Recent Advances in Feminist Science and Technology Studies: Reconceptualizing Subjectivity and Knowledge

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this chapter is to bring three recent and innovative feminist science and technology studies paradigms into dialogue on the topics of subjectivity and knowledge.

Findings

Each of the three frameworks – feminist postcolonial science and technology studies, queer ecologies, and new feminist materialisms – reconceptualizes and expands our understanding of subjectivity and knowledge. As projects invested in identifying and challenging the strategic conferral of subjectivity, they move from subjectivity located in all human life, to subjectivity as indivisible from nature, to a broader notion of subjectivity as both material and discursive. Despite some methodological differences, the three frameworks all broaden feminist conceptions of knowledge production and validation, advocating for increased consideration of scientific practices and material conditions in feminist scholarship.

Originality

This chapter examines three feminist science and technology studies paradigms by comparing and contrasting how each addresses notions of subjectivity and knowledge in ways that push us to rethink key epistemological issues.

Research Implications

This chapter identifies similarities and differences in the three frameworks’ discussions of subjectivity and knowledge production. By putting these frameworks into conversation, we identify methodological crossover, capture the coevolution of subjectivity and knowledge production in feminist theory, and emphasize the importance of matter in sociocultural explorations.

Citation

Schnabel, L. and Breitwieser, L. (2015), "Recent Advances in Feminist Science and Technology Studies: Reconceptualizing Subjectivity and Knowledge", At the Center: Feminism, Social Science and Knowledge (Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 20), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 43-63. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-212620150000020004