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Research Article

Feminist philosophy and the problem of intelligence analysis: standpoint, measurement, and motivation

 

ABSTRACT

How can feminist epistemological methods contribute to the task of intelligence analysis? Feminist work widens the lens of what constitutes politics, enabling analysts to incorporate new variables and events into their analysis. In addition, feminist epistemology’s emphasis on reflexivist methods can help to provide a ‘360-degree view’ of problems by incorporating the insights of those who are the subject of analysis. Knowledge is co-created by considering how participants themselves attach meanings and labels to their actions. This approach helps to guard against researcher bias and aids researchers in identifying their blind spots. Feminist methods are also helpful when asking ‘queer questions’ where either the subject of an inquiry or the answer to a query might be poorly specified, ambiguous, or resistant to labeling. They are thus of utility when exploring ‘mysteries’ rather than puzzles, in the words of Gregory Treverton. This essay expands on these three arguments regarding the utility of feminist epistemological methods and finally provides a case study, showing how feminist epistemological methods are of particular utility in examining the phenomenon of female suicide bombers, including making predictions about this activity and describing the motivations of those who participate in it.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Steup and Neta, ‘Epistemology.’

2. Anderson, ‘Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science.

3. Manjikian. Gender, Sexuality, and Intelligence Studies.

4. Enloe, The Curious Feminist.

5. Criado Perez, Invisible Women.

6. Harding. Sciences from Below. See also Finlayson, ‘How to Screw Things with Words.’

7. Dingli. ‘We Need to Talk about Silence.’

8. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge.

9. Weber, Queer International Relations.

10. Within intelligence analysis, Jeffrey Tang makes a similar point about the grounds on which intelligence analysis should be judged in his 2017 article, ‘How do we Know? What intelligence Analysis can learn from the Sociology of Science.’. In this article, he questions the use of perfect accuracy as a metric for knowledge, writing that ‘determining what “actually happened” and consequentially whether the analyst was correct – is inherently and necessarily a function of social interactions among the community of expert practitioners.’

11. Treverton, Intelligence for an Age of Terror.

12. Manjikian. Gender, Sexuality and Intelligence Studies.

13. Dingli, ‘We Need to Talk about Silence’.

14. Longino, ‘Chapter 14: Feminist Epistemology.’

15. Dingli, ‘We Need to Talk about Silence.’

16. Manjikian, ‘Positivism, Post-Positivism and Intelligence Analysis.’

17. Criado Perez. ‘Invisible Women.’

18. Anderson, ‘Feminist Epistemology.’

19. Harding, Sciences from Below.

20. Such competing approaches are illustrated in Mawati, ‘The Meaning and Measurement of Poverty.’

21. For this critique, see Pape. Dying to Win.

22. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, 335.

23. Ibid., 344.

24. Rolin,‘The Bias Paradox in Feminist Standpoint Epistemology,’ 125–136.

25. DeWerd, US Intelligence and Al Qaeda, 1–2.

26. See, for example, Todosijevic, ‘Failed Promises of Modernization.’

27. Jones, ‘ Critical Epistemology for Analysis of Competing Hypotheses,’ 273–289. See also Bean. ‘Intelligence Theory from the Margins.’

28. Treverton, Intelligence for an Age of Terror, 142.

29. Daggett, ‘Drone Disorientations.’

30. Manjikian, ‘Becoming Unmanned.’

31. See note above 9.

32. See note above 2.

33. Marrin and Clemente, ‘Improving Intelligence Analysis by Looking to the Medical Profession.’

34. Bean also makes this point in ‘Rhetorical and Critical/Cultural Intelligence Studies’.

35. Manjikian, ‘Reading Lolita in Langley.’ See also Manjikian, ‘But My Hands are Clean,’ and Manjikian, Gender, Sexuality and Intelligence.

36. Felthaus, Samantarai and Muktar. ‘Gender Differences in Combined Homicide-Suicide with Consideration of Female Terrorist Bombers,’ 614. See also Gentry and Sjoberg, Beyond Mothers, Monsters and Whores.

37. See Elshtain, Women and War.

38. Marway, ‘Women and Sublime Superwomen.’

39. See, for example, Tessler and Robbins, ‘What Leads Some Ordinary Arab Men and Women to Approve of Terrorist Attacks Against the United States?’ Despite the study’s title, the article repeatedly refers to ‘the respondents’ or ‘Arab individuals’, without specifying the gender of the individuals, or asking if there are significant differences between the two gender groups – despite the fact that researchers went to considerable lengths to make sure that both genders were indeed interviewed for the research.

40. Speckhard. ‘The Emergence of Female Suicide Terrorists.’

41. Ragan. Women Suicide Bombers, 141–143.

42. These explanations are examined in Schweitzer, ‘Palestinian Female Suicide Bombers.’

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mary Beth Manjikian

Mary Beth Manjikian is Professor of Government at the College of Arts and Sciences, Regent University, USA.

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