Feminist social and cultural studies and critiques of science have challenged traditional methodologies and theoretical perspectives as being insensitive to the contexts in which knowledge is produced. New studies, methodologies, theories, and concepts have been developed to re-envision the scientific/ academic/research enterprise. Donna Haraway’s concept “situated knowledges” offers a new perspective that challenges traditional Western concepts of how and why scientific knowledge is produced. This book draws on Haraway’s theories, applying it to cultural studies, in the humanities as well as the social sciences.
Challenging Situatedness: Gender, Culture and the Production of Knowledge brings together critical essays with situational approaches to the production of knowledge. The essays demonstrate how researchers, both women and men, have attempted to develop sensitivity to the contexts in which knowledge is produced and avoid “views from nowhere”.
The book presents different ways of constructing knowledges in psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, linguistics, archaeology, literature, geography, and gender, development and science studies. It is a contribution to feminist theory in the social and cultural disciplines and gives new perspectives on planning and development. The international group of young and established, European and African, authors draw on examples from Cameroon, Ghana, Great Britain, India, Norway and Sweden.
