Subjectivism

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

The subject and subjectivism have been a concern of Western philosophers from Kant to various [Page 904]20th-century thinkers who have had a significant impact on the social sciences and humanities, such as Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault. In both the humanities and social sciences questions of reality and the limitations of the human capacity for knowledge have been equally important as the research questions asked about social reality. In the latter part of the 20th century, and mainly under the influence of feminist philosophy and epistemology, psychoanalysis, phenomenology, poststructuralism, and postmodernism, recognition of the subjectivism inherent in the individual/collective as a medium for in-depth analysis helped to reveal the connection among subjectivism, “the other,” language, the body, and power. Sandra Harding demonstrates how subjectivism has to be embraced as part of knowledge production and reveals the biases inherent in objectivist perspectives of “male science.” Critical perspectives developed in the context of postcolonialism and feminism highlight the problems associated with any claim to objective truth and show how an imbalance of power can obscure embedded and invisible mechanisms of inequality in seemingly egalitarian systems. Subjectivism is not only a matter of methodology; its status has theoretical consequences. For example, despite the popularity enjoyed by Foucault's power/knowledge approach, feminist critics question his assertion that subjectivism is constituted by relations of power. The next question raised, then, concerns what is attributed to acting subjects and what their potential is for resistance. These attributions to the acting subject influence interpretations and conclusions drawn from a case study when it comes to determining the significance of agency versus the limitations set by larger historical phenomena.

Some researchers see subjectivism as a perspective, and others regard it simply as a state of being. This state of being can be applied both to the researcher and the researched subjects. Awareness of the subjectivism of an individual researcher and recognition of the significance of elucidating the subjectivism of the researched subjects both constitute the researcher's attempt to position herself in relation to her study subjects. Taking empathy as their point of departure, some researchers would approach subjectivism through participation in the daily activities of people in order to minimize hierarchies between the researcher and the research subjects; others would adopt a different subject position in order to achieve the same end. The subjectivism of the case study participants can be incorporated into the manner in which their narratives are interwoven or may be reflected in the topics that are discussed (and the relevant events brought up to illustrate them). Female anthropologists who study strip clubs usually try to capture the subjectivism of stripping by creating close relations with the strippers, whereas male anthropologists usually avoid tipping and decline to assume the position of male customer and his subjectivism—however limited and transient the empathy created would be. Here, the rejection of the chance to develop an (admittedly fleeting) subjective experience ends up becoming the expression of a male academic subjectivism.

...