Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T15:18:31.147Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Toward a Value-Laden Theory: Feminism and Social Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Susan E. Bernick
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Marjorie Shostak's ethnography, Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman, is analyzed as a case study of feminist social science. Three principles of feminist research are suggested as standards for evaluation. After discussion of the principles and analysis of the text, I raise a criticism of the principles as currently sketched. The entire project is framed by the question of how best to resolve conflict between researcher and participant accounts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , Summer 1991 , pp. 118 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barash, David P. [1977] 1982. Sociobiology and behavior. New York: Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc.Google Scholar
Clifford, James. 1986. Introduction: Partial truths. In Writing culture. Clifford, James and Marcus, George E., eds. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Geiger, Susan. 1982a. Reconceptualizing the use of life histories for the study of women. Paper presented at the International Conference on Research and Teaching Related to Women, July 26‐August 2, 1982 at Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University, Montreal.Google Scholar
Geiger, Susan. 1982b. Toward an understanding of the multiple uses and significance of life histories in the study of African women in society. Paper presented at the African Studies Association Annual Meeting, November, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Geiger, Susan. 1986. Women's life histories: Method and content. Signs 11(2): 334–51.Google Scholar
Geiger, Susan and Zita, Jacqueline N. 1985. White traders: The caveat emptor of women's studies. Journal of Thought 20(3): 106–21.Google Scholar
Golde, Peggy, ed. (1970) 1986. Women in the field: Anthropological perspectives. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Harding, Sandra and Hintikka, Merrill B., eds. 1983. Discovering reality: Feminist perspectives on epistemology, metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Keller, Evelyn Fox. 1985. Reflections on gender and science. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Lerner, Gerda, ed. 1977. The female experience: An American documentary. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs‐Merrill.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catharine A. 1982. Feminism, Marxism, method, and the state: An agenda for theory. Signs 7(3): 515–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKinnon, Catharine A. 1983. Feminism, Marxism, method, and the state: Toward feminist jurisprudence. Signs 8(4): 635–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mbilinyi, Marjorie. 1989. “I'd have been a man”: Politics and the labor process in producing personal narratives. In Interpreting women's lives. Group, Personal Narratives, eds. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Messer‐Davidow, Ellen. 1985. Knowers, knowing, knowledge: Feminist theory and education. Journal of Thought 20(3): 8–24.Google Scholar
Pratt, Mary Louise. 1986. Fieldwork in common places. In Writing culture. Clifford, James and Marcus, George E., eds. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rabinow, Paul. 1986. Representations are social facts: Modernity and postmodernity in anthropology. In Writing culture. Clifford, James and Marcus, George E., eds. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Radcliffe‐Brown, A. R. [1939] 1965. Taboo. In Structures and function in primitive society: Essays and addresses. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Rosaldo, Renato. N.d. Where objectivity lies: The rhetoric of anthropology. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Shostak, Marjorie. 1983. Nisa: The life and words of a Kung woman. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Shostak, Marjorie. 1989. “What the wind won't take away”: The genesis of Nisa—The life and words of a Kung woman. In Interpreting women's lives. Group, Personal Narratives, eds. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Stanley, Liz and Wise, Sue. 1983. Breaking out: Feminist consciousness and feminist research. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Strathern, Marilyn. 1987. An awkward relationship: The case of feminism and anthropology. Signs 12(2): 276–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar