialogues about feminist research within the questions of rhetoric and representation” (Roof, social sciences have also failed to include social Chapter 25, this volume). work, argue Ste´phanie Wahab, Ben Anderson- Alison Wylie (Chapter 26, this volume) is Nathe, and Christina Gringeri (Chapter 21, this concerned with how scientific practices are car- volume). Drawing attention to examples of femi- ried out by feminists. Carefully noting the fact nist research within the realm of social work, that the credibility of a scientific research proj- Wahab et al. suggest that social work praxis may ect may be damaged or compromised by an beneficially influence feminist research projects explicit feminist approach, Wylie believes that a in the social sciences generally. Further, a social reconfiguration of standpoint theory may offer a work engagement with feminist theory may help way out of this problem. Wylie provides an to disrupt the assumptions of knowledge that overview of specific practices that will combat social work often makes. this challenge to credibility and affirms that By closely looking at writing practices within feminist theory and scientific research can coex- feminist research reports, Kathy Charmaz ist to produce generative research projects. (Chapter 22, this volume) is able to answer ques- Judith Preissle and Yuri Han’s chapter, “Feminist tions about the construction of feminist research Research Ethics,” examines feminist challenges writings and about the strategies that feminist to traditional Western approaches to ethics. They researchers employ in their written reports. conceptualize as an “ethics of Carefully reading feminist research reports is care” and discuss the implications of a feminist significant, Charmaz argues, because the writing ethical approach for the practice of social research. strategies employed contain the researchers’ What are the specific ethical practices feminist views and values. Certain writing patterns, used researchers employ across the research process? consciously or not on the part of the writers, con- Preissle and Han note that a feminist perspective tain specific meanings and judgments, and so the on ethics is a double-edged endeavor, which will process of writing itself becomes central to the “likely generate as many issues as they may help conveying of research data. Charmaz reinforces either avoid or address. This is particularly evi- the importance of written method and concludes dent in trading a detached, distant, and hierarchi- by offering advice on the writing process. cal stance for an intimate, close, and equitable Specifically using climate change research as position. Distance and intimacy create their own an example, Kristen Intemann (Chapter 23, this problems” (Preissle & Han, Chapter 28, this volume). volume) argues that research principles praised The relationship between feminism and trans- by feminist science scholarship can benefit sci- gender, transsexual, and queer studies is eluci- entific research. Intemann proposes that scien- dated in Katherine Johnson’s chapter (Chapter 29, tific communities should include diverse this volume). Central debates within queer stud- researchers (in terms of experiences, social posi- ies are set forth in order to identify theoretical tions, and values), allow for critical reflection on points that have particular relevance to feminist the chosen methodology and methods, assume researchers. Feminist research, Johnson argues, the perspective of the marginalized, and work should adopt practices that take into account a toward a multiplicity of conceptual models. variety of identity positions. Exploring defini- tions, terminology, and areas for coalitions to Part III. Feminist Issues and emerge across identity borders, for example, Johnson looks both at the dialogues between Insights in Practice and Pedagogy feminism and transgender, transsexual, and Judith Roof’s chapter, “Authority and queer studies and at how the fields may work Representation in Feminist Research,” provides together to produce better research. Chapter 1 Feminist Research–•–23

Deborah Piatelli and my chapter (Chapter 27, With similar interests in the role of feminism this volume) stresses the need for a holistic in teaching, Daphne Patai (Chapter 33, this vol- approach to the process of reflexivity that runs ume) asks what it means to apply the term “from the formulation of the research problem, “feminism” to research and pedagogical prac- to the shifting positionalities of the researcher tices. She views feminist politics as possibly and participants, through interpretation and incongruous with teaching and research. writing.” We provide specific research exam- Teaching, for Patai, requires a perspective differ- ples and strategies for implementing “holistic ent than that offered by feminism, which intro- reflexivity” in the research process. duces a political project. Patai’s chapter troubles Attention to difference is often found in the links between knowledge and politics. feminist research. Diane Reay (Chapter 30, this The intersection of feminism and teaching volume) looks at how feminist research again arises in Debjani Chakravarty, Judith A. addresses difference and how difference affects Cook, and Mary Margaret Fonow’s chapter research praxis. Reay provides examples of how (Chapter 34, this volume). In order to develop differences are navigated and handled by draw- and distribute feminist methodology, it must be ing on research that accounts for differences taught. Training in feminist research methodol- such as social class, ethnicity, political commit- ogy should teach a feminist researcher to create ment, sexuality, and age. This chapter also puts and execute a research project while consider- forth research practices that may be successful ing its multiple and varied effects (e.g., ethical, at incorporating feminist theory. social, transnational, political). Feminist Jennifer Bickham Mendez and Diane Wolf research, this chapter argues, has always held (Chapter 31, this volume) question how femi- the workings of power structures as a central nist research can better account for globaliza- focus, but new to feminist research are trends of tion. Mendez and Wolf suggest that global technological development and the expansion of considerations may allow for the reconfigura- feminist methodology into other realms. tion of analytical categories and models and Abigail Brooks and I provide a fuller context may also allow for productive change in and discussion of these articles in the introduc- research practice. Awareness of the global com- tory chapter to Part III, “Challenges and Strategies munity may enable researchers to better under- in Feminist Knowledge Building, Pedagogy, and stand certain forms of women’s oppression in Praxis.” globalized power structures and, furthermore, provides the opportunity for feminist research- ers to forge transnational research bonds. Conclusion Feminist dialogue and research, Mendez and Wolf believe, will be expanded and enriched by It is my hope that this Handbook provides you a consideration of globalization. with a set of unique knowledge frameworks to An experiential account of enhance your understanding of the social world, is offered by Debra Kaufman and Rachel Lewis especially the range of women’s lived experiences. (Chapter 32, this volume), who analyze the ways The Handbook contributors explore a range of in which their feminist perspectives have influ- feminist issues, themes, and questions including a enced their methods of teaching in the class- commitment to the empowerment of women and room. Kaufman and Lewis demonstrate how other oppressed groups. Although the Handbook is classroom learning may benefit from the use of by no means exhaustive, its authors take an in- feminist theory, as they view the classroom as a depth look at a broad spectrum of some of the space in which knowledge across disciplines can most important feminist perspectives on how a be decentered and reworked. Approaching ques- given methodology intersects with epistemology tions of knowledge production within the class- and method to produce a set of research practices. room illuminates the hierarchical structures that Our thesis is that any given feminist perspective position knowledge. Kaufman and Lewis con- does not preclude the use of specific methods but clude with the possibilities for incorporating serves to guide how a given method is practiced. feminist perspectives in academia as well as the Whereas each perspective is distinct, they some- possible dangers of doing so. times share elements with other perspectives. 24–•–HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST RESEARCH

The ground underneath the theory and prac- Collins, Patricia Hill. (1990). Black feminist thought: tice of feminist research is ever evolving, and it is Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of the shifting of these tectonic plates of knowledge empowerment. New York: Routledge. that provides an opportunity for what Teresa de Comte, Auguste. (2000). The positive philosophy of Lauretis (1988) suggests as “not merely an expan­ Auguste Comte (Vol. 1, Harriet Martineau, Trans.). sion or reconfiguration of boundaries, but a quali- Kitchener, ON: Batoche Books. (Original work tative shift in political and historical consciousness” published 1896) (pp. 138–139). de Beauvoir, Simone. (1952). . New York: Vintage Books. de Lauretis, Teresa. (1988). Displacing hegemonic References discourses: Reflections on feminist theory in the 1980s. Inscriptions, 3(4), 127–145. Anzaldúa, Gloria. (1987). Borderlands/La frontera: DeVault, Marjorie L. (1999). Liberating method: The new mestiza. San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt Feminism and social research. Philadelphia: Lute. Temple University Press. Anzaldúa, Gloria. (1990). Bridge, drawbridge, sand- Dill, Bonnie Thornton. (1987). The dialectics of black bar or island. In Lisa Albrecht & Rose M. Brewer womanhood. In Sandra Harding (Ed.), Feminism (Eds.), Bridges of power: Women’s multicultural and methodology (pp. 97–108). Bloomington: alliances (pp. 216–231). Philadelphia: New Indiana University Press. Society Publishers. Durkheim, Émile. (1938). The rules of sociological Barrett, Michèle, & Phillips, Anne. (1992). Destabiliz­ method. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. (Original work ing theory: Contemporary feminist debates. Stanford, published 1895) CA: Stanford University Press. Eichler, Margrit, & Lapointe, Jeanne. (1985). On the Bhavnani, Kum-Kum. (1993). Tracing the contours: treatment of the sexes in research. Ottawa, ON: Feminist research and feminist objectivity. Women’s Social Sciences and Humanities Council. Studies International Forum, 16, 95–104. Fonow, Mary Margaret, & Cook, Judith A. (Eds.). Bordo, Susan. (1990). Feminism, postmodernism, and (1991). Beyond methodology: Feminist scholar- gender-. In Linda Nicholson (Ed.), ship as lived research. Bloomington: Indiana Feminism/postmodernism (pp. 133–156). London: University Press. Routledge. Friedan, Betty. (1963). . Bowles, Gloria, & Duelli-Klein, Renate D. (Eds.). New York: W. W. Norton. (1983). Theories of women’s studies. London: Gluck, Sherna Berger, & Patai, Daphne. (Eds.). Routledge & Kegan Paul. (1991). Women’s words: The feminist practice of Burt, Sandra, & Code, Lorraine. (Eds.). (1995). oral history. New York: Routledge. Changing methods: Feminists transforming prac- Haraway, Donna. (1988). Situated knowledges: The tice. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press. science question in feminism and the privilege Butler, Judith. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(13), discursive limits of “sex.” New York: Routledge. 575–599. Chafetz, Janet Saltzman. (1999). Some thoughts by an Harding, Sandra. (Ed.). (1987a). Feminism and meth- unrepentant “positivist” who considers herself a odology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. feminist nonetheless. In Sharlene Hesse-Biber, Harding, Sandra. (1987b). Introduction. In Sandra Christine Gilmartin, & Robin Lydenberg (Eds.), Harding (Ed.), Feminism and methodology Feminist approaches to theory and methodology (pp. 1–14). Bloomington: Indiana University (pp. 320–329). New York: Oxford University Press. Press. Harding, Sandra. (1991). Whose science, whose Cixous, Hélène, & Clément, Catherine. (1986). The knowledge? Thinking from women’s lives. Ithaca: newly born woman. Minneapolis: University of Cornell University Press. Minnesota Press. Harding, Sandra. (1993). Rethinking standpoint epis- Code, Lorraine. (1991). What can she know? Feminist temology: What is “strong objectivity”? In Linda theory and the construction of knowledge. Ithaca, Alcoff & Elizabeth Potter (Eds.), Feminist epis- NY: Cornell University Press. temologies (pp. 49–82). New York: Routledge. Chapter 1 Feminist Research–•–25

Harding, Sandra. (Ed.). (2004). The feminist stand- Jaggar, Alison. (1997). Love and knowledge: Emotion point theory reader: Intellectual and political in feminist epistemology. In Diana Tietjens controversies. New York: Routledge. Meyers (Ed.), Feminist social thought: A reader Hartsock, Nancy. (1983). The feminist standpoint: (pp. 385–405). New York: Routledge. Developing the ground for a specifically feminist Kandiyoti, Deniz. (1999). Islam and patriarchy: A historical materialism. In Sandra Harding & Merrill comparative perspective. In Sharlene Hesse-Biber, Hintikka (Eds.), Discovering reality (pp. 283–310). Christina Gilmartin, & Robin Lydenberg (Eds.), Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic. Feminist approaches to theory and methodology: Hesse-Biber, Sharlene. (2002). Feminism and interdis- An interdisciplinary reader (pp. 236–256). ciplinarity. In JoAnn DiGeorgio-Lutz (Ed.), New York: Oxford University Press. Women in higher education (pp. 57–66). Westport, Kelly-Gadol, Joan. (1987). The social relation of the CT: Praeger. sexes: Methodological implications of women’s Hesse-Biber, Sharlene, Gilmartin, Christina, & Lydenberg, history. In Sandra Harding (Ed.), Feminism and Robin. (Eds.). (1999). Feminist appro­aches to methodology (pp. 15–28). Bloomington: Indiana theory and methodology: An interdisciplinary University Press. reader. New York: Oxford University Press. Kincheloe, Joe L., & McLaren, Peter. (2000). Hesse-Biber, Sharlene Nagy, Leavy, Patricia, & Rethinking critical theory and qualitative Yaiser, Michelle L. (2004). Feminist approaches research. In Norman K. Denzin & Yvonna S. to research as a process: Reconceptualizing epis- Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research temology, methodology, and method. In Sharlene (2nd ed., pp. 279–313). Thousand Oaks, CA: Nagy Hesse-Biber & Michelle L. Yaiser (Eds.), Sage. Feminist perspectives on social research (pp. 3–26). Kuhn, Thomas. (1962). The structure of scientific revo- New York: Oxford University Press. lutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hesse-Biber, Sharlene Nagy, & Leckenby, Denise. Lamphere, Louise, Ragone, Helena, & Zavella, Patricia. (2004). How feminists practice social research. (Eds.). (1997). Situated lives: Gender and culture In Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber & Michelle L. in everyday life. New York: Routledge. Yaiser (Eds.), Feminist perspectives on social Lather, Patty. (1991). Getting smart: Feminist resear­ ch research (pp. 209–226). New York: Oxford and pedagogy within/in the postmodern. New University Press. York: Routledge. Hirsch, Marianna, & Keller, Evelyn Fox. (1990). Lorde, Audre. (1996). The master’s tools will never Practicing conflict in feminist theory. In Marianne dismantle the master’s house. In Audre Lorde Hirsch & Evelyn Fox Keller (Eds.), Conflicts in (Ed.), The Audre Lorde compendium: Essays, feminism (pp. 370–385). New York: Routledge. speeches and journals (pp. 158–171). London: Hochschild, Arlie Russell. (1975). The sociology of Harper Collins. feeling and emotion: Selected possibilities. In Martin, Emily. (1987). The woman in the body: A cul- Marcia Millman & Rosabeth Moss Kanter (Eds.), tural analysis of reproduction. Boston: Beacon Another voice: Feminist perspectives on social Press. life and social science (pp. 280–307). New York: Maynard, Mary, & Purvis, June. (Eds.). (1994). Anchor Press/Doubleday. Researching women’s lives from a feminist per- Hochschild, Arlie Russell. (1983). The managed heart: spective. London: Taylor & Francis. Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: McIntosh, Patricia. (1995). White privilege and University of California Press. male privilege: A personal account of coming hooks, bell. (1990). Yearning: Race, gender, and cul- to see correspondences through work in wom- tural politics. Boston: South End Press. en’s studies. In Margaret Andersen & Patricia hooks, bell. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education Hill Collins (Eds.), Race, class, and gender: as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge. An anthology (pp. 76–86). Belmont, CA: Irigaray, Luce. (1991). In M. Whitford (Ed.), The Wadsworth. Irigaray reader. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Millman, Marcia, & Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. (Eds.). Jacobs, Harriet A. (1987). Incidents in the life of a slave (1975). Another voice: Feminist perspectives on , written by herself. Cambridge, MA: Harvard social life and social science. New York: Anchor University Press. (Original work published 1861) Press/Doubleday. 26–•–HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST RESEARCH

Mohanty, Chandra. (1988). Under Western eyes: Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. (2005). On tricky ground: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Researching the native in the age of uncertainty. In Feminist Review, 30, 61–88. Norman K. Denzin & Yvonna S. Lincoln (Eds.), Mohanty, Chandra. (1999). Women workers and capi- The SAGE handbook of qualitative research talist scripts: Ideologies of domination, common (3rd ed., pp. 85–107). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. interests, and the politics of solidarity. In Sharlene Spalter-Roth, Roberta, & Hartmann, Heidi. (1996). Hesse-Biber, Christine Gilmartin, & Robin Small happiness: The feminist struggle to inte- Lydenberg (Eds.), Feminist approaches to theory grate social research with social activism. In Heidi and methodology (pp. 362–388). New York: Gottfried (Ed.), Feminism and social change: Oxford University Press. Bridging theory and practice (pp. 206–224). Naples, Nancy A. (2003). Feminism and method: Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Ethnography, discourse analysis, and activist Spender, Dale. (Ed.). (1981). Men’s studies modified: research. New York: Routledge. The impact of feminism on the academic disci- Neuman, W. Lawrence. (2000). Social research methods. plines. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. (1990). The postcolonial Nielson, Joyce McCarl. (Ed.). (1990). Feminist critic: Interviews, strategies, dialogue. New York: research methods: Exemplary readings in the Routledge. social sciences. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravoty. (1994). Can the subal- Oakley, Ann. (1981). Interviewing women: A contra- tern speak? In Patrick Williams & Laura diction in terms. In H. Roberts (Ed.), Doing Chrismen (Eds.), Colonial discourse and post- feminist research (pp. 30–61). London: Routledge colonial theory: A reader (pp. 66–111). New York: & Kegan Paul. Columbia University Press. Reinharz, Shulamit. (1992). Feminist methods in Sprague, Joey, & Zimmerman, Mark. (1993). social research. New York: Oxford University Overcoming dualisms: A feminist agenda for Press. sociological methodology. In Paula England Roberts, Helen. (Ed.). (1981). Doing feminist (Ed.), Theory on gender/feminism on theory research. London: Routeledge & Kegan Paul. (pp. 255–280). New York: Aldine DeGruyter. Scott, Joan. (1999). The evidence of experience. In St. Pierre, Elizabeth, & Pillow, Wanda S. (Eds.). Christine Gilmartin & Robin Lydenberg (Eds.), (2000). Working the ruins: Feminist poststruc- Feminist approaches to theory and methodology tural theory and methods in education. New York: (pp. 79–99). New York: Oxford University Routledge. Press. Stanley, Liz. (Ed). (1990). Feminist praxis: Research, Sherif, Carolyn Wood. (1987). Bias in psychology. In theory, and epistemology in feminist sociology. Sandra Harding (Ed.), Feminism and methodol- London: Routledge. ogy (pp. 37–56). Bloomington: Indiana University Stanley, Liz, & Wise, Sue. (1983). Breaking out: Press. Feminist consciousness and feminist research. Smith, Dorothy E. (1978). A peculiar eclipsing: London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Women’s exclusion from man’s culture. Trinh, T. Minh-ha. (1991). Framer framed. New Women’s Studies International Quarterly, 1(4), York: Routledge. 281–296. Tuana, Nancy. (Ed.). (1989a). Feminism & science. Smith, Dorothy E. (1987). The everyday world as Bloomington: Indiana University Press. problematic: A feminist sociology. Boston: Tuana, Nancy. (1989b). The weaker seed: The sexist Northeastern University Press. bias of reproductive theory. In Nancy Tuana Smith, Dorothy E. (1990). The conceptual practices (Ed.), Feminism & Science (pp. 147–171). of power: A feminist sociology of knowledge. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Wolf, Diane L. (Ed.). (1996). Feminist dilemmas in Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. (1999). Decolonizing method- fieldwork. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. ologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Woolf, Virginia. (1929). A room of one’s own. London: Zed Books. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.