Feminist epistemologies and frameworks: Asking questions in feminist ways: Introduction

We begin with texts that help us to explore knowledge production itself. As a field, feminist studies had to argue for its legitimacy at its inception, and continues to face criticism both from those who are writing within the field (see Brown 1997) and also from its ideological opponents. These differences are often epistemological, defined simply as the study of knowledge. Some common epistemological questions include: What is knowledge? How do people know what they know? Who are the authors of knowledge? And what are legitimate objects of study and analysis? Feminist studies complicates and enriches these questions by considering the particular conditions under which knowledge is produced. For example, feminist epistemology asks questions like: How does experience inform knowledge? How is research funded and produced? And how do we ask questions in feminist ways? This section takes up these questions, and introduces some approaches to discussing and producing feminist knowledge, as well as some key terms and frameworks that shape feminist studies.