Donna Haraway Situated Knowledge Summary

Donna Haraway’s Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective

Her Writing: What makes her write the way she does?

I find her writing style to be quite interesting and confusing. I had to read this piece a few times to get the gist of it. Professor Lass noted in class to observe if her writing carried an angered disposition and one can understand her sentiments in doing so. That anger can also be interpreted as passionate. Her goals are to provide diversity in the sciences specifically in regards to women/feminists (590). However, in her efforts to promote diversity in the sciences is she asking to leave the production of knowledge, situated knowledge and objectivity solely to the “marked bodies” of society? That men/ “unmarked bodies” cannot not participate in the privilege of partial perspective given their position?(589)* Its critical thinking time! I am curious to know what my fellow classmate have to say on this.

Argument: What’s the agenda?
The current definition of objectivity which is “an external, disembodied point of view” places objective knowledge as something that is unquestionable on a given issue. As Haraway explains, this current definition of objectivity is governed and used by “unmarked bodies” which consist of society’s majority who are “normal” rather than the less normative “marked bodies”. “Marked bodies” include women, LGBT community members, ethnic, social, religious, economic and intellectual minorities. Being objective does not rely on how a person identifies such as “gender, nation, race, or class” but in the individual's capacity of positioning themselves critically to dissect the information