Feminist Erasures: The Development of a Black Feminist Methodological Theory

Abstract

Within the social sciences, and particularly in political science,1 feminist methods and theory are seen as valuable only within its own disciplinary boundaries, and limited to its own departments or program, often named women’s studies, gender studies, and/or feminist studies. While the move within the academy to formalize the study of women, gender, and feminism is an important one,2 these disciplinary boundaries unfortunately have the result of rendering the study and practice of feminist intellectual work invisible to the rest of the academy. Too often, feminist theory and methodological practice is only carried out by one or two female academics within individual departments, and these academics also happen to be connected with various iterations of women’s studies departments, centers, or programs. As a result, feminist discourse is often absent from broader discourses within the larger academy, which is rife with methodological habits that fail to adequately measure and assess the lives, habits, and politics of marginalized populations at large. Contextualized within this broader condition, this chapter argues that feminism should have an important role in the methodological conventions of the social sciences, especially political science. More specifically, the chapter contends that black feminist theory should be more fully incorporated into the discipline of political science because it specifies how political scientists can better study populations on the margins of American society.