Liz Stanley

But the empress has no clothes! Some awkward questions about the ‘missing revolution’ in feminist theory

Who owns feminist theory? and just what is meant by the idea of ‘theory’? We explore these fundamental questions as part of interrogating some emergent orthodoxies about feminist theory, proposing that there is a ‘missing revolution’ in feminist thinking, for while ideas about feminist epistemology, methodology and ethics have been fundamentally reworked, those concerning feminist theory have not. Our purpose is to stimulate a debate about the form of feminist theory, rather than the more usual controversies about its content; and thus our concern is with promoting the development of feminist metatheory. We argue that the now-dominant version of feminist theory is a parallel project to that of mainstream/malestream social theory, and that a feminist autocritique of this and related developments is needed, with the aim of achieving a transformation of the fundamental categories of feminist theory.

The knowing because experiencing subject: Narratives, lives, and autobioraphy

Abstract Aspects of feminist epistemology and its relationship to feminist ontology are explored in relation to theorisations of ‘the self,’ particularly within writing about feminist autobiography. Narrative is herein positioned as considerably more complex than much of this writing suggests. Its complexity is demonstrated through an exploration of ‘intellectual autobiography,’ using the authors own uses of narrative in a research diary which focusses on making sense of her mothers self, a self which, following a stroke, appeared to be a self apparently in dissolution.

Narrative methodologies: subjects, silences, re-readings and analyses

The importance of the ‘narrative turn’ is undoubted, witnessed by the mushrooming of popular as well as scholarly interest in lives and stories and the widespread academic engagement over the last few decades with the broad developments and issues covered by the term. The early observation that narrative analysis does not fit within disciplinary boundaries remains – indeed, it does not readily fit interdisciplinary ones either, although perhaps (like women’s studies, cultural studies, postcolonial studies...) over time it may develop stronger boundaries and a programmatic framework. The diversity of what is happening can be indicated by reference to the varied ways that the ‘narrative turn’ has been characterized, as the confessional and reflexive dimensions of social life within modernity (Beck et al., 1994), as theories and concepts around (re)discovering notions of agency (Atkinson, 1997; Plummer, 2001), as the activities of researchers in analysing visual and oral as well as written texts (Smith and Watson, 1996, 2001), as the core element in an interpretive and constructionist methodology (Riessman, 1993; Stanley, 1992), and as specific analytical techniques, an approach or technique (Lieblich et al, 1998; Chamberlayne et al., 2000; Clandinin and Connelly, 2000). Such work mainly focuses on the social sciences, while Brockmeier and Carbaugh (2001) have more broadly indicated three main strands of developing narrative work: a literary approach to narratology and texts, an ethnographically oriented social science approach, and a Bahktinian attention to temporality and intertextuality. However, paradoxically, this excludes not only philosophical and psychoanalytical theorizations of self and identity – Brockmeier and Carbaugh’s own particular concern – but also other emergent and established approaches to narrative as well. Narrative studies presently includes a number of divergent theories, approaches and methodologies; there are interesting issues in trying to delineate A RT I C L E 275

Recovering women in history from feminist deconstructionism

Abstract Recent feminist deconstructionist ideas, which argue that invocations of the category women lead to an impasse in feminist politics, are discussed through a detailed look at contributions to this debate. These ideas contain much insightful thinking which needs to be taken on board in feminist academic work across all disciplines. They also contain assumptions and silences that need to be challenged. One is the failure to see heterosexuality as a metanarrative binding the category women to the category men . Another is the tacit denial of aged, black, lesbian, disabled, and working-class womens struggles to name themselves such. Also women, not just feminists, theorise their own lives and experiences in actually complex deconstructionist terms which recognise multiple fractures within the category women . This is argued in relation to the theory and practice concerning such fractures contained in Hannah Cullwicks diaries, written between 1854 and 1873 and edited by the present author.

A Child of Its Time: Hybridic Perspectives on Othering in Sociology

Responding to John Scotts (2005) ‘Sociology and its others’, the idea of hybridic sociologies is developed, Mills’ ideas about ‘the sociological imagination’ are discussed, Scotts proposal for a core curriculum countered with some suggestions for extended in-depth disciplinary debate about an intellectually expansionist programme for UK sociology, and responses to these suggestions as well as to the broad argument are welcomed.

The ESRC's 2010 Framework for Research Ethics: Fit for Research Purpose?

The ESRCs (2010) Framework for Research Ethics extends the remit of its 2005 research ethics framework in three significant ways: the system is to be fully mandatory and it will no longer be possible to make the case that no out of the ordinary ethical issues arise; the Research Ethics Committees (RECs) set up under the ESRCs 2005 document have extended remit, including reviewing all research proposals accepted by the ESRC and other funding bodies; and funding will depend on the REC review, with its purview extending through a projects life. The 2010 document is reviewed in detail and the conclusion is drawn that it is not fit for purpose. Six wider issues raised by the FRE document are discussed: the consultation process by the ESRC was insufficient and the informed consent of the social science community was not obtained; the ethics creep involved will involve unnecessary bureaucratisation; the RECs will operate without expert discipline-specific knowledge using unethical generalist criteria; the overall effects long-term will be deleterious to the research base; the FRE document unacceptably ignores the professional associations and their research ethics guidelines; and the ESRCs system of the expert peer review of funding applications will be undermined.

Putting it into practice: using feminist fractured foundationalism in researching children in the concentration camps of the South African War.

Feminist fractured foundationalism has been developed over a series of collaborative writings as a combined epistemology and methodology, although it has mainly been discussed in epistemological terms. It was operationalised as a methodology in a joint research project in South Africa concerned with investigating two important ways that the experiences of children in the South African War 1899-1902, in particular in the concentration camps established during its commando and ‘scorched earth’ phase, were represented contemporaneously: in the official records, and in photography. The details of the research and writing process involved are provided around discussion of the nine strategies that compose feminist fractured foundationalism and its strengths and limitations in methodological terms are reviewed.

Biography as microscope or kaleidoscope? The case of ‘power’ in Hannah Cullwick's relationship with Arthur Munby☆

Abstract The conventional model of biography is a linear ‘jigsaw’ one: the more information about the subject you collect, the closer to ‘the truth’—the ‘whole picture’—about them you get. In my own biographic practice in relation to Hannah Cullwick this model has been totally inappropriate and would entail missing out from ‘the biography’ many of the salient factors which help us to understand this complex woman and her equally complex relationship with Arthur Munby. This model also denies the often uncomfortable but always interesting fact that ‘biography’ and ‘autobiography’ are inseparable dimensions of basically the same experience. I may be ‘the biographer’ of Hannah Cullwick, but this biography has necessarily become a part of my autobiography. Effectively, in order to ‘write biography’ I have had to deal in the currency of ‘intellectual autobiography.’ A more appropriate metaphor to describe my biographic practice is to see biography as a kaleidoscope : each time you look you see something rather different; perhaps composed of the same elements but in a new configuration. I use the idea of ‘intellectual autobiography’ as the means of describing this still happening process of looking again and seeing differently. Effectively, then, I describe an existing and living relationship between me, Hannah, and Munby: I am a part of the (historical?) process I am concerned with; and its relationships encompass and engage me probably as much as either of the other two participants in them.

The Epistolary Gift, the Editorial Third-Party, Counter-Epistolaria: Rethinking the Epistolarium

Rather than absence and loss as the basis of epistolarity, such exchanges mainly come about because of the ongoing social and relational bonds of relationship and connection between the writer/signatory and the addressee: in this context letters can be helpfully thought about around ‘the system of the epistolary gift’. This argument is developed around examples, particularly the letters of South African feminist writer and social theorist Olive Schreiner (1855–1920). The editorial ‘third-party’ role in transcribing and transmuting manuscript or typescript letters into a (digital or paper) published form in ‘an edition’ of the letters of X or Y, is related to the epistolary gift in interesting and ontologically complex ways. These are explored generally as well as concerning the Schreiner letters. Counter-epistolaria, as forms of epistolarity that trouble one or more aspects of definitional characteristics of letters, are explored in relation to their gift dimensions. Examples of three such forms, open letters, draft letters and last letters, are explored, and their ‘counter’ dimensions used to interrogate some ‘ordinary letters’ by Schreiner, thereby pointing out that these, too, routinely trouble and ‘counter’, but do not overturn definitional aspects of the letter. Taking recognition of the epistolary gift, the editorial third-party, counter-epistolaria and ‘ordinary letters’ adds significantly to theorisation of the epistolarium in ways explored in the conclusion.

Romantic Friendship? Some Issues in Researching Lesbian History and Biography

ABSTRACT The main feminist conceptualisation of womens close relationships from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century characterises these as ‘romantic friendships’ and argues that a stereotype of ‘the lesbian’ was invented by sexologists such as Havelock Ellis and applied to these relationships in order to condemn them. A number of pieces of primary research are presented which suggest that this approach is highly problematic. In the case of Emily Wilding Davisons close relationship with Mary Leigh there is simply too little historical evidence to be able to draw any conclusions as to its character or its meaning for the women concerned. In addition, Edith Lees Ellis has been seen as a woman whose romantic friendships were ‘morbidified’ as lesbianism by her husband Havelock Ellis, although in this case archival evidence clearly shows that she certainly saw herself as a ‘invert’. And relatedly, the same archival source also shows that some women experienced their sexuality in ‘mannish’ terms in t...