Keynote - Objectivity for Sciences from Below


Prof. Sandra Harding

Social justice movements, such as feminism, anti-racism, and postcolonialism, have produced a standpoint methodology more competent to maximize objectivity than the conventional requirement that natural and social science research be value-free. The need for “strong objectivity” arises when research communities lack diversity and are isolated from democratic social tendencies. Research that starts off questioning nature and social relations from the daily lives of economically and politically vulnerable groups can increase its own reliability and predictive power. Such research insists on the conventional goals of fairness to the data and to its severest criticisms. It retains central commitments of the conventional notion of objectivity while escaping its limitations.