The Scholarship of Difference

A Scholarship of Liberation

Bibliographic Data

ID2274635
AuthorsSusan Mann (Showa Women's University, corresponding author), Susan Archer Mann
Year2000
Volume70
Issue4
Pages475-98
Publication date2000-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Inquiry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0245 • E-ISSN: 1475-682X
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1475-682x.2000.tb00921.x
OpenAlexW2045552619
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited31

Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of new scholarship depicting the diverse experiences of men and women from different classes, races, and ethnicities. This article examines the implications of this new scholarship by comparing and contrasting its core assumptions with those of both Marxism and postmodernism. Particular attention is paid to its potential as a scholarship of liberation.Within this new scholarship of difference, two types of identity politics are critically examined: those that privilege the knowledge of the oppressed and those that focus on multiple realities and polyvocality. Shortcomings of this scholarship are discussed, including the naive pluralism of idealist multiple realities approaches, the underdevelopment of analyses of social class, and the problems that arise from rejecting scientific realism and from ignoring the importance of theory for analyzing structural relations of oppression. Of this new scholarship I ask: Whither social structure? Whither truth? And whither social class

Epistemology · Oppression · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Social Policy and Reform Studies