The Politics of Feminist Ethnography

Abstract

To preface ethnography with the word feminist is to point out that ethnography (in feminist interviewing, survey research, or other "feminist" research approaches) cannot be conceived of as simply method or technique. Rather, feminist ethnography implies a political position in relation to the production of knowledge, which has come to be associated with certain principles. Feminists invite people to understand and know the world in ways other than through the rigid, unilinear approaches of conventional social science (Smith, 1988). Secondly, feminist researchers are committed to ways of knowing that avoid subordinating their subjects (Ramazanoglu, 1992). Thirdly, feminist writers acknowledge the importance of conveying the complexities of people's lives (Stanley & Wise, 1993). Indeed, how these complexities are understood, by those experiencing them, lies at the heart of knowledge production (Stanley, 1990, 1991).