by Deborah Piatelli and Denise Leckenby

On February 25, 26, and 27, Sandra Harding visited Boston College as part of the Spring 2002 Visiting Scholar Series. Harding is Professor of Social Sciences and Comparative Education at UCLA and author of several prominent books including: Is Science Multicultural?: Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies; The Science Question in Feminism; Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?: Thinking from Women's Lives; Decentering the Center: Philosophy for a Multicultural, Postcolonial and Feminist World; and Feminism and Methodology. Harding's work has raised profound questions about scientific objectivity including: From where should our research questions be generated? What 'truth' are we seeking? How should we conduct our research? Who benefits from this research? The following is a brief reflection on Harding's public lecture and seminars, all of which were rooted in her interpretations of feminist standpoint theory as epistemology and methodology, and the controversies surrounding it.

Harding's public lecture discussed feminist standpoint theory as a site of ongoing intellectual debate. Her argument relies on an interpretation of standpoint as an achievement rather than as an inscription. Standpoint, when viewed as an achievement, is rooted in its practices and its implications as a methodology. Working within such a framework, knowledge can be understood as a system of practices as opposed to a system of representations. Harding asked, what can we see from this alternative practice as opposed to rooting ourselves in the dominant representations? Engaging a feminist standpoint epistemology raises the questions, not the answers. It can provide new angles of vision for raising new questions, engaging in new kinds of dialogue and discussion on new topics, and organizing new kinds of social relations.

Harding also delved directly into issues of objectivity. She stated that standpoint theory can open the way to stronger standards of both objectivity and reflexivity. For Harding, the ability to define objectivity as value neutrality is severed by standpoint practices. Standpoint practices engage the constructive/destructive potential of knowledge building. Is objectivity attainable? Is it desirable? These two questions have been, and continue to be, at the center of the feminist debate with objectivity. The first question concerns a critique of an objective, external, fixed social reality; the other involves a critique of objectivity in terms of a detached relationship between the researcher and the participants as well as a critique of the very goal of value-neutral social science research.

In the two seminars that followed Harding's public lecture, we continued the conversation about the current state of standpoint theory and future directions. Harding argued that the scientific model of objectivity needs to be replaced and that a feminist standpoint epistemology questions the proposition that the social world is one fixed reality, external to individuals' consciousness. Feminist standpoint epistemology suggests that the social world is socially constructed, consisting of multiple perspectives and realities. But standpoint theory is not relativism. Starting research from the standpoint of the subjugated leads not to an objective truth but to a less false, less partial, less distorted view. If we sever the ties of value neutrality when speaking of objectivity, we are able to seek objectives of responsibility and accountability. Harding believes that it should be our goal as researchers, not to justify truth claims, but to enable different forms of knowledge to emerge that challenge power. Our aim should be to uncover social processes that consist of a diversity of historically, locatable, subjugated perspectives and standpoints.

Harding argued that the relationship between researcher and participant should not be detached, but engaged. Strong objectivity cannot be achieved by removing oneself from the world, but by acknowledging our situated location and being reflexive of our position within it. She argues that the purpose of research should be not to construct grand generalizations, but to work closely with people and enhance their understanding and ability to control their own reality. We must engage in the intellectual and political struggle necessary to see social life from the point of view of that which is subjugated instead of from the perspective of the ruling order. Students raised the question of bias. Harding stressed the importance of reflexivity in our research and asked that researchers be critically self-reflexive of their own personal and cultural biases in the formation of their theoretical perspectives of the social world. Her sense of reflexivity is rooted in the researcher's positionality and therefore not accomplished by a confessional, ego-centric representation of one's biography. Confession leaves the reader to delineate the perspective of the researcher, but not the standpoint. Reflexivity is a process and practice — a verb for Harding. Harding challenged us to further conceptualize reflexivity, arguing that more work needs to be done.

Central to each of Harding's seminars was her conviction that culture, power, and politics can be knowledge creative and knowledge destructive. She leaves us with this question: For whom do we conduct our research?