3.137.185.180
3.137.185.180
close menu
KCI 등재
“This Very Contaminated Tool”: An Immanent Critique of Feminist Standpoint Theories
( Joon Hyung Park )
UCI I410-ECN-0102-2016-840-000638569

The aim of this essay is based on my belief in the possibility of using the critique of standpoint theories to strengthen feminist standpoint epistemology. Although Butler and Haraway criticize some existing feminists, they do so in order to overcome the limitations that some antecedents of feminist theory had. Both Butler and Haraway emphasize how the acknowledgment of plurality and inclusiveness prevents us from repeating preceding feminists’ mistake of reaffirming essentialism and exclusionism. Using Butler’s and Haraway’s emphasis on specificity, plurality, and inclusiveness as a theoretical framework, this paper seeks to do an immanent critique of three feminist standpoint theories: Alcoff’s concept of woman as positionality; Collins’s black feminist standpoint; and Mohanty’s third-world feminist standpoint. I critically examine how, despite their original intention to overcome preceding feminists’ limitations, they end up reiterating essentialism and exclusionism by attempting to overgeneralize their partial perspectives and their specific definitions of woman into universal explanations/truths for all women. I also argue that feminist standpoint theories should clearly acknowledge their epistemologically plural and partial status as analytical tools in order to be inclusive and connected enough to cross over the conventional boundaries between feminist theorists as subjects and women as objects.

[자료제공 : 네이버학술정보]
×