Description
Describing the work of the post-Kuhnian science studies scholars Bruno Latour, Ulrich Beck, and the team of Michael Gibbons, Helga Nowtony, and Peter Scott, Harding reveals how, from different perspectives, they provide useful resources for rethinking the modernity versus tradition binary and its effects on the production of scientific knowledge. Yet, for the most part, they do not take feminist or postcolonial critiques into account. As Harding demonstrates, feminist science studies and postcolonial science studies have vital contributions to make; they bring to light not only the male supremacist investments in the Western conception of modernity and the historical and epistemological bases of Western science but also the empirical knowledge traditions of the global South. Sciences from Below is a clear and compelling argument that modernity studies and post-Kuhnian, feminist, and postcolonial sciences studies each have something important, and necessary, to offer to those formulating socially progressive scientific research and policy.
A feminist analysis of postcolonial and science studies theorists, showing the continued importance and ongoing neglect of gender in their work
About the Author
Sandra Harding is Professor of Women's Studies and Education at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her many books include Science and Social Inequality: Feminist and Postcolonial Issues; The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies; Science and Other Cultures: Issues in Philosophies of Science and Technology (coedited with Robert Figueroa); Is Science Multicultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies; and Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women's Lives.
Reviews
"It seems that a work of this nature is long overdue and, will significantly improve the communication between modernity theorists and those working in feminist or postcolonial studies." - Carolyn Anderson, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
"This is an ambitious and impressive book. . . . Harding's book is a significant contribution to the literature on science, feminism, and postcoloniality. It is certainly a step in the direction of the transformation of science and politics that is Harding's goal." - Susan Hekman, Contemporary Sociology
"Sciences from Below is a brilliant synthesis of three approaches to science and technology studies and a call for increased exchange between
them." - Nancy Tuana, Isis
"[T]he philosophical-and human-imperatives that led [Harding] to write this book are extremely important, and the book itself opens possibilities that philosophers must explore." - Emily R. Grosholz, Women's Review of Books
"[A] stunning synthesis of research from post-positivist, feminist, and postcolonial science studies scholars." - Bonnie Shulman, Technology and Culture
"Sciences from Below is a splendid book. Sandra Harding's project of intellectual integration, bringing together some of the most influential literatures on modernity, science, and feminism, is a welcome, much-needed project. Her project is needed because the social justice movements need synthetic scholarship, and it is needed because there is an academic tower of Babel with few translators."-Hilary Rose, author of Love, Power, and Knowledge: Towards a Feminist Transformation of the Sciences
"Sandra Harding fills significant gaps in three crucial, overlapping, yet strangely independent scholarly literatures on science and technology: feminist analyses of science, "traditional" science and technology studies, and postcolonial science studies. This is a unifying and strengthening project of great significance both practically (for the future of science throughout the world) and within academe."-Anne Fausto-Sterling, author of Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality
"Sandra Harding's voice is one of the most important in the science and technology studies field. With Sciences from Below, she opens up a broad vista, one in which the entire field of social movements and alternative visions of modernity is gendered."-David J. Hess, Professor of Science and Technology Studies and Director of the Program in Ecological Economics, Values, and Policy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
"Sciences from Below is a brilliant synthesis of three approaches to science and technology studies and a call for increased exchange between
them." -- Nancy Tuana * Isis *
"[A] stunning synthesis of research from post-positivist, feminist, and postcolonial science studies scholars." -- Bonnie Shulman * Technology and Culture *
"[T]he philosophical-and human-imperatives that led [Harding] to write this book are extremely important, and the book itself opens possibilities that philosophers must explore." -- Emily R. Grosholz * Women's Review of Books *
"It seems that a work of this nature is long overdue and, will significantly improve the communication between modernity theorists and those working in feminist or postcolonial studies." -- Carolyn Anderson * Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith *
"This is an ambitious and impressive book. . . . Harding's book is a significant contribution to the literature on science, feminism, and postcoloniality. It is certainly a step in the direction of the transformation of science and politics that is Harding's goal." -- Susan Hekman * Contemporary Sociology *
Book Information
ISBN 9780822342823
Author Sandra Harding
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 454g
