Womens Studies International Forum 

About: Womens Studies International Forum is an academic journal published by Elsevier BV. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Politics & Feminism. It has an ISSN identifier of 0277-5395. Over the lifetime, 2904 publications have been published receiving 59418 citations.

Can there be a feminist ethnography

Abstract: Many feminist scholars have identified ethnographic methods as ideally suited to feminist research because its contextual, experiential approach to knowledge eschews the false dualisms of positivism and, drawing upon such traditionally female strengths as empathy and human concern, allows for an egalitarian, reciprocal relationship between knower and known. This paper discusses the irony that ethnographic methods also subject research subjects to greater risk of exploitation, betrayal, and abandonment by the researcher than does much positivist research. Fieldwork and its textual products represent an intervention into a system of relationships that the researcher is far freer than the researched to leave. The paper calls for greater dialogue between feminism and the new ethnography which addresses similar methodological concerns and suggests certain constraints on that dialogue.

Focus groups in feminist research

Abstract: Despite a theoretical emphasis on understanding the person-in-context, individualistic research methods have dominated feminist psychology, and feminist research more generally. I suggest the need for more socially situated methods, and argue that group interviews, or focus groups, are of particular value in conducting, and developing, feminist research. The historical development of focus groups is briefly outlined and examples provided of their use in contemporary feminist research projects. I demonstrate that the particular benefits of focus groups include: addressing feminist ethical concerns about power and the imposition of meaning; generating high quality, interactive data; and offering the possibility of theoretical advances regarding the co-construction of meaning between people. The potential for future development of focus group theory and methodology in feminist research is argued, and illustrated, in particular, with reference to the dynamic negotiation of meaning in specific social contexts.

Objectivity and truth: Problems in doing feminist research☆

Abstract: This paper examines principles of feminist research and discusses the authors' attempts to use these principles in a systematic way in their own research. Three principles of feminist research are identified: research should contribute to women's liberation through producing knowledge that can be used by women themselves; should use methods of gaining knowledge that are not oppressive; should continually develop a feminist critical perspective that questions dominant intellectual traditions and can reflect on its own development. Consciously applying these principles in a research study of the relation between changes in consciousness and the changes in the structural situation of individuals raised several methodological issues and dilemmas. These include the impossibility of creating a research process that completely erases the contradictions in the relationship between the researcher and the researched; the difficulties in analysing change as a process; the tension between the necessity of organizing the data and producing an analysis which reveals the totality of women's lives; and problems of validity, particularly those raised when the research process becomes part of the process of change.

Have we got a theory for you! Feminist theory, cultural imperialism and the demand for ‘the woman's voice’

Abstract: Pero este querer se me va cuando veo que he confundido la solidaridad con la falta de diferencia La solidaridad requiere el reconocer, comprender, respetar y amar lo que nos lleva a llorar en distintas cadencias El imperialism0 cultural desea lo contrario, por eso necesitamos muchas votes Porque una sola voz nos mata a las dos No quiero hablar por ti sino contigo Pero si no aprendo tus modos y tu 10s mios la conversaci6n es s610 aparente Y la apariencia se levanta corn0 una barrera sin sentido entre las dos Sin sentido y sin sentimiento Por eso no me debes dejar que te dicte tu ser y no me dictes el mio Porque entonces ya no dialogamos El dialog0 entre nosotras requiere dos votes y no una Tal vez un dia jugaremos juntas y nos hablaremos no en una lengua universal sino que vos me hablaras mi voz y yo la tuya

The technology question in feminism: A view from feminist technology studies

Abstract: Feminist research on technology tends to view technology either as neutral or as determining, drawing implications for women that are either overoptimistic or overpessimistic. By contrast, feminist scholarship within the field of technology studies, or feminist technology studies, is more ambivalent politically, and sees technology as socially constructed, or coproduced, alongside gender. This paper elaborates this framework by exploring various ways in which technology may be gendered, drawing in part on recent research on engineering. It focuses, in turn, on gender in and of technological artefacts; on the durability of masculine images of technology; on gender in the detail of technical knowledge and practice; and on the place of technology in (some) men's gender identities. This framework provides a more sound basis for understanding the ambivalence about technology which many women experience and, thus, for a praxis which steers a cyborgian course between uncritical endorsement and outright rejection of technology.