Standpoint Analysis

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

Standpoint analysis lends itself to case study research because it is combines the process of reflection with self-critical analysis to produce in-depth and oppositional accounts of social phenomena. Considering that case study privileges in-depth [Page 886]inquiry and understanding, it is aligned with and derives much of its rationale and methods from ethnography and its constituent theoretical discourses, such as standpoint.

In societies stratified by unequal power relations, research relationships occur in an environment of interpersonal and social power. Standpoint analysis requires researchers to understand and take into account this power relationship, their power in the research process, and their position as producers of knowledge. Moreover, standpoint calls for researchers to explore their own subjective position, be more aware of the role they play in the collection of the research data, and appreciate the implications on the group or groups participating in the research. Sometimes, the researcher's standpoint is also taken up as data. Thus, standpoint analysis increases the importance of questions about how power interacts with authority to influence who is seen as a legitimate creator of knowledge and what kind of knowledge is created.

Critical race and feminist scholars have been central in this call to question power relations, in particular between researcher and research subject. Feminists have criticized mainstream social science research, arguing that social science in general is detached (in the name of objectivity) from the daily life experiences of the people whom they study. Furthermore, traditional science and social science research has been defined by androcentrism (male centeredness). Standpoint analysis was developed and theorized to reveal (and change) the fact that traditional social science research reflected the biases and interest of male (white) researchers.

Although its origins are connected to a variety of political struggles, standpoint analysis has become synonymous with feminist theory, for which it outlines a method for constructing effectual knowledge from the insights of women's experience. Nancy Hartsock, Dorothy Smith, Patricia Hill Collins, and Sandra Harding have worked to develop this approach. These feminists extend some of the early insights about consciousness that emerged from Marxist/socialist and critical race feminist theories and the wider conversations about identity politics.

In the literature on standpoint analysis a variety of contentions and foci have emerged. Some standpoint theorists, for example, argue that researchers should not study those people over whom they have social advantage; therefore, White people should not research Black people, men should not study women, and so on. Other theorists argue that the researcher's social location does not have to be similar to the research participant's but rather that the data be generated from the standpoint of the research participant. Although the theoretical particularities of standpoint may vary among theorists, it can generally be argued that standpoint has two connected

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