This research examines feminist standpoint theory as a sociological method. The research will set forth the context in which feminist standpoint theory emerged, and then discuss how Patricia Hills Collins extends the theory to include race and gender factors of analysis and critique.
Feminist standpoint theory appears to have much in common with the social-science methodology of Michel Foucault, which locates the analyst in a posture of opposition to, or difference from, long-established intellectual traditions of the social structure in general and the sociological discipline in particular. Two related concepts associated with this posture are archeology and genealogy. Foucault's archeology refers to the overall structure of knowledge, which includes a shared "knowledge" about society, or the social structure itself, and operations within that structure that make clear its power relationships. Foucault resists being labeled structuralist as the term is commonly understood in social science (Foucault 1977). He makes a critique of prevailing structure of both society and its discourse, with a view toward reshaping perceptions (knowledge) of the archeology of that structure. What is most crucial about prevailing knowledge of social forms is that it is encased in a reified ideology of cultural norms and social power. "Truth," he explains, "is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its 'general politics' of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true" (1980:131).
In sum, Foucault's analysis positions him as hostile to traditional discourse of history and society as well as to the social enactments being interpreted. He has "recourse to" analysis of the "relations of force, strategic developments, and tactics . . . relations of power, not relations of meaning" (Foucault 19...