Standpoint Theory Research Articles

A Thousand Catcalls: Survivors’ Experiences of Sexual Violence in Online Dating

There is growing academic interest in the leisure spaces of online dating as a specific avenue of technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV). Yet, limited attention is paid to survivors’ experiences and understandings of sexual violence intermediated by dating apps. Using feminist standpoint theory and an intersectional lens, in-depth interviews were conducted with 15 current and former dating app (e.g. Tinder, Grindr) users of diverse identities and backgrounds who previously experienced sexual violence. Sexual violence was found to take a multiplicity of forms spanning the “online-offline” continuum that often co-occur and mutually reinforce their effects, including sexual assault threats, image-based harassment, gender/sexuality-based hate speech, and in-person sexual coercion and/or aggression. Depending on the experience frequency and severity, psycho-social outcomes range from indifference/mild annoyance to emotional trauma and social withdrawal. Findings underscore the profound personal and collective impacts of TFSV and the urgent need for coordinated, multisectoral responses.

The Coloniality of drug prohibition

There have been several recent commentaries which have highlighted the relevance of the postcolonial perspective to drug prohibition and called for the decolonisation of drug policy (Daniels et al., 2021; Hillier, Winkler & Lavallée, 2020; Lasco, 2022; Mills, 2019). While these are significant interventions in the field, sparse drugs scholarship has engaged more directly with well-developed literature and concepts from Critical Indigenous Studies (Moreton-Robinson, 2016) and Indigenous Standpoint Theory (Moreton-Robinson, 2013; Nakata, 2007) and reflected on its applicability to the drug and alcohol field. In contrast to the postcolonial perspective, which understands colonisation as a historical event with contemporary impacts, Indigenous scholarship conceptualises colonisation as an active and ongoing part of how the settler-state continues to impose itself. From this vantage point I explore coloniality as a system of power and reflect on the way prohibition acts as a key arm of the settler-colonial state. The paper explores the way concepts like vulnerability, marginality, overrepresentation, disproportionality and addiction involve colonial violence, knowledge practices and narratives which are central to the way coloniality is maintained and continues to assert itself in contemporary settler societies.

WHICH FRAME FOR WHAT GROUP? UNDERSTANDING DIFFERENTIAL FRAME RESONANCE THROUGH STANDPOINT: A CASE STUDY OF THE VEGAN MOVEMENT

Innovative methods are enhancing our ability to measure the impact of framing on public perception, yet our understanding of the factors influencing frame resonance remains incomplete. This study investigates the differential effects of frames on diverse groups, proposing that both social positioning and the cultural context, alongside the qualities of the frames themselves, are significant. Drawing upon framing theory and feminist standpoint theories, I examine the vegan movement to understand the immediate impact of frames and social locations on their resonance. I employ an intersectional approach to analyze varying responses across gendered racial demographics, especially in response to radical narratives, using data from a new national survey of 498 United States participants. The findings show that individuals facing multiple forms of marginalization are more inclined to respond to frames that challenge existing power structures than those with multiple privileges. This suggests the critical role of standpoint in evaluating the validity of claims, highlighting the complex ways in which frames resonate across different social locations.

Study supports for rural mature-aged university health students: a Stakian multicase study

Background The participation and success of university health students in rural areas is critical in addressing the maldistribution of the rural health workforces internationally. Particular attention to the experiences of mature-aged health students is needed to build a sustainable rural health workforce, given the higher proportions of mature-aged university students in rural, regional and remote areas compared with metropolitan areas and rural mature-aged students wanting to stay in their communities. However, little is known about the kinds of supports rural mature-aged students require to succeed with their studies.Methods Drawing on rural standpoint theory and using structural inequality as a retention lens, we explored the current and potential supports that rural mature-aged nursing and allied health students require to successfully participate and complete their pre-professional university course. A Stakian multicase study was undertaken with cases at three rural university campuses in Australia. The data collection was primarily qualitative, with semi-structured interviews, campus surveys and focus groups involving 36 participants (including students, academic and professional staff, and placement supervisors).ResultsThis study found supports were provided formally and informally by the university, by the community and manifested by students. Several support gaps as well as potential supports to alleviate them were identified. These include formally acknowledging the mature-aged cohort and their diverse experiences and non-university commitments; fostering connections between mature-aged students; making university affordable; preparing mature-aged students for university; adapting course content and delivery; and restructuring placements for mature-aged students.ConclusionsWe argue that rural mature-aged nursing and allied health students require supports that are age-specific, appropriate to the community context, and harness existing relational processes of rural university campus activity. Rural university campuses need to involve rural mature-aged students and other stakeholders relevant to each context in the process of identifying and implementing student supports for this cohort.

Mothers and sportsmen: The gendered and racialised nature of role model selection for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander youths

AbstractThis article seeks to understand who Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children select as role models, and the reasons underlying these choices. Drawing data from Wave 8 of the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children, it comprises a sample of 307 children (169 male and 138 female) aged between 10.5 and 12 years at the time of data collection. Content analysis was used to analyse survey responses regarding two questions pertaining to role models, the analytical process being underpinned by Indigenous standpoint theory. The findings show that participants tended to select role models correlating with their gender and who were Indigenous or people of colour. For boys, most selected Indigenous sportsmen, whilst girls more evenly selected mothers, women from the entertainment industry, and sportswomen. The reasons why these individuals were selected were similar for boys and girls: the role model's ability, mastery and/or competency in a given field. These findings are important for educators and schools in guiding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youths in their educational and career choices, and for policymakers in creating campaigns and pathways into fields where Indigenous persons are underrepresented.

Indigenous Environmentalism through Dance: The Ohaji-Egbema Experiment in South-Eastern Nigeria

Scholars in the environmental humanities have engaged critically in how literature and the performing arts have absorbed the spirit of environmentalism as other disciplines have done. The greening of the humanities has been a subject of discussion from the last quarter of the 20th century. Ecoliterary discourse, ecofilms and ecomusicology have become buzz concepts in the arena of the environmental discourse. However, we argue in this study, that there is a paucity of critical works on how indigenous dance art forms can be used to communicate environmental stability, ecological consciousness, and be used as a medium to resist anthropocentric ideals. The questions that this paper raises are: In what ways can indigenous dances in Nigeria communicate ecological consciousness in the country? How and to what extent can indigenous dances be employed to discuss culture-nature entanglements in degraded sites? The researchers relied on Indigenous Standpoint theory, existing literature, interviews, and focus group discussions with stakeholders (indigenes, ministry heads, and oil company employees) and visits to oil-degraded sites in Ohaji/Egbema for information on the taxonomy, politics, and conflicts of space and oil in the region. In line with data gathered, indigenous songs and dances were packaged and performed to provide the much-needed platform for stakeholders (indigenes, government and oil firms) to rethink environmentally oppressive actions in the region toward ensuring environmental stewardship. This study examines the ways in which indigenous dance in Igbo land, Nigeria, can embody indices of indigenous environmentalism. It can also be a path towards decolonizing colonial ecological frameworks and epistemologies.

Transgenderism, Othering and Third Way Buddhist Monasticism in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Abstract Religion and trans studies are a relatively new domain of study, one which surrounds subjects gendered and sexed as (religiously) “Other,” and in the articulation of such voices in a public space. In this paper we employ a case study of a transgendered monastic teacher named Khun Mae Tritrinn in northern Thailand to highlight a case of gendered religious “Othering,” and the construction of the third-way religiosity in the context of traditional hetero-patriarchal Buddhist monasticism. We refer to this thematic domain in the context of an emergent third-way religiosity; theorising in an experiential knowing of transgender subjects, which emerges from their trans-other lives. In the case study we show by resisting the gender binary of Buddhist monasticism how a particular transgendered person seeks a third-way monastic alternative; how she established her own hermitage and religious community, and manages the relationship between discourse and institutions that act upon and through her. The ethnographic focus sheds light on historical moments and voices that have been referred to elsewhere as forms of “subjugated knowledge” (Foucault 1980; Hartman 2000). However, despite being subject to religious Othering, recent trans-other identities have gained an increasingly de-subjugated and respected third-space alternative; an intelligibility and opening beyond a heteronormative binarism. It is argued that religious “thirding” creates a turning point for those seeking alternative spiritual bases, and as a salvific epistemology in an engaged religiosity and praxis.

Horror in the Halls of Law: Pluralising Legal Stories in Once Upon a Time in Australia

ABSTRACT In 2021, the Me Too movement took prominence in Australia following incidents which exposed gendered violence in the nation’s chief political, and legal institutions. The authors, teachers and students at one of the leading law schools in Australia took a range of actions, culminating in writing a graphic novel called Once Upon a Time in Australia: Conversations about how our Me Too movement exposed the troubles of Truth in Law (Counterpress, 2014). In this article, the authors write about their methodology and offer auto-critiques of their work, in a process they describe as critical performative iterations. This method facilitates speaking out thoughts and lived perspectives into knowledge which aligns with feminist standpoint theory, while also resisting their voices from asserting new essentialised truths. These critiques consider the limitations of the authors’ standpoints. They also consider the genre of horror, the insider/outside trope, and the politics of citation in Law.

Feminist Standpoint Theory vs. the Identitarian Ideology of the New Right

The term ‘identity politics’ is used to refer to a wide range of political movements. In this paper, we look at the theoretical ideas underpinning two strongly, mutually opposed forms of identity politics, and identify some crucial differences between them. We critically compare the identitarian ideology of the New Right with feminist standpoint theory, focusing on two issues: relativism and essentialism. In carrying out this critical comparison we illuminate under-theorized aspects of both new right identitarianism and standpoint theory; demonstrate how the two are distinct; reveal the depth and pervasiveness of the new right ideology’s flaws; and show what a coherent left-wing identity politics could look like.

Social Transformation in English First Additional Language Teaching and Learning Classrooms: Multilingual Pedagogy

Appreciating indigenous knowledge systems and the rich history and tradition of South Africa as essential factors in fostering the principles outlined in the Constitution, is one of the aims of the South African Language in Education Policy. The main objective of this paper was to propose a multilingual pedagogy in English First Additional Language classrooms that will cater for all learners in order that they benefit in the learning environment. This study was underpinned by the Indigenous Standpoint Theory, which advocates for a renewed look at how various institutions interpret and analyse indigenous knowledge systems. A qualitative approach, entrenched in an intepretivist paradigm, was utilised to gather data from 12 conveniently sampled grade 10 English First Additional Language educators from the Eastern Cape rural schools in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa through semi-structured interviews, and observations. The results of this inquiry indicated that social transformation could be achieved through the use of the learners’ primary languages through codeswitching, translation, and translanguaging as alternative instructional strategies. Social transformation has emerged as an emancipatory factor in EFAL teaching and learning as learners participate actively when their primary languages, in which they are most proficient, are recognised in the classrooms. Thus, a multilingual pedagogy will benefit all types of learners. The author recommends that the Language in Education Policy should have a transformed look at the recognition of indigenous languages, and further recommends multilingual education to have equal educational opportunities. Keywords: English First Additional Language, Indigenous Languages, Multilingualism, Social Transformation.

Social Structure and Epistemic Privilege

Lukács is widely recognized as being the first critical theorist to have explicitly developed the idea of a “standpoint theory”. According to such a theory, members of oppressed groups enjoy an epistemic privilege regarding the nature of their oppression. However, there is no agreement regarding what precise argument Lukács offers for his claims regarding the alleged epistemic privilege of the working class. Additionally, it remains unclear whether later feminist standpoint theories share any continuity with Lukács’s argument. In this analysis, I identify four arguments for the epistemic privilege of oppressed groups that could be attributed to Lukács. I argue that, although Lukács does not consistently endorse any specific argument, the most promising interpretation suggests that epistemic privilege arises from a contradiction between the norms that guide the self-understanding of such groups and the effects of the social practices they are socially obligated to engage in.

Curriculum Standpoint for Social Justice: Understanding the Politics of School Knowledge

This conceptual paper argues for the need for us to understand the relationship between curriculum and social justice, largely through the lens of what the author calls “curricular standpoint.” This framing helps define the connective tissue of how social, cultural, institutional, economic, and political context manifest within the struggle over knowledge, including which knowledge gets framed as commonsense and hegemonic through things like textbooks, state standards, and high-stakes exams – thereby also implicated student consciousness about the world. Drawing on Feminist Standpoint Theory, this paper ultimately argues that, if we can fully recognize the extent to which social relations manifest in school knowledge, we also create the conditions for a critical examination of that knowledge as well as the possibilities for the development of increased critical consciousness about the curriculum and society – thus detailing the relationship between curriculum and social justice.

Relational maintenance among separated Latina/o/x/e immigrant families: exploring the lived experiences of parents and children

Abstract Prior relational maintenance research primarily (a) considers only one family member’s perspective, (b) explores introspective communication, and (c) examines romantic relationships among highly resourced white samples in the United States. This study considered low-income, Latina/o/x/e immigrant families’ maintenance before, during, and after migration-related separation, using standpoint theory, social communication theory, and the long-distance relational maintenance model. We conducted semi-structured interviews with Latina/o/x/e parents and children who lived in separate countries (N = 20 dyads). Findings cast light on temporal (e.g., fathers often provided little to no notice to children of the upcoming separation, complicating the families’ ability to prospectively co-construct relational continuity) and cultural factors (e.g., endorsing traditional gender norms, relying on mothers to explain the separation to children after it had begun) in families’ maintenance processes. This study offers new insight into how families communicatively construct “ongoingness” in their bonds despite emotional, technological, and legal challenges posed by migration-related separation.

Provoking Gut-Level Reactions: A Study on Journalistic Framing During the 2020 Meatpacking Crisis

ABSTRACT This study investigates news frames used by mainstream news media in the United States to portray the 2020 meatpacking crisis. By integrating framing and animal standpoint theory, it reveals the mechanisms that perpetuate social ignorance about daily practices within the meat industry, particularly those that exclude the perspectives of farmed animals. Through an engagement with intersectional ecofeminism and Critical Animal and Media Studies (CAMS), the investigation probes the cyclical patterns of violence inflicted upon farmed animals in the meat industry as portrayed by news outlets, a phenomenon that simultaneously impacts marginalized human communities. The inclusion of farmed animals as news sources in journalism is discussed as a prescriptive approach to remedy social ignorance on animal agriculture news.

Heritage, modernity and the Muhajirin in Amman: decolonising urban knowledge in Ras-Al-Ein

ABSTRACT Authoritative urban knowledge (AUK) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a neocolonial construct firmly rooted in oriental imaginaries and colonial/modern urbanism. It informs the managerial epistemology of neoliberal ‘development’ projects, where urban studies are confined to diagnostic analysis and optimistic calls for local inclusion to counteract state authority and foreign hegemony. This study critically examines the epistemic production of urban spaces at the nexus of heritage, modernity, and migration in the MENA, anchoring the criticism in a case study of urban development in Ras-Al-Ein – also known as the Muhajirin (refugees) neighbourhood – in the historic core of Amman. It then couples ethnographic interviews conducted with the residents of Ras-Al-Ein with decolonial thinking to explore local engagement with urban space as ‘subjugated knowledge’, and to contest the persistence of the AUK. It validates this engagement as local urban knowledge (LUK) and capitalises on the self-critique, irony and resistance depicted in Ras-Al-Ein to argue for a decolonial approach to urban knowledge. It argues that LUK can shift the debate in urban studies from practice analysis to an ethnographic theorisation of urban knowledge. This theorisation is crucial for challenging adverse perceptions of peoples and places and informing development with prudent knowledge.

Rethinking Psychiatry: Solutions for a Sociogenic Crisis

Abstract This essay draws on Frantz Fanon's insights about the sociogenesis of psychiatric disorders, and on the insights of feminist standpoint theory, to sketch a map toward sociogenic mental health. We argue that psychiatry should move away from iatrogenesis (the harms of our current individual-level and pathologizing approach) toward sociogenesis of mental health through robust collaboration with social movements of oppressed people, and their collective healing approaches, ranging from harm reduction centers to community gardens. The essay ends with the outlines of a reinvented, community collaborative psychiatry that supports sociogenesis.

Covid- 19 and gender inequality: A critique of the working woman's struggle

There has been a dramatic change in everyday life due to COVID-19 around the world. The lockdowns, closure of schools and universities, and the loss of jobs has placed a lot of pressure on the family, particularly women. One of the main outcomes of the pandemic in Jordan has been the increase in the workload of women outside and inside the home. Despite the efforts made to empower women throughout the years, they continue to struggle and gender inequality remains overlooked and even normalized in Jordanian society. The aim of the study is to unfold the way Covid- 19 has disrupted women's lives and made gender equality less achievable, and explore the challenges they have faced in terms of the added paid and unpaid work they have been forced to do during the pandemic and to this end, in-depth interviews were carried out with 20 working mothers who were selected using purposive sampling. The study is largely informed by feminist standpoint theory whose main concern is the female voice and making it a valuable instrument in the process of knowledge production. The findings show that most women suffered from traditionally prescribed gender roles imposed by society, pressure and discrimination at work, and a lack of understanding and empathy at home and the workplace. Very few shared responsibilities with their husbands and their burdens with coworkers and employers, and an even smaller number was able to use the pandemic to their advantage and found ways to regain female power and self-assertion. The findings indicate that serious changes in policies need to be made to protect women's rights at work and in the domestic world, and the institution of marriage reconstructed within the Jordanian imaginary, and gender roles redefined.

Traces of Standpoint Theory in Select Poems of Kishwar Naheed

The fact is that South Asian nations have a history of keeping women from speaking up in public, but literature in the area does quite the opposite by serving as a voice for feminism. Kishwar Naheed, through the power of her pen, has contributed a lot to raising issues related to female subjugation and deprivation. The knowledge that results from situations and experiences that girls and women share is highlighted by the feminist Standpoint theory. The idea that our work—the activity in which we participate—shapes what we know and how we behave is central to Marxist theory, where this emphasis on experiences comes from. This study aims to identify the feminist underpinnings of a few poems by Pakistani-Urdu poet Kishwar Naheed. Her work is grounded in the experience of the subcontinent as a whole, allowing for a better understanding of the development of resistance against chauvinist revivals that impose their idea of a "submissive good woman" on subcontinental women. Her "transgression" poetry rejects the limitations imposed by a false, chauvinist spirituality and tries to sketch out the contours of the oppressed yet rebellious feminine personality.

Standpoint theory and double abolition

I read Denise Ferreira da Silva’s Unpayable Debt as an experiment that adopts “the wounded captive body in the scene of subjugation” as an epistemological standpoint. This situates her project in line with a tradition of standpoint theories that adopt, for instance, the proletarian or the feminist standpoint in similar ways. These standpoints grant us not only a superior knowledge of the current social order, highlighting its hierarchies, but also provide a political ground for seeking to abolish the structures of domination. Ferreira da Silva’s argument diverges, however, in that her standpoint does not present a subject to be affirmed, as do the other theories, but rather one that must also be abolished. In this sense, I interpret the aim of da Silva’s book to be a double abolition.

From displacement to empowerment: How women found their voice and claimed their power

abstract The narrative on women within war and displacement contexts focuses a great deal on their vulnerability, presenting them as passive victims. This perpetual projection of women as victims of violence veils their capacity to take positive action, assert their power and claim agency over their lives. Based on research on the experiences and challenges of internally displaced women in the Bamenda subdivisions, North West Region of Cameroon, the feminist standpoint theory, and the capacities and vulnerabilities analysis framework, this article emphasises the importance of challenging dominant narratives that cast women as victims and passive recipients of aid, and spotlights their ability to survive in adversity. This research used a qualitative design, unstructured interviews, and content analysis with verbatim transcriptions. Findings indicate while in a new environment, displaced women develop relevant coping strategies over time, and some have a better life compared to that experienced before the move. Over 91% of respondents reported having ventured into income-generating activities, including small trading, house help, online marketing, baking and farming. Income generated is primarily channeled towards food, shelter, health and education for both women and their children, as some women have enrolled in school since being displaced to Bamenda. The study concludes that despite the challenges faced with displacement, the process provides exposure for displaced women, offering them a chance to rise above the limitations of cultural/social norms and practices, giving them a better chance of discovering and realising their dreams.