Women’s, gender, and feminist studies in transnational perspective: what we can and cannot learn when using an interpretive lens

Olga Plakhotnik

Chapter 11 in Handbook of Interpretive Research Methods in the Social Sciences, 2025, pp 166-181 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The chapter outlines the possibilities and limitations of interpretive approaches in women’s, gender, and feminist studies (WGFS) while seeking to transcend Western-centered feminist scholarship and open up a transnational perspective. It argues that the common epistemological underpinnings of WGFS studies – such as the situatedness of knowledge and researcher positionality – allow the entire field to be seen as interpretive, in the meaning of being postpositivist or anti-positivist. Varying interpretations of the popular notion that gender is a “social construction” highlight the importance of differentiating between modern and postmodern epistemologies. An in-depth discussion of feminist ethnography reveals the connection between its dilemmas and diverse epistemological foundations of the method. Finally, an example of an interpretive feminist research project undertaken by the author shows how non-Western researcher positionality prompts epistemological and methodological reflections that focus on the coloniality of knowledge and subjectivities.

Keywords: Interpretive theory; Epistemology; Transnationalism; Gender; Feminism; Queer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781803926384
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