The analysis school and feminism: Intersection, explanation, and a challenge

This chapter compares the views of reflexivity and the situated character of knowledge in On the Beginning of Social Inquiry and in feminist constructionist perspectives. The chapter starts by drawing out the similarities between the two positions, both of which offer insightful views about reflexivity and its role in social scientific inquiry. These similarities arose despite the apparent absence of an interchange of ideas between feminist thinkers and the authors of On the Beginning of Social Inquiry, and the second contribution of the chapter is to analyse how these similarities might have come about. The third task of the chapter is to critically probe the presuppositions of both approaches, particularly in relation to how successfully they break from the assumptions of approaches that they are rejecting. The final concern is to briefly explore whether both the Analysis school and feminist constructionism have ideas that can help take the other’s project forward.