The Impact of Feminist Epistemology on the Production and Understanding of Sociological Knowledge in the Arab Region

Abstract

The article analyzes impact of feminism's epistemology on the production and understanding of sociological knowledge in the Arab region, and assumes a disconnect between feminism and social theory. This separation does not help Arab sociology to benefit from the critical approach of feminist epistemology to understand the "other": the marginalized, the different, the colonized, etc. Therefore, the article aims to arouse the interest of researchers about the cognitive obstacles that result from such a separation particularly in the area of Arab sociological studies. The study adopts an analytical approach to feminist epistemology, concerned with identifying the intellectual backgrounds that contributed to its emergence. It presents the theoretical and methodological claims of the various currents of feminist epistemology: feminism empirist, standpoint theory, and postmodern feminism.