Knowing Within the Master Narrative
By Richard Birch
STAS 2127 Research Methods & Data Analysis
This work Copyright (C) 2005 Richard Birch
“The only way of knowing a socially constructed world is knowing it from within” (Smith, 1990, p.22)
To know anything is to initially assume that which is called fact is knowledge. Thus if one claims to, in fact, know a socially constructed world, then what is factual is produced within the narrative of social experience. In other words, from a conventional, objectified sociological perspective “our knowledge of the world is given to us in the modes by which we enter into relations with the object of knowledge.” (Smith, 1990, p. 24) What we know as fact represents the interest of the institutions by which we are provided information that in turn constructs knowledge. This is where Smith develops her positionality and method of feminist standpoint. “The institutions that lock sociology into the structures occupied by men are the same institutions that lock women into the situations in which [they] have found [themselves] oppressed.” (Smith, 1990,p. 14) In other words, resisting the eventual suppression of women’s knowledge, and thus women’s knowing of the social world, is the crucial struggle of the female social scientist within the master narrative. If the social scientist endeavours to acquire true understanding of social problems and to know that which is outside the relations of ruling and thus accurately acquire an understanding of the social world, he or she must not venture towards objectified unbiased positionality. To embrace an objectified method will not produce knowledge of a socially constructed world, for that is to merely know that which is produced for and by the master narrative of social productive order. For the social scientist to begin to engage in a method of knowing the social world, he or she must assert his or her own positionality in the context of what is to be studied and acquire an understanding of social relations from his or her own standpoint.
Dorothy Smith’s method is driven by the value of knowing the social world from the standpoint of the female sociologist. Because she lives, feels, moves, works, studies, and engages in a patriarchal master narrative, her act of knowing and her actual experiential knowledge are consistently silenced. This alienation of the knowledge and any power potential that may be contained in such knowledge base is a structured format of subordination. Her account of any element of the social is alien to the master narrative and is structurally unsound to patriarchal relations of ruling. The master narrative excludes women’s experience from the record, for such “established social forms of consciousness alienate women from their own experience.” (Smith, 1990, p. 13)
To know of the ‘social’ is to have acquired knowledge of the social world. However what may be otherwise defined as social knowledge? Sociologically speaking, is not knowledge that which is extracted from what is presented as fact in the social world? Or is it that which is experiential in a world presented to us as factual? This bifurcation of social knowing and experiential knowledge urges Smith to inform the social scientist of the nature of objectivity in methods. “In the social sciences the pursuit of objectivity makes it possible for people to be paid to pursue a knowledge to which they are otherwise indifferent.” (Smith, 1990, p. 16) This differentiates the social scientist from the social thinker. The convention of social science is to train students to embark on sociological pedagogy with the intention of separating their own positionality in the context of the unit of analysis, thus focussing on what eventually must be an objectified and unbiased method of interrogation into social phenomenon. But Smith strongly questions this as being the operative method in uncovering social thought, discourse and solutions to problems. For “like everyone else, he also exists in the body in the place in which it is.” (Smith, 1990, p. 17)
Smith is very direct in elaborating to the social scientist where he or she will discover the method of which she portrays as crucial to sociology, a method based in the standpoint of the experiential social scientist. It is a place. It is a specific conceptual place where the social scientist must posit him or her at in order to engage in sociological thought. “Into this space must come as actual material events – whether as sounds of speech, scratchings on the surface of paper, which he constitutes as text, or directly – anything he knows of the world. It has to happen here somehow if he is to experience it at all.” (Smith, 1990, p. 17) This is where Smith draws a complete and direct roadmap for the social scientist so he or she can find where they must be in order to be engaged in their work.
In her essay it is clear that for once, in a social science where theory typically directs method, in this case, theory is method. Her own standpoint of working as a female sociologist is the platform of which her method has sprung. Hers is the standpoint of the alienated. Smith elaborates on the feminist standpoint in its relation to what she calls ‘master narrative’. “The gendered organization of subjectivity dichotomizes the two worlds, estranges them, and silences the locally situated consciousness by silencing women.” (Smith, 1990, p. 19) Feminist standpoint, even as method, draws the social scientist closer to the nature of the relations of ruling present in the master narrative. For even engaging in such a method plays a role in the permeation of textual relations of ruling. Smith deploys feminist standpoint in opposition to objectified sociological thought for the value of exploring alienated knowledge. There is value in making the everyday world problematic for it sheds light on “alienated knowledge of the relations of ruling as the everyday practices of actual individuals.” (Smith, 1990, p. 28) All actions people do, all roles they play, all facets of everyday life serve the relations of ruling. For the feminist standpoint, exposing the things people do as integral components to the oppression of women’s knowledge illuminate for the social scientist the problematic nature of the social world.
For the social scientist to begin to engage in a method of knowing the social world, he or she must assert his or her own positionality in the context of what is to be studied and acquire an understanding of social relations from their own standpoint. Smith describes knowing a socially constructed world is to “experience a world of “appearances”, the determinations of which lie beyond it” (Smith, 1990, p. 27), but not necessarily do we actually see what there is beyond it. By beyond, Smith means, that knowledge that is alienated by the productive symbolic organization of the social world. “The very organization of the world that has been assigned to us as the primary locus of our being, shaping other projects and desires, is determined by and subordinate to the relations of society founded in a capitalist mode of production.” (Smith, 1990, p. 27)
Reference
Smith, D.E. (1990). The conceptual practices of power: a feminist sociology of knowledge. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.
STAS 2127 Research Methods & Data Analysis
This work Copyright (C) 2005 Richard Birch
“The only way of knowing a socially constructed world is knowing it from within” (Smith, 1990, p.22)
To know anything is to initially assume that which is called fact is knowledge. Thus if one claims to, in fact, know a socially constructed world, then what is factual is produced within the narrative of social experience. In other words, from a conventional, objectified sociological perspective “our knowledge of the world is given to us in the modes by which we enter into relations with the object of knowledge.” (Smith, 1990, p. 24) What we know as fact represents the interest of the institutions by which we are provided information that in turn constructs knowledge. This is where Smith develops her positionality and method of feminist standpoint. “The institutions that lock sociology into the structures occupied by men are the same institutions that lock women into the situations in which [they] have found [themselves] oppressed.” (Smith, 1990,p. 14) In other words, resisting the eventual suppression of women’s knowledge, and thus women’s knowing of the social world, is the crucial struggle of the female social scientist within the master narrative. If the social scientist endeavours to acquire true understanding of social problems and to know that which is outside the relations of ruling and thus accurately acquire an understanding of the social world, he or she must not venture towards objectified unbiased positionality. To embrace an objectified method will not produce knowledge of a socially constructed world, for that is to merely know that which is produced for and by the master narrative of social productive order. For the social scientist to begin to engage in a method of knowing the social world, he or she must assert his or her own positionality in the context of what is to be studied and acquire an understanding of social relations from his or her own standpoint.
Dorothy Smith’s method is driven by the value of knowing the social world from the standpoint of the female sociologist. Because she lives, feels, moves, works, studies, and engages in a patriarchal master narrative, her act of knowing and her actual experiential knowledge are consistently silenced. This alienation of the knowledge and any power potential that may be contained in such knowledge base is a structured format of subordination. Her account of any element of the social is alien to the master narrative and is structurally unsound to patriarchal relations of ruling. The master narrative excludes women’s experience from the record, for such “established social forms of consciousness alienate women from their own experience.” (Smith, 1990, p. 13)
To know of the ‘social’ is to have acquired knowledge of the social world. However what may be otherwise defined as social knowledge? Sociologically speaking, is not knowledge that which is extracted from what is presented as fact in the social world? Or is it that which is experiential in a world presented to us as factual? This bifurcation of social knowing and experiential knowledge urges Smith to inform the social scientist of the nature of objectivity in methods. “In the social sciences the pursuit of objectivity makes it possible for people to be paid to pursue a knowledge to which they are otherwise indifferent.” (Smith, 1990, p. 16) This differentiates the social scientist from the social thinker. The convention of social science is to train students to embark on sociological pedagogy with the intention of separating their own positionality in the context of the unit of analysis, thus focussing on what eventually must be an objectified and unbiased method of interrogation into social phenomenon. But Smith strongly questions this as being the operative method in uncovering social thought, discourse and solutions to problems. For “like everyone else, he also exists in the body in the place in which it is.” (Smith, 1990, p. 17)
Smith is very direct in elaborating to the social scientist where he or she will discover the method of which she portrays as crucial to sociology, a method based in the standpoint of the experiential social scientist. It is a place. It is a specific conceptual place where the social scientist must posit him or her at in order to engage in sociological thought. “Into this space must come as actual material events – whether as sounds of speech, scratchings on the surface of paper, which he constitutes as text, or directly – anything he knows of the world. It has to happen here somehow if he is to experience it at all.” (Smith, 1990, p. 17) This is where Smith draws a complete and direct roadmap for the social scientist so he or she can find where they must be in order to be engaged in their work.
In her essay it is clear that for once, in a social science where theory typically directs method, in this case, theory is method. Her own standpoint of working as a female sociologist is the platform of which her method has sprung. Hers is the standpoint of the alienated. Smith elaborates on the feminist standpoint in its relation to what she calls ‘master narrative’. “The gendered organization of subjectivity dichotomizes the two worlds, estranges them, and silences the locally situated consciousness by silencing women.” (Smith, 1990, p. 19) Feminist standpoint, even as method, draws the social scientist closer to the nature of the relations of ruling present in the master narrative. For even engaging in such a method plays a role in the permeation of textual relations of ruling. Smith deploys feminist standpoint in opposition to objectified sociological thought for the value of exploring alienated knowledge. There is value in making the everyday world problematic for it sheds light on “alienated knowledge of the relations of ruling as the everyday practices of actual individuals.” (Smith, 1990, p. 28) All actions people do, all roles they play, all facets of everyday life serve the relations of ruling. For the feminist standpoint, exposing the things people do as integral components to the oppression of women’s knowledge illuminate for the social scientist the problematic nature of the social world.
For the social scientist to begin to engage in a method of knowing the social world, he or she must assert his or her own positionality in the context of what is to be studied and acquire an understanding of social relations from their own standpoint. Smith describes knowing a socially constructed world is to “experience a world of “appearances”, the determinations of which lie beyond it” (Smith, 1990, p. 27), but not necessarily do we actually see what there is beyond it. By beyond, Smith means, that knowledge that is alienated by the productive symbolic organization of the social world. “The very organization of the world that has been assigned to us as the primary locus of our being, shaping other projects and desires, is determined by and subordinate to the relations of society founded in a capitalist mode of production.” (Smith, 1990, p. 27)
Reference
Smith, D.E. (1990). The conceptual practices of power: a feminist sociology of knowledge. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.
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