Critical social research

1
Critical social research

• Dr. Róisín Ryan-Flood
• SC203

2
Lecture overview

• Critical social research
• Theorising emancipation, power and knowledge
• Representing Otherness

3
Emancipatory knowledge

• Rather than the illusory 'value-free' knowledge
  of the positivists, praxis- oriented inquirers
  see emancipatory knowledge ... which increases
  awareness of the contradictions distorted or
  hidden by everyday understandings, and in doing
  so it directs attention to the possibilities for
  social transformation (Lather, 1991 52)

4
Feminist approaches

• Feminist empiricism
• Feminist standpoint
• Feminist postmodernism
• (Harding, 1986, 1987, 1991)

5
Scientific hegemony

• ...the logic of modern scientific knowledge and
  its assumptions of its own legitimacy as a
  discourse of truth about the world results in the
  exclusion of other ... forms of knowledge and a
  denial of their legitimacy. (Edwards and Usher,
  1994 158)

6
Subjugated knowledge

• It is important to claim the legitimacy of low
  status knowledge, of subjugated knowledge, of the
  knowledge of the Other which has been silenced
  and excluded, and to continue the deconstructive
  process of thinking about 'the danger of what is
  powerful and useful' (Spivak, 1989 135).

7
Historical representations of Otherness

• Others representations of themselves (and
  certainly their representations of us) are
  routinely de-authorised - dismissed as neither
  credible nor coherent.
• The dominant group defines itself through its
  representations of the Other and
  representations of Otherness can be read as
  inverted representations of those doing the
  Othering.

8
Woman as Other

• constructions of the African in the colonies
  and the Negro in Britain and North America also
  tell us more about the subjectivity of Europeans
  than about what it meant to be black and Other
  under a colonial and racist order (Mama, 1995
  160).

9
Negotiating the Problems of Othering

• A conversation of us about them is a
  conversation in which them is silenced. Them
  always stands on the other side of the hill,
  naked and speechless, barely present in its
  absence. Subject of discussion, them is only
  admitted among an us, the discussing subjects,
  when accompanied or introduced by an us,
  member, hence the dependency of them. (Trinh,
  1989 65).

10
Interrupting Othering

• Linda Alcoff has suggested four interrogatory
  practices as a means of interrupting the process
  of othering
• We should analyse, and perhaps resist, the
  impulse to speak at all
• Engage in a critical interrogation of the
  relevance of our autobiographies (reflexivity)
• Maintain an openness to criticism
• Analyse the actual effects of speaking on the
  discursive and material context.

11
Research seminars

• Scheduled seminars in the Department address some
  of the themes explored in this course
• Dept seminar Dr. Marsha Henry (LSE) Out of
  Place Gender, Ethnicity and the Labouring Body
  in the Fieldwork Spaces of Cyprus, 11/02/2010,
  room 6.345, 16-17.30
• CISC seminar Visual methodologies panel
  discussion, 10/02/2010, room 6.348, 13-14.00
• CISC seminar Race, ethnicity and
  representation panel discussion, 24/03/2010,
  room 6.348, 13-14.00