Running head: EVOLVING ISSUES AND THEORETICAL TENSIONS 1

Evolving Issues and Theoretical Tensions:

A Revised Standpoint Theory for 21st Century

Olga Zaytseva

University of New Mexico

Paper submitted to the 2010 NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar

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Evolving Issues and Theoretical Tensions:

A Revised Standpoint Theory for 21st Century

Standpoint theory is well-known in communication studies. It is often included in the

introductory communication theory textbooks, which shows a certain prominence this theory has

gained in the discipline, where standpoint theories are used to illuminate and further explore the

social (and discursive) nature of the processes of meaning making and identity construction (e.g.,

Allen, 1996, 1998; Aptheker, 1989; Bell, Orbe, Drummond, & Camara, 2000; Dougherty, 1999;

McClish & Bacon, 2002; Orbe, 1998; Wood, 1992, 1994). Standpoint epistemologies provide a

viable alternative to the traditional scientific way of knowing. They are committed to

denaturalizing the existent systems of power/knowledge and promoting the perspectives of the

marginalized, and have generated extensive theoretical and methodological discussions among

scholars (Harding, 1986; 1993; Hartsock, 1983/1997). The explanatory power, heuristic value,

and emphasis on reform that mark feminist standpoint theories have been widely recognized

(Hallstein, 2000; Hundleby, 1997). On the other hand, the contributions of communication

scholars to standpoint theories are rather fragmented and limited in their scope (Dougherty &

Krone, 2000; Stormer, 2006). Dougherty and Krone (2000) insist that “the intense debate

generated around the theories . . . and a lack of research to help guide in the selection of

appropriate methods” make scholars forgo the use of standpoint theories and cause such an

incongruity between the potentiality of these theories and the extent of their use in

communication studies (p. 17). I would like to take the Dougherty and Krone’s argument a bit

further.

I argue that the incongruity between the potentiality of standpoint theory and the extent of

its use in communication studies, as well as a certain wariness of communication scholars to

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engage with this theory, mentioned by Dougherty and Krone, stems from the scarcity of explicit

discussion of the versatility of standpoint as theoretical tool and considerations of its Marxian

roots. While the use of standpoint with the focus on ontology usually works to generate data

about certain groups of people, their experiences, and ways of being based on the existing canons

and conventions of what constitute knowledge, the use of standpoint with the focus on

epistemology aims to produce a new emancipatory body of knowledge that may contribute to a

more humane and just world. This emancipator potential of standpoint is derived from its

Marxian roots, but with the potentialities and benefits of such inheritance also come certain

theoretical tensions that complicate the use of standpoint in the contemporary postmodern world.

The main aim of this paper is to explore some strengths and limitations of standpoint

theories that are inherent to their Marxian origins and to offer a revised standpoint theory built

upon neo-Marxian developments, whose explanatory and liberatory power can be effectively

employed for meaning making and communicative practices. To accomplish these objectives, I

start with a discussion of earlier theorizing on standpoint (such as Hegel and Marx). Next I move

to a brief overview of feminist standpoint theories, their common critiques, and the modifications

they went through. After that I introduce the revisions I propose and describe some potential

applications of the theory to communication studies.

Conceptualizing Standpoint

According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, standpoint is “a position from which

objects or principles are viewed and according to which they are compared and judged.”

Although this definition is unable (and not intended) to express the variety of nuances,

intricacies, and controversies associated with this construct in communication theorizing, it

conveys the notion of the standpoint as a social location that distinctively shapes human
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perceptions, identities, and opportunities and thus sets the stage for further theoretical

development of this construct.

In one of the earliest writings on standpoint, philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

(1807/2003) provided an insightful analysis of how unequal power relations in society produce

different social positions (or standpoints), which in turn, result in different perspectives on

reality, social life, self, and others. Hegel focused on the dialectics of the master-slave

relationship. He argued that although masters and slaves participate in the same society, the

standpoints that they occupy are vastly different, which affects what each group can and cannot

see. Hegel was convinced that while unequal power relations exist in society, there can be no

single common perspective on social life, and people will continue to form their understanding

of the world from the standpoints of their groups. Hegel insisted that some standpoints are more

partial and inaccurate than others. Being in a subordinate position of power, slaves have a vested

interest in understanding their masters because their wellbeing and even survival depends on

being able to anticipate the values, tastes, and moods of their masters. However, masters, who

occupy a dominant position, do not perceive any need for reciprocal understanding of slaves. In

other words, through his master-slave argument, Hegel established the view that groups in

positions of lesser power have more comprehensive and accurate view on society than privileged

ones.

Karl Marx (1894/1993) built upon Hegel’s work to provide a comprehensive landmark

account of the special position of the proletariat in society and in history. Like Hegel, Marx

understood “standpoint” as arising from material and social conditions that shape a group’s

experiences, and he focused on such conditions under capitalism, which he viewed as a system

of exploitative power relations. Under capitalism, employers have a monopoly on the means of
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production and communication, so workers are forced to choose between being exploited and

having no job at all. Moreover, capitalist ideologies lead people of all classes to focus on the

surface structure of exchange relations, in which workers’ labor is exchanged for money, and

money for goods and services. Marx called this ideological phenomenon the fetishism of

commodities; it makes workers gradually convince themselves of the normality and fairness of

exploitative economic relationships, while in reality, capitalism alienates workers from the

product of their labor, from themselves, from other human beings, and from nature. However, it

is not this alienation by itself that makes the proletarian standpoint more comprehensive and

accurate. Marx observed:

The property-owning class and the class of the proletariat represent the same human self-

alienation. But the former feels at home in this self-alienation and feels itself confirmed

by it; it recognises alienation as its own instrument and in it it possesses the semblance of

a human existence. The latter feels itself destroyed by this alienation and sees in it its

own impotence and the reality of an inhuman experience. (p. 324)

Thus, for the proletariat, to become aware of the roots of this alienation and to grasp the

dialectical nature of its existence is a matter of life and death. Through achieving class unity and

developing class consciousness, the proletariat attains better self-understanding, which in turn is

inseparable from the objective nature of society. As a result, the standpoint of the proletariat

gives access to the knowledge that is on a higher scientific plane of objectivity than the one-sided

and distorted bourgeois view, and this knowledge turns inherently the proletariat into the

vanguard of the liberation movement leading to social transformation.

Feminist Standpoint Theory

Socialist feminists (e.g., Harding, 1986; Hartsock, 1983/1997; Jaggar, 1983) viewed
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Marxism as a method complimentary to feminism and were eager to adopt the basic tenets of

Marxian thought. They built upon the idea that a more accurate insight into relations of

inequality originates from the point of view of the most marginalized, which became the

foundation of the notion of feminist standpoint. The feminist standpoint is connected to the

unique position of women as the most marginalized group in society due to the sexual division of

labor and the specificity of women’s contribution to subsistence and (re)production (i.e., giving

birth, caretaking, household labor, etc.). Feminist scholars have greatly contributed to developing

the theoretical construct of standpoint and used it as an epistemological tool for revealing the

pervasiveness of oppressive phallocentric ideologies, going beneath dominant patriarchal

structures, deconstructing and critiquing them, and developing a liberatory vision for social

change (Collins, 1997/2004; Haraway, 1988; Hartsock, 1983/1997).

According to Hartsock (1983/1997), a standpoint is more than a social position; it is an

active stance which is predicated on particular forms of lived experience. Like Marx, she does

not view a group standpoint as a pre-given that comes automatically with being born into a

particular group (such as women) and insists that the feminist standpoint can be achieved only

through education, raising individual consciousness, and building group unity. Hartsock outlines

five criteria for determining whether a social position can be considered a standpoint: (1)

material life not only structures but sets limits on the understanding of social relations; (2) if

material life is structured in opposing ways for two groups, then the vision of each will represent

an inversion of the other, and in systems of domination the vision available to the rulers will be

both partial and perverse; (3) the vision of the ruling group structures the material relations in

which all parties are forced to participate, and thus cannot be dismissed as simply false; (4) the

vision available to the oppressed group must be struggled for, and represents an achievement
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which requires both science to see below the surface of the social relations in which we are

forced to participate, and the education which can only grow from the struggle to change those

relations; (5) as an engaged vision, the understanding of the oppressed, the adoption of a

standpoint exposes the real relations among human beings as inhuman, points beyond the

present, and carries a historically liberatory role. Although Hartsock (1981; 1983; 1983/1997)

acknowledges the cultural nature of women’s experiences of mothering, caring, and relating, she

fails to articulate how those experiential differences could be accounted for.

Tensions and Limitations of Feminist Standpoint

The approach to the feminist standpoint described by Hartsock (1981; 1983; 1983/1997)

stems from the presupposition of a universal “women’s experience” and “way of knowing” and

inadvertently leads to the homogenization of such experience and “way of knowing” around

those of white, middle-class, heterosexual women. This ahistoricized notion of “abstract

femininity” became a source of fierce critique from different groups of feminists who pointed out

the necessity of taking into careful consideration multiple modes of oppression (i.e., race,

ethnicity, ability, sexuality, etc.). “A Black Feminist Statement,” by the Combahee River

Collective (1977/1997), and “Variations on a Common Theme,” by Questions Féministes

Collective (1981), are just two examples of such a critique. As a result, feminist theorizing has

gradually shifted to the understanding of “standpoint” as a relational phenomenon, rather than

one that arises inevitably from the experience of women, which is recognized to be extremely

diverse. Consequently, feminist scholars have been consciously choosing to consider political

and social vantage points that are available to men as well as women. For example, Ruddick

(1989) defined “standpoint” as an “engaged vision of the world opposed and superior to

dominant ways of thinking” (p. 129). She locates the roots of a feminist standpoint in the
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motherly relation to a child and proposes the concept of maternal thinking, which is a learned

capacity and is different from “maternal instinct.” According to Ruddick, maternal thinking

develops through love, nurturing, and taking care of others and is applicable to men as well as

women. However, like Hartsock, Ruddick did not clearly articulate a way of taking into account

cultural aspects of human relations and as a result, presented “maternal thinking” as a uniform

and ahistorical phenomenon.

Another common critique of feminist standpoint epistemologies is that the concept of

standpoint tends to overlook the problem of granting greater authenticity and/or

comprehensiveness to one way of knowing while other subjugated knowledges (often mutually

contradictive) simultaneously exist. Moreover, postmodernist and poststructuralist scholars (e.g.,

Foucault, 1981; Lyotard, 1978/1984) would argue against the claim that the ruling group’s vision

is “partial and perverse” while the vision of the oppressed fully and accurately exposes the

relationships in society. They would counter that all visions are “partial and perverse” and that

we always must speak from a particular location, which is inevitably constitutive of our

knowledge. Although the views of the oppressed undoubtedly constitute counter-discourses that

seek to break away from the dominant discourses of power/knowledge, they are still incomplete

and skewed like any other views. Some feminist scholars recognize this problem with

“standpoint.” For example, Donna Harraway (1988) acknowledges that to see from the

standpoint of the marginalized is not unproblematic. Her concept of “situated knowledge,” which

is partial and relational rather than transcendent, tries to counter some questions raised by

standpoint epistemologies and simultaneously offer a way of conceptualizing “objective

knowledge” for feminist theorizing. Building upon Harraway’s work, Harding (1993) attempts to

break away from identity politics and insists that “the activities of those at the bottom of . . .
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social hierarchies can provide starting points for thought—for everyone’s research and

scholarship—from which humans’ relations with each other and the natural world can become

visible” (p. 54). She gives the examples of Hegel, who was not a slave, and Marx, who was not a

proletarian, but they were able to grasp the complexities and realities of those standpoints. So

Harding suggests that feminist researchers need to go beyond their social groups (and their

limitations) and adopt the “starting point” of women in circumstances drastically different from

their own. Spivak (1993) also acknowledges that there are no constant, stable and unifying

boundaries to standpoints and identity categories, but she argues that for the sake of political

mobilization one has to pretend that they exist. Her solution is not to shy away or try to

overcome the essentialist tendencies associated with the concept of standpoint (as Harding does),

but to eagerly embrace them as “strategic essentialism.”

Feminist standpoint theorizing has been also critiqued for valorizing the standpoint as a

social achievement, without providing explicit and concrete discussion of the processes leading

to such an achievement (Hennesey, 1993; Welton, 1997). As Hundleby (1997) points out,

“Achieving a standpoint is not finding the right, ideal perspective but opposing the political

limitations on perspectives” (p. 37), and at the same time, the experience of oppression in itself

does not necessarily guarantee a more insightful vision. According to Haraway (1990),

experience is not innocent, and “we must struggle over the terms of its articulation” (p. 240).

This struggle raises the individuals’ awareness of oppression, develops group consciousness, and

leads to acquiring a more comprehensive and insightful view that may become the basis for a

liberatory vision (Collins, 1996; Harding, 1993; Hartscock 1983; 1983/1997). At the same time,

the transition from “the empirical materiality of women’s lives” to “the discursive materiality of

feminism” remains largely undertheorized (Hennesey, 1993, p. 67).

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Revised Standpoint Theory for 21st Century

Our postmodern world is characterized by the rejection of objective Truth and

metanarratives (or totalizing discourses) that attempt to theorize and account for all aspects of

society and the focus on the role of language, context, and power relations. Some “feminisms

have been resisting incorporation into the postmodern camp, and with good reason: their political

agendas would be endangered, or at least obscured . . . [and] their historical particularities and

relative positionalities would risk being subsumed” (Hutcheon, 2006, p. 208). At the same time,

others have been insisting that feminism and postmodernism are not incommensurable and, if

used strategically, can be blended to enhance knowledge production (Fraser & Nicholson, 1990).

Moreover, as a number of feminist scholars have argued, a standpoint approach may be

consistent with the multivocality and fluidity of postmodern theorizing (Dougherty & Krone,

2000; Hallstein, 1999; Hirschman, 2004). Hirschman (2004), for example, suggests that

the definition of “who we are” will shift and change, in postmodern fashion, in response

to different material conditions as well as to the fact that each individual occupies more

than one experiential and identity location. This shifting within and between discourses

and “material moments” does not mean that we cannot develop theories based on

experience within particular and even contingent historical contexts. Indeed, we must. (p.

330)

However, in a way, this postmodern fluidity and multiplicity creates the problem of

authority in feminist discourse and may jeopardize the epistemic privilege of women’s

standpoints. If all standpoints are “partial and perverse” what criteria should we use for selecting

a standpoint to adopt as a starting point of a scholarly investigation? What kinds of

considerations render feminist claims to production of political knowledge appropriate,

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11

persuasive and valid? And how can we combine postmodernist mistrust toward meta-narratives

with feminist social critique? In the following section of my paper, I argue that these (and

similar) questions can be addressed with the help of the revised Marxian theory developed by

Resnick and Wolff (1989), centered on the concept of overdetermination.

Marxian Theory and the Concept of Overdetermination

Resnick and Wolff (1989), in their book Knowledge and Class: A Marxian Critique of

Political Economy, offer a reading of Marxian theory that does not fit into the conventional

restraints of economic determinism. They insist that theory is a societal process that undergoes

continuous change. These changes can be understood and explained through the use of the term

overdetermination.

To say that theory is an overdetermined process in society is to say that its existence,

including all its properties or qualities, is determined by each and every other process

constituting that society. Theory is the complex effect produced by the interaction of all

those processes. As such an effect, the process of theory embodies the different

influences of its many determinants. (Resnick & Wolff, 1989, p. 2)

Among the different factors and relationships contributing to overdetermining any one entity,

none can be ranked as more significant or more influential than others. Moreover, “no process in

society is passive in the sense of not participating in the overdetermination of all other

processes” (p. 9). Consequently, the process of theory is both overdetermined by and is a

constitutive component (or overdeterminant) of all other processes in society, and as such, theory

loses its privileged status. “It is no longer the ‘essence’ of truth of all other processes in society”

(p. 5), but rather just one among many processes comprising society.

The influences and processes that overdetermine theory push, pull, and propel it in
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12

different or conflicting directions:

The contradictoriness of the process of theory appears on two levels. At one level there

are differing and often conflicting theories, that is, sets of concepts. Practitioners within

each of these spend part of their time in criticism, as we understand as chiefly the

specification of differences (contradictions) between their own and other theories. At

another level each distinct theory or set of concepts is itself contradictory in the sense that

tensions and conflicts exist among the concepts comprising each set. Practitioners within

any particular theory typically spend part of their time identifying and seeking to resolve

those contradictions within their theory that they can recognize as such. . . . Moreover,

the epistemological standards used within a theory to validate its truths are as differently

conceived—from one theory to another—as are its truths. (pp. 5-6)

Resnick and Wolff insist that no single epistemological standard (or absolute truth) can allow to

validate one theory against another and that “the contradictions among and within different

theories produce changes in these theories and in their interaction” (p. 7).

However, if everything (and anything) in society depends upon and participates in

shaping everything else, how can any social phenomenon be reasonably explained? To answer

this question, Resnick and Wolff develop a notion of conceptual points of entry. They argue that

each theory uses a particular concept to enter into its formulation and call this a conceptual point

of entry. For example, the conceptual point of entry for Marxian social theory is its concept of

class. Resnick and Wolff distinguish theoretical entry points and theoretical essences and insist

that “all theories have entry points while only for some do they function as essences” (p. 26).

Resnick and Wolff frame their vision of Marxian theory as anti-foundationist and anti-

essentialist. They claim that essentialist theories are marked by the tendency to “organize their
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13

fields of inquiry into contrasting poles of cause and effect” (p. 3), which reduces the complexity

of social overdetermination and presumes that some processes are more determinant than others.

For such theories, theoretical points of entry often become the central causes that determine the

entire process, but this is not the case for Resnick and Wolff’s Marxian theory.

“Class” in Marxian theory is the entry point, meaning that making sense of the relations

and influences of other processes starts with the notion of class.

To borrow an image from Hegel, the specification of any idea is without meaning; it is

completely empty until we begin to construct its complex determinations, its linkages to

other ideas, its conceptual conditions of existence. Only these give it life and character.

Thus each discursive idea in a theory can only take on its meaning in relationships to all

other ideas of the discourse. Each term is thus understood to exist as the locus of effects

emanating from the other terms of the theory. Its meaning is literally constructed by

them. (p. 28)

The choice of theoretical entry point affects the connections and relationships constructed among

various concepts and processes, and in turn, the conceptual entry point itself unfolds and changes

through those connections and relationships. The theoretical entry point becomes a key

conceptual tool to make sense of the interconnectedness of social processes. Thus the decision on

conceptual entry point is usually based on theoretical goals and activist objectives faced by a

researcher. For example,

Marxian theory has two basic objectives. The first is to produce a class knowledge of

society, to construct a kind of knowledge of the overdetermined and hence contradictory

and changing social totality that focuses upon class. Thus the attention of Marxian theory

centers upon specifying the particular contradictions of class, how they are
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14

overdetermined by all the political, cultural, and economic aspects/processes of the social

formation under analysis, and how in turn class contradictions impact upon all those other

social aspects. The second objective is to help change the class structure of its

contemporary social formations (which is only partly accomplished by and through the

achievement of the first objective). (pp. 89-90)

The concept of overdetermination, which Resnick and Wolff (1989) “borrowed from

Freud, Lukacs, and Althusser and considerably modified” (p. 2), can be effectively used in

theorizing “standpoint.” It allows for a move away from debating epistemic privilege of

particular standpoints, based on the distance from the “center,” and focuses instead on the

objectives of specific research projects.

Applying the Concept of Overdetermination to Standpoint Theories

According to Resnick and Wolff’s theory, standpoint can be considered a process; any

social process is overdetermined by and overdetermines other social processes, and no process is

more significant or influential than the other. Thus, as discussed earlier, all standpoints are

“partial and perverse,” and the justification for starting off from a standpoint of a particular

group has little to do with truth claims (or better perspective) and depends more on preferred

conceptual entry point and ultimately on the objectives of the investigation. Many of later works

on feminist standpoint agree on this point though with different degrees of explicitness. For

example, Harding (1993) explains,

[M]arginalized lives provide the scientific problems and the research agendas—not the

solutions—for standpoint theories. Starting off thought from these lives provides fresh

and more critical questions about how the social order works than does starting off

thought from the unexamined lives of members of dominant groups. (p. 62).
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Generally speaking, standpoint theory traces how belonging to distinct social groups in a

society shape members’ experiences, knowledges, and ways of interacting. However, no social

group is truly homogeneous, and, as Lugones (1994) points out, minority voices, ways of

knowing, and discursive practices within communities are often shunned and erased.

“Ultimately, every woman is unique; if we analyze each in her uniqueness, systemic analysis is

obviated” (Hekman, 1993, p. 359). Thus, one of the factors in making a decision on which

standpoint to use for starting off a scholarly investigation is determining the points of

identification crucial to the group’s identity and establishing their centrality to the objectives of

the study. For example, in her study, Droogsma (2007) focused on the ways hijab functions in

the U.S. “to define Muslim identity, perform a behavioral check, resist sexual objectification,

afford more respect, preserve intimate relations, and provide more freedom” (p. 294). As a result,

she chose to explore standpoints of American Muslim women, who view wearing a headscarf as

central to their identity. Thus, through conceptualizing “point of entry” and emphasizing its

significance, Resnick and Wolff’s reading of Marxian theory helps in selecting a standpoint and

justifying its use as a conceptual entry point for theorizing, but it does not explain how the

standpoint is (or can be) built, which is the topic of the next section.

Standpoint as Social Achievement

Standpoint theorists agree that a standpoint is more than a social location and that a

standpoint is collectively achieved “through engaging in the struggle required to construct an

oppositional stance” (Wood, 2005, p. 61). They explain that acquiring a standpoint begins with

material experience that shapes ontology and epistemology, providing groups with shared

experience. The next step is the interaction and dialogue with others who occupy different social

positions as a result of their race, ethnicity, nationality, physical ability, social class, or sexual
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orientation (Collins, 1997; Hallstein, 2000; Wood, 1992), which help to make sense of their lives

and produce a sense of both commonality and difference. Hallstein (2000) insists that “women’s

vantage point or structural position also provides women a bifurcated or double vision of both

their own knowledge and the dominant culture’s conception of what it means to be female (and

an awareness of dominants’ worldview in general)” (p.6).

At the same time, some scholars point out that at times it is difficult to substantiate the

claim that the standpoint is achieved and that what happens is not simply a recitation of the

common women’s experiences (Hennessy, 1993; Mathison, 1997; Weeks, 1998/2004; Welton,

1997). For as Scott (1992) eloquently explains, “Experience is at once always already an

interpretation and is in need of interpretation” (p. 37), and as Lazreg (1994) posits, “Women’s

lives are also affected by what they do not do in the ‘everyday world’” (p 49). Mathison (1997)

even expresses her concern of “whether standpoint epistemology as it has been appropriated in

the research can transform current practices without compromising the larger project of

constructing more grounded views of knowing” (p. 150), while Weeks (1998/2004) considers a

possibility of redirecting the use of standpoint from its current focus on epistemology to

ontology. She explains, “whereas the primary goal of most of these original theories was to

develop alternative epistemologies based on feminist cognitive practices, the primary focus of

this account is the constitution of alternative subjects, feminist collectives” (p. 189), which may

be an appropriate route for certain communication projects.

However, some transnational feminists and women of color are not ready to relinquish

the idea of constructing alternative epistemologies (Collins, 1997/2004; hooks, 1990/2004;

Narayan, 1989/2004), Sandoval, 1991/2004). bell hooks (1990/2004), for example, insists,

Understanding marginality as position and place of resistance is crucial for oppressed,

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17

exploited, colonized people. If we only view the margin as sign marking the despair, a

deep nihilism penetrates in a destructive way the very ground of our being. (p. 157)

To preserve standpoint as epistemological achievement better theorizing of its acquisition is

necessary. Building upon existing theorizing of the dialogical nature of standpoint building (e.g.,

Collins, 1997; Wood, 1992), Dougherty and Krone (2000) propose the idea of cultivating

standpoints in organizations through research. By developing a creative narrative based on

interview data, reading and discussing it with the participants, Dougherty and Krone helped to

nurture and build up their group consciousness, and by the end of the study, “the participants felt

that they developed a more sophisticated understanding of their experiences. If . . . [they] were to

begin this project again, the new awareness of their standpoints would undoubtedly lead to a

different creative narrative” (p. 33).

Dougherty and Krone’s idea of cultivating standpoints through research can be viewed as

an extension of consciousness-raising practices, which were pivotal to the feminist movement of

the 1960s and 1970s and trough which many women came to identify as feminists.

In feminist circles, the aim of consciousness-raising has been to create and foster group

identity and political solidarity. For this to occur, problems that may have been perceived

as being uniquely one’s own must be re-storied as problems that one faces by virtue of

group membership. More specifically, it involves getting a person to reject as inadequate

those prevailing narratives that fail to emplot gender power relations and to replace them

with alternative plot lines, where something like “patriarchy” or “sexism” becomes

central to the narrativizing of the social world and one’s relation to it. Through

consciousness-raising, women learn to generate alternative, feminist-inspired narratives

for making sense of their experiences—narratives that resituate women as allies and
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hence foster the conditions needed for experiencing group solidarity (Leland, 2000, pp.

247-248).

In my opinion, the main contribution of Dougherty and Krone to feminist standpoint theories is

in combining the notions of research and consciousness raising, thus offering a concrete and

specific way of building a feminist standpoint and contributing (on both theoretical and

methodological levels), to the area which has been considered one of the weaknesses of

standpoint theories (Hennesey, 1993; Welton, 1997). Moreover, they indirectly confirm the

usefulness of intellectuals in developing standpoint (Collins, 1990; Hartsock, 1990) and

simultaneously utilize the tenets of feminist methodologies that valorize the notion of research

for women and consider interviewees co-researchers actively participating in the process of

knowledge production (Langellier & Hall, 1989; Nelson, 1989).

Dougherty and Krone’s approach to cultivating standpoint through research can be taken

a step further by incorporating the idea of the centrality of dialogue between various standpoints

advocated by many scholars (Collins, 1997; Hallstein, 2000; Mathison, 1997; Wood, 1992).

Mathison (1997), for example, argues that without such a dialogue,

standpoint feminist run the same risk of reifying observations into abstract categories

much like androcentric epistemology. There is also a danger of establishing ‘facts’ about

experience without recognizing not only the situatedness of the subject but also the

tentativeness of the authorized account (p. 157).

In terms of practical implications, this development would result in facilitating follow-up

dialogue sessions, in the case of Dougherty and Krone, between the interviewees (female faculty

and graduate students) and male “representative of people of color” in the department, and in the

discussed earlier case of Droogsma (2007), between the interviewed American Muslim women
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19

and, for example, American women of South-Asian descent who routinely wear sari. Such a

dialogue would allow to further explore similarities and differences in the experiences of

oppression of both groups and problemitize “the tentativeness of the authorized account.”

Now that I have outlined current critiques of standpoint theory and sketched how Resnick

and Wolff’s (1989) reading of Marxian theory can be applied to “standpoint,” I would like to

explicitly return to the questions that I posed earlier in the paper: If all standpoints are “partial

and perverse” what criteria should we use for selecting a standpoint to adopt as a starting point of

a scholarly investigation? What kinds of considerations render feminist claims to production of

political knowledge appropriate, persuasive and valid? And how can we combine postmodernist

mistrust toward meta-narratives with feminist social critique? I proposed the following answers

to these questions.

One of the important factors in selecting a standpoint for starting off a scholarly

investigation is determining the points of identification crucial to the group’s identity and

establishing their centrality to the objectives of the study. In other words, this choice should be

guided by what Resnick and Wolff call “conceptual point of entry.” The theoretical entry point

becomes a key conceptual tool for making sense of the interconnectedness of social processes.

This point affects the connections and relationships constructed among various concepts and

processes, and as a result, the conceptual entry point itself unfolds and changes through those

connections and relationships. Approaching a particular standpoint as a conceptual point of entry

allows to reconcile the postmodern view that all standpoints are “partial and perverse” (and

simultaneously that all standpoints are valuable and consequential, as “overdetermination”

implies) with the recognition that in many cases, theoretical goals and activist objectives faced

by a researcher are better served by starting off an inquiry from a particular standpoint and that
Running head: EVOLVING ISSUES AND THEORETICAL TENSIONS
20

social critique from such a standpoint is valuable and valid not because of the superiority of that

standpoint, but because it temporarily (for that specific project) serves as a better vantage point

for connecting various concepts and processes.

To sum up, this paper explores the Marxian roots of standpoint and the strengths and

weaknesses that come from such a lineage. I advocate the further development of standpoint

theory through incorporating the notion of multiple epistemologically valid standpoints, adopting

Resnick and Wolff’s (1989) concept of overdetermination, utilizing Dougherty and Krone’s

(2000) approach of cultivating standpoint through research, and enhancing it by combining it

with feminist practices of consciousness-raising.

Running head: EVOLVING ISSUES AND THEORETICAL TENSIONS
21

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