Feminist methods in a “post-truth” political climate: objectives, strategies, and divisions

Abstract

The legitimacy of feminist ways of knowing and the well-being of marginalized identities they attend to are endangered by a “post-truth,” North American political climate. There thus arises an urgent need to examine and vindicate the significance of feminist methods (FM) for women and people of color (WPC). This article contributes to this goal by critically examining the themes that have hitherto organized FM as a category of efforts to reverse WPC’s historical dispossession in the academy. This article identifies three thematic objectives of FM (symbolic, social, and economic empowerment of WPC to reverse their historical dispossession), three thematic strategies of FM to accomplish these objectives in research design (centering WPC in the research agenda, designing more inclusive methods, innovating new theoretical concepts to analyze findings), and two thematic debates that continue to divide FM (styles of intersectionality and identity in the feminist movement as an analytical approach and political effort at large). This article concludes by situating these thematic distinctions in Lamont and Swidler’s broader articulation of methodological tribalism, opening dialogue on the political and analytical advantages of and need for superior methodological pluralism in FM.

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Anson Au

Anson Au is a Ph.D. student in sociology at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on qualitative research methodology, social networks, professions and organizations, and East Asia. He is recipient of the 2019 Biennial Best Article Award from the Midwest Sociological Society (Honorary Mention) and the 2016 Best Student Paper Award from the International Network of Social Network Analysis and the World Association for Triple-Helix and Future Strategies Studies. His work appears in journals such as Information, Communication, & Society, The Sociological Quarterly, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, Annals of Family Medicine, among others.