Essay: Standpoint Theory

Sample Essay

Words 1,320

This is an essay on standpoint theory. Standpoint theory according to both Smith and Collins states that some kinds of social locations and political struggles advance the growth of knowledge, differing to the dominant view that politics and local situatedness can only block scientific inquiry. Although in Collins view it is much narrower from the Afro American woman’s perspective. She believes:

Standpoint theory according to both Smith and Collins states that some kinds of social locations and political struggles advance the growth of knowledge, differing to the dominant view that politics and local situatedness can only block scientific inquiry. Although in Collins view it is much narrower from the Afro American woman’s perspective. She believes:

“Black women’s standpoint and Black women’s thought— requires more ingenuity then that needed to examine the standpoints and thoughts of dominant groups.” (Collins 330)

For Smith:

“Social scientific enquiry begins from a standpoint in a text meditated discourse or organization.” (Smith 363)

Yet feminists like Collins and Smith point out how the theoretical frameworks of the disciplines and of public policy never achieved such a transcultural perspective; they evidently represented easily identifiable social interests and concerns, and these were rarely women’s. Even worse, these conceptual frameworks often symbolize interests counter to those of women.

Rather, the most innovative feminist work had started instead from particular, culturally specific, women’s experiences, lives, or activities and, for some, from the diverse emerging feminist discourses of their day. Such projects were not planned to end in ethnographies of women’s worlds, though sometimes producing such, accounts became an obligatory preliminary step.

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