Abstract

The concept of positionality has long been at the heart of feminist geographic scholarship, though today it often remains unengaged within male-dominated segments of the discipline. In this article, I bring the concept of positionality to bear on one area of contemporary geographic theory, post-phenomenology, to highlight how feminist and other critical epistemological stances are rendered improbable, if not logically impossible, by the terms of debate of this emerging subfield. By deconstructing ideas of the subject, experience, identity, and social categories, post-phenomenology dispenses with the critical vocabulary at the heart of feminist claims to knowledge and critical epistemological thought more generally. Reaching beyond the frame of theoretical debate, I reflect on the reception of my own work in the field (through the process of peer-review) to demonstrate that these issues are not mere intellectual differences or positions that occur in some kind of social vacuum; rather, they illuminate the dynamics of identity and knowledge production in geography more broadly. Ultimately, I advocate for an attention to positionality as an antidote to the epistemological and theoretical limitations of post-phenomenology and as a way to foster more critical, inclusive, and accountable dialogues in this emerging field and geography more broadly.

摘要

位置性的概念长期以来一直是女权主义地理学术的核心，尽管今天它通常在该学科的男性主导部分中仍然没有参与。在本文中，我将位置性的概念应用于当代地理理论的一个领域，即后现象学，以强调女权主义和其他批判性认识论立场是如何被这一新兴的辩论术语变得不可能的，如果不是在逻辑上不可能的话。子字段。通过解构主体、经验、身份和社会范畴的观念，后现象学摒弃了女权主义主张知识和更普遍的批判认识论思想核心的批判性词汇。超越理论辩论的框架，我反思了我自己在该领域的工作（通过同行评审的过程）以证明这些问题不仅仅是在某种社会真空中出现的知识差异或立场；相反，它们更广泛地阐明了地理中身份和知识生产的动态。最后，我主张关注位置性，作为对后现象学认识论和理论局限性的解毒剂，并作为在这个新兴领域和更广泛的地理学中促进更具批判性、包容性和负责任的对话的一种方式。