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Feminist Epistemologies and Ethics: Ecological Thinking, Situated Knowledges, Epistemic Responsibilities

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Feminist Epistemologies and Ethics: Ecological Thinking, Situated Knowledges, Epistemic Responsibilities 4 Feminist Epistemologies and Ethics: Ecological Thinking, Situated Knowledges, Epistemic Responsibilities Andrea Doucet An ethical judgment is not a quantitative calcula- and insights’ could be ‘brought to bear on tion at root but an acknowledgement of responsi- epistemology, metaphysics, methodology, and bility for a relationship. (Haraway, 2000: 147) philosophy of science – the philosophic fields [R]esponsibility/accountability issues are … to my mind, both epistemological and ethical. (Code, that were purportedly completely immune to 1995: xiv) social influences?’ (Harding & Hintikka, 2003: xii). Then, in the late 1980s, Lorraine Code and Donna Haraway introduced two concepts that would come to play a central INTRODUCTION role in discussions of epistemologies and ethics: epistemic responsibility (Code, 1987) Every story has many versions and origins. and ‘situated knowledges’ (Haraway, 1988). One version of the beginnings of feminist These are some of the questions and con- epistemologies, as a field of scholarly atten- cepts, in various iterations, that combined to tion, was that it began with four seemingly generate a diverse and highly interdisciplinary simple, yet deeply provocative concerns that field that connects feminist epistemologies, ignited decades of debate. The first arose methodologies, and ethics. From its earliest when Canadian feminist philosopher Lorraine days, many contributors to this field have Code posed what she later called (1998: 73) sought to develop conceptual, epistemologi- an ‘outrageous question’ in her piece entitled, cal, methodological, and ethical approaches ‘Is the sex of the knower epistemologically to challenge the alleged value neutrality of significant?’ (Code, 1981). A couple of years investigation and researcher distance from later, Sandra Harding and Merrill Hintikka its objects as well as the hegemony of domi- (1983) published a collection where all con- nant ‘spectator epistemologies’ premised on tributors reflected on how ‘feminist concerns interchangeable, disembodied knowers and BK-SAGE-IPHOFEN_TOLICH-170356-Chp04.indd 73 01/11/17 10:24 AM 74 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF QUALItatIVE RESEARCH ETHICS research practices that were ‘abstract, ‘gener- with other epistemological approaches, includ- alized,’ and disengaged’ (Code, 1995: xi; see ing pragmatism, naturalism, contextualism, also Code, 1993, 1996, 2006). social epistemology, virtue epistemology, and, While there was some consensus among more recently, postcolonial and indigenous feminist researchers about the need to critique epistemologies, among many others. Given and reconfigure mainstream scientific and this diverse terrain, I begin the chapter concur- positivist methodologies and epistemologies, ring with Heidi Grasswick (2011: xx), who throughout the 1990s questions remained as argues: ‘Not only are feminist epistemologists to the need for distinctly feminist approaches mining the resources of these approaches for to issues of knowledge making. Questions their own projects, but their insights are also abounded. ‘Would a feminist epistemology contributing significantly to the development simply reverse androcentric epistemology to of these approaches themselves.’ After forty a gynocentric epistemology?’ (Duran, 1991: years on this terrain, Code admits that she 14–15). ‘What does feminism require of an now takes a ‘scavenger approach to epistemic epistemology?’ Is there a need for ‘a specifi- resources’ (Code, 2011: 218), as she draws on cally feminist alternative to currently avail- a wide and eclectic array of epistemological able epistemological frameworks’ (Antony, and philosophical resources. 1993: 187)? Outside feminist circles, differ- To map the connections between femi- ent concerns were raised. As Helen Longino nist epistemologies and ethics, it is important (1997) pointed out, ‘The idea of feminist to start by attending to what unites feminist epistemology [threw] some philosophers researchers. Drawing on Code’s scavenger into near apoplexy.’ (p. 19). More recently, metaphor, this chapter is underpinned by three Phyllis Rooney confirmed that feminist epis- key points that, in my view, guide all feminist temology is still treated with ‘hostility and epistemological work. First, I draw on the oft- dismissal’ in wider ‘epistemology “proper”’ repeated argument that ‘(f)eminism’s most circles (Rooney, 2011: 6). compelling epistemological insight lies in the Questions about the specifically femi- connections it has made between knowledge nist character of feminist epistemologies and power’ (Lennon & Whitford, 1994: 1); have never been fully settled. This is partly thus, a key epistemological question for femi- because feminism is a highly diverse field nist researchers is ‘Whose knowledge are we that has become even more diverse with its talking about?’ (Code, 2006: 21) as well as an growing attention to intersectionality and the enduring focus on knowing marginalized peo- need to think beyond gender (Hill Collins & ple. Second, I will argue in this chapter that, Bilge, 2016; Siltanen & Doucet, 2017). Linda as noted above, feminist epistemological writ- Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (1993) hinted at ing addresses epistemic responsibilities and this widening many years ago, arguing in situated knowledges. In this vein, Grasswick the introduction to their seminal volume, recently confirmed (2011: xvi, emphasis in Feminist Epistemologies, that ‘feminist epis- original): ‘Situated knowing is the single most temology should not be taken as involving a influential concept to come out of feminist epis- commitment to gender as the primary axis temology’. Finally, while ‘epistemic responsi- of oppression, in any sense of “primary”, or bility’ initially received a ‘mixed reception’ positing that gender is a theoretical variable (Code, 1995: 3) when first introduced by Code, separable from either axes of oppression and it has since become one of the most important susceptible to a unique analysis’ (pp. 3–4). concepts in discussions of knowledge mak- It is also the case that epistemology, as a ing and ethics. Yet, what is critical to add here field, is richly varied, with many of its own – and this point frames my chapter – is that intersections with, for example, analytic and meanings and practices of epistemic respon- continental philosophy, as well as overlaps sibilities, as well as situated knowledges, have BK-SAGE-IPHOFEN_TOLICH-170356-Chp04.indd 74 01/11/17 10:24 AM FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGIES AND ETHICS 75 shifted across time. As I detail in this chapter, history, not about originals’ (1997: 273). this has happened especially in light of evolv- Unlike reflexivity, whereby one positions ing social theories and philosophical turns, oneself as connected to, but ultimately still which have shaped and reshaped the ways that separate from, one’s data and object of inves- we think about methods, methodologies, epis- tigation, diffraction refers to how we are temologies, ontologies, and ethics, as well as deeply entangled with the making and remak- the entanglements between all of these. ing of knowledges and worlds. Diffractive This chapter has five sections. First, I lay reading entails a process of working with out my approach to reading key authors, different ‘politics of possibilities’ (Barad, drawing on Donna Haraway’s (1997) con- 2007: 46) rather than assuming that we can cept of diffraction and Karen Barad’s (2007) capture or mirror something that is ‘out ‘diffractive readings’. Second, I map out the there’, waiting to be found. As Barad notes, geography of the field of feminist epistemol- ogies as it unfolded in the 1980s and 1990s, Diffraction does not fix what is the object and what is the subject in advance, and so, unlike working with Sandra Harding’s well-known methods of reading one text or set of ideas against tripartite classification. I highlight the gradual another where one serves as a fixed frame of refer- dissolution of this typology while also iden- ence, diffraction involves reading insights through tifying some of the enduring ethical issues one another in ways that help illuminate differ- that were charted by key writers working ences as they emerge: how different differences get made, what gets excluded, and how those within and across these approaches. Third, I exclusions matter. (2007: 30) briefly highlight new mappings of feminist epistemologies as they have intersected with I thus conduct diffractive readings of the several key social and philosophical turns, work of Code and others who have made and the implications resulting from entan- seminal contributions to feminist epistemolo- glements of feminist epistemologies, ontolo- gies. In the case of Code, this has meant gies, and ethics, or what Barad (2007: 185) reading and re-reading her writing, and calls ‘ethico-onto-epistemologies’. Fourth, I reviews and critiques of her writing, across focus on Lorraine Code’s work, especially forty years of her work (e.g. 1988, 1993, her recent work on ecological thinking, and 1995, 1996, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2014) as a on how this approach provides for recon- process of ‘respectful, detailed, ethical figured conceptions of knowledge making, engagements’ (Barad, 2007: 30). To read dif- subjectivity, and ethics. I highlight how these fractively is to read generously and ‘to read conceptions deepen and enrich intra-actions through, not against; it means reading texts between epistemic responsibilities, situated intra-actively though one another, enacting knowledges, Finally, I highlight the method- new patterns of
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