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WGST 3450 Feminist Methodologies: Feminist Methodology

Feminist Scholarship Is About...

  • not just describing the world, but looking for ways to change the world
  • reducing hierarchy as an organizing principle of social life
  • working to make people who are often invisible or silenced visible and heard
  • acknowledging the researcher's own connections to the people, events, and phenomena being studied

Selected Methods Employed by Feminist Scholars

Action/participatory Deviant historiography Geographic information systems Personal narrative
Autoethnography Discourse analysis Historiography Simulation
Biography Ethnography Institutional.ethnography Survey
Case study Ethnomethodology Intertextuality Thick description
Close reading Evaluation Meta-analysis Trope analysis
Comparative case study Experiential Multisite Unobtrusive observation
Content analysis Experimental Narratology Visual analysis
Conversational analysis Feminist jurisprudence Needs assessments
Cross-culture analysis Focus group Oral history
Deconstruction Genealogy Participant observation

adapted from:

Fonow, M. M., & Cook, J. A. (2005). Feminist Methodology: New Applications in the Academy and Public Policy. Signs, 30(4), 2211–2236. doi:10.1086/428417 p. 2214

Elements of Transnational Feminist Analysis

People and Entities:    

Producers - Distributors  & Marketers - Consumers

Women - Gender - Sexuality - Race - Class - Religion

1st World vs. 3rd World  - Industrialized vs. non-industrialized - Rich vs. Poor countries

Transnational Corporations - World Trade Organizations - Cartels - Monopolies - Cooperatives

Governments - NGOs - Religious Organizations

Relationships & Social Forces Connecting People and Entities: 

Global Politics - Power

Law/Legality - International Rights - Human Rights

Production - Consumption - Capitalism - Profit - Colonialism - Inequality

Exploitation - Discrimination - Violence - Rights Violations

Family - Gender roles - Community - Social roles