1. How Feminist Knowledge Is Made in and beyond Disciplines
- Author
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Pearse, Rebecca and Keane, Helen
- Abstract
This article investigates the relationship between disciplinarity and feminist knowledge-making in Australia's humanities and social sciences. To identify the conditions of possibility for successful feminist knowledge projects, we interpret career trajectories of senior feminist and gender researchers within five disciplines: economics, history, philosophy, politics and sociology. Feminist knowledge-making about gender occurs in every field, but it has uneven impact and status in relation to different disciplinary practices. Career trajectories are analysed to understand how feminist research is practiced within, or perhaps against or beyond, conventional disciplinarity. Strategies for feminist knowledge-making vary across and within fields. Epistemic pluralism is a key possibility condition necessary for feminist knowledge-making. In fields characterized by conceptual openness (sociology, history), feminist knowledge-making can most easily be practiced as 'core' disciplinary work. In disciplines characterized by epistemic closure, feminists are carving out new subfields within (economics, politics) and beyond (philosophy) their mainstream disciplinarities.
- Published
- 2023
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