What are the pros and cons of Standpoint Theory?

Standpoint theory provides feminists a way to explore knowledge claims, knowledge production, and power relations by beginning with a researcher’s particular experience and working out toward society’s experiences (Harding, 2007). Harding questions,

Does starting from some particular group of women’s lives in a particular context raise new questions and thus expand the horizons of knowledge?  Does it highlight previously undetected androcentric cultural assumptions? (Harding, 2007, p. 58).

By focusing on experiences, dominant discourses have been disrupted by moving away from generalized stereotypes to focusing on knowledge creation based on specific experiences. 

            Naples (2007) discusses three different approaches to standpoint theory.  She identifies these areas as “embodied in women’s social location and social experience, as constructed in community, and as a site through which to begin inquiry.” (Naples, 2007, p. 581).  Patricia Hill Collins (2000) wrote Black Feminist Thought in response to the lack of voice minority women had in feminism.  She argues that the social location and social experience of black women provides a different perspective on life than white, middle-class women.  While both groups are oppressed, black women often suffer oppression because of race, class and gender.  The intersectionality of these oppressions provides them with a much different experience than white middle-class women or white working-class women.

            Experiences from the community can also create new knowledges about marginalized experiences.  In Fine’s article “Feminist Designs for Difference” (2007), Fine describes how knowledge from the margins can be moved to the center. Fine describes Participatory Action Research (PAR) as collaboration between researcher and subject (in this case female prisoners), where subjects equally participate in the construction of knowledge. This collaboration allows marginalized knowledge to move to the center. Researchers and insiders work together to create a language grounded in feminist theory, critical race theory, social theory and methodology. This group analyzed the power relations within the group and how power affected the marginalized groups, i.e. the prisoners.

            Fine (2007) goes on to discuss how researchers and insiders researched the college in prison program at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. Fine discusses how the researchers and insiders collaborated together to gather information, analyze, and critique the program and their research methodologies. By working together, “underground knowledges” (p. 617) were unearthed and brought to the center. Fine describes the process as a struggle and in this struggle; new understandings of race, class, and gender were vocalized and heard. 

Richardson (2007) shows how standpoint theory can be used as a site through which to begin inquiry in her research method “Writing for Another.”   She discusses how second wave feminism and post-structural theory intersect when researchers use experiences from their lives and connect them with other people’s experiences. She uses the novel, Too Late for Phalarope by Alan Paton, to “read for her mother.” She connects the characters and story to her mother and her mother’s life. By doing this, she views her mother in a new perspective. Richardson theorizes that this type of research allows for feminist ways of knowing, the ability to construct knowledge and as new experiences are had, reconstruct knowledge. She can present her experiences and allow others to connect with her experiences.

One critique of standpoint theory is it is essentializing (Naples, 2007).  A small group’s experiences is deemed the norm and applied to anyone who may fit into that group.  Collins (2000) writes that not all Black women suffer oppression in the same way but that all Black women are oppressed.  By using Black feminist thought, Black women can create definitions of themselves instead of being defined with respect to the dominant group. 

Through the lived experiences gained with their extended families and communities, individual African-American women fashioned their own ideas about the meaning of Black womanhood.  When these ideas found collective expression, Black women’s self-definitions enabled them to refashion African-influenced conceptions of self and community.  (Collins, 2000, p. 13).

Collins does not try to generalize Black women’s experiences.  Her writing allows Black women to connect to similar and different experiences that they may face due to oppression.

Richardson (2007) also writes about how experiences can create connections.  By using a qualitative method like “Reading for Another,” the researcher can use reading and writing to create connections. When researchers write about their personal experiences, others can create understanding about their own experiences. 

Most important to me in terms of feminist social research and dealing with its dilemmas, though, is that this method of writing/research sparks identification. It offers an expanded feminist consciousness and a method for other feminists to make sense of their worlds in ways that connect us to one another in common cause. (Richardson, 2007, p. 466). 

Small pieces are not presented as the whole in this type of research but as ways to connect to the whole.

            Standpoint theory includes the experiences of marginalized groups.  These experiences are not meant to be essentializing but “partial perspectives” (Haraway, 1988).  As different groups’ experiences are considered they create a layering effect.  These layers provide connection points for others groups to connect.  In this manner, experiences can bring different groups together and provide greater understanding of each other.