Exploring the Notion of Experience in Feminist Thought

Author(s): Diana Mulinari and Kerstin Sandell

Source: Acta Sociologica, Vol. 42, No. 4 (1999), pp. 287-297
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 ACTA
SOCIOLOGICA
1999

Exploring the Notion of Experience in Feminist

Thought

Diana Mulinali and Kerstin Sandell

Department of Sociology, Lund University and Department of Technology
and Social Change, Link?ping University, Sweden

ABSTRACT
Why is the notion of experience so relevant for feminist theory? How has the concept
been used and by whom? What are the theoretical and political implications of
postmodern theory for a re-thinking of the concept? In these pages we will explore the
uses and abuses of the concept of experience in contemporary feminist thought through
the works of influential feminist intellectuals. This article has two aims. The first is to
create a theoretical space for reflection and re-appraisal of the concept of experience
inspired by Dorothy Smith's contribution to feminist sociology. The second is to shift
these debates from the periphery to the centre of sociology by taking into account the
centrality of the concept for the discipline.

Kerstin Sandell Department of Technology and Social Change, Link?ping University,

SE-518 83 Link?ping, Sweden (e-mail. Kerstin.Sandell@tema.liu.se)
? Scandinavian Sociological Association 1999

1. Introduction academic mode of production. More particularly

this evolves from our ambivalence, frustration,
During the last twenty years, the notion of confusion and rage when confronted with the
'women's experience' has had a central role in new meaning (or the absence of meaning) the
framing women's political actions, demands notion of experience has within theory today.
and forms of resistance. Furthermore, the In his efforts to answer the question, 'What
'experience of woman' as an analytical concept do I mean by experience and how are we to
was and is constitutive of feminist criticism understand it?' (1998:9), sociologist Ian Craib
towards hegemonic forms of science as well as travels through different notions of experience
intrinsic to the development of feminist provided by Marxism, existentialism and psy-
thought. Theresa de Lauretis (1988) even choanalysis. The author suggests that there is
argues that feminism as a 'politics of experience' an overrationalized notion of experience within
can be thought of as a rewriting of culture. sociology, a notion of human beings as bearers
The aim of this article is to provide a critical of ideas, that comes to the individual from
re-reading of the concept, exploring the different outside. References to the interpretative process
(and often antagonistic) meanings the notion of are few within sociology and according to the
experience has had within theory and recogniz- author there are no real explorations of what
ing the limits as well as the relevance of the they involve.
concept for feminist thought. Politically and We are convinced of the centrality of
theoretically, this incursion into feminist feminist debates on experience for sociology
notions of experience develops from our own and therefore we wanted this article to be
experience as 'minority' feminists1 within the published in a sociological journal. The time

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288 ACTASOCIOLOGICA
1999 VOLUME
42

when informants had experiences and sociolo- of concepts. Taking situated feelings and common
gists provided analysis has been challenged by detail (common here meaning both ordinary and
the contribution of feminist researchers and shared) as the matter of political analysis, it
critical ethnographers. Furthermore, explores the terrain that is most damaged, most
sociology
contaminated, yet therefore most women's own.
has been reviewed for its incapacity to grasp
most intimately known, most open to reclamation.
feelings, emotions, pain and the body when (MacKinnon 1982:536)
naming actors' experiences. Finally, sociologists
have been forced to re-think their notion of In women
consciousness-raising groups
experience when confronted with the work of claimed to represent the meaning of women's
intellectuals within the post-structuralist tradi- social experience through theorizing the collec-
tion. While in the following pages we focus on tive expression of these experiences and under-
the feminist debate on experience, we will of subordination.
standing them as experiences
suggest that both the issues discussed and the Women discovered that individual experience
theoretical positions explored can contribute to was not so individual at all, and created new
and inspire the reshaping of the concept within explanations and theories about society, men's
the discipline.2 control over women's work, sexuality, and
This article will consider the implications
patriarchy. It is the link between male dom-
for a feminist epistemology of the notion of inance and women's troubles' in
'personal
women's experience and how this is linked to life that the notion of the 'personal
everyday
claims to know within feminist theory. We will as political' grasps. Through feminist practice,
first grasp the notion of experience as developed women's personal 'troubles' were retold as the
within the women's movement and within of patriarchy for individual
consequences
feminist theory in the mid-1970s. The link women. Strongly influenced by Marxist cur-
between the concept of experience and the rents of thought, the notion of experience
theoretical consequences of the feminist notion
evolving from these texts can be translated to
of the 'personal as political' will be discussed. the Marxist notion of social praxis and as such
We will further explore the voices of Black and entails the mediation of collectively constructed
lesbian feminists in their re-appraisal of the consciousness.
concept during the 1980s. The 1980s also When claiming the experience of women,
implied a different understanding of hierarchi- these 'old writers' refer not to individual
cal power relations, particularly between women, but aim to call upon and create
women. Moving into the 1990s, we aim to women as a political subject within a collective
grasp the impact of the postmodernist turn to name and understand
practice, struggling
within theory. We will introduce the notion of the world from their particular position. Sandra
subjectivity and its transformation of the con- these claims ten years later
Bartky summarizes
cept of experience. We conclude by sharing with in the following words:
the reader our, hopefully by then, more system-
atically organized conviction of the need for Feminists suffer what might be called a 'double
reclaiming the concept of women's experience ontological shock': first, the realization that what is
for feminist struggle and knowledge in the really happening is quite different from what
future. appears to be happening, and, second, the frequent
inability to tell what is really happening at all.
(Bartky 1990:18)

2. Experience as woman: sisters in struggle In claiming women's experience, feminist intel-

lectuals were claiming women's right to explore
The and name what was really happening. Women's
consciousness-raising groups provided
The experiences were not untheorized before or
basic inspiration to feminist research.
uninterpreted but, as feminist researchers
practice of these groups, along with the feminist
would argue, silenced, misrepresented and
re-elaboration of Freire's pedagogy, expressed a
of experience as misinterpreted. In the words of Sandra Harding
concern and an understanding
and defined and Merill Hintikka:
socially and collectively constructed
in political struggle.
When this experience is presumed to be genderfree
Proceeding connotatively and analytically at the - when male experience is taken to be the human
same time consciousness raising is at once experience - the resulting theories, concepts,
common sense expression and critical articulation methodologies, inquiry goals and knowledge-

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 Exploringthe Notion of Experiencein FeministThought 289

daims distort human social life and human empirical research. We neither romanticize nor
thought. (Harding & Hintikka 1983:X) idealize the intellectuals that inspired, created
and developed feminist research. What we want
Women were knowledgeable about their lives,
to underline is that despite the highly politicized
about society. They were subjects, with agency.
way of doing theory, or just because of it,
This knowledge was brought into academia by
feminist intellectuals provided elaborate the-
feminists, theorized and used to criticize science
ories, whose central approaches are relevant
and scientists for making women invisible and/
today. What we want to challenge is that
or misrepresenting them.
Feminist research reflexive political commitment provides dogmatic texts.
developed
What we react against is the notion of politics
methodologies in order to expose the power
which objectified forms of polluting 'good science'. Rather, we would
relations through
argue that out of the political commitment
knowledge were created. Dorothy Smith's meta-
and through the link to the social movements
phor of herself travelling in a train and watch-
grew responsibility and critically powerful
ing through the window a Native American
feminist analysis.
family that watch the train may be used as an
illustration. The author asserts that her account
(as a researcher) is privileged and will be
accepted as knowledge. She continues:
3. Experience(s) of women: difference and
There are and must be different experiences of the justice
world and different bases of experience. We must
not do away with them by taking advantage of our The 1980s brought a critique from within the
privileged speaking to construct a sociological feminist movement, from lesbians, women of
version that we then impose upon them as their
colour and Third World women that in many
reality. We may not rewrite the other's world or
impose upon it a conceptual framework that ways echoed the complaints about absence and
extracts from it what fits our own. (Smith misrepresentation made by feminists in the
1990:25) 1970s. These researchers claimed that women's
experiences were gendered, but were also embo-
Reflexivity in the sense of a continual con- died in class, ethnicity and sexual identity.
sideration of the ways in which the researcher's Voices of critique asserted that the shared
own social experience and values affect the data of women was unproblematically
experience
gathered and the picture of the social world assumed rather than empirically researched.
produced has been a paramount project for They further suggested that other systemic
feminist research. structures of oppression such as racism and
There is no 'authentic' unpolluted female should be politically resisted by the
homophobia
experience for these thinkers. Experience is feminist movement and theoretically explored
always mediated by history and fraught with feminist research.
by
politics. As Acker, Barry and Esseveld state: Three kinds of criticism evolved in the
Although we view people as active agents in their 1980s that are relevant for our discussion of
own lives and as such constructors of the social experience. The first concerns the consequences
worlds, we do not see that activity as isolated and of unproblematically privileging gender in
subjective. Rather, we locate individual experience feminist analysis. Women's experiences were
in society and history, embedded within a set of
analysed as gendered, while the impact of class,
social relations which produce both the possibi- race and sexuality were not analytically con-
lities and the limitations of that experience. (Acker
sidered. Maria Lugones and Elisabeth Spelman
et al. 1983:425)
explore this in relation to the claim that women
Working through these texts we often wonder if have been silenced, stating that 'the complaint
the postmodern feminists have actually read does not specify which women have been
these texts by radical and Marxist feminists silenced', which is appropriate since 'virtually
before they, in what has turned into a mantra, no women have had a voice':
attack these authors for essentialism and
But in another way the complaint is misleading,
unilinearity. Learning from these texts we have insofar as it suggests that it is women as women
encountered a theoretical effort to grasp the who have been silenced, and that whether a
notion of experience - a notion central to all
woman is rich or poor, Black, brown or white,
social science - in challenging and reflective etc. is irrelevant to what it means for her to be a
ways and strongly frameworked in substantial woman. (Lugones & Spelman 1983:574)

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290 ACTASOCIOLOGICA
1999 42
VOLUME

Secondly, through the use of the notion of shared everyday experiences of imperialism,
experience, feminists silenced power relations racism or homophobia with men. For these
between women and, more specifically, despite groups of women alliances with minority men
the notion of 'shared experience' obscured were central to their survival agenda. Seeing
power relations between women researchers Western feminist radical rejection of men in this
and the women researched. In her research light made it appear not an issue of 'radical
Katherine Riessman shows the micropolitics of politics' but one of privileges.
'race' through an illustration of interviews with The impacts for research practices evolving
a 'white' woman and a Puerto Rican woman. from the criticism of Black women and lesbians
When the 'white' woman researcher interacted were several, the most important being an
with a 'white' woman, the interview was a awareness of the dynamics of 'race', sexuality
collaborative process, 'aided by gender, class, and class in research methodologies. The 1980s
and cultural congruity, which produced the also witnessed a proliferation of personal
unspoken, but shared, assumptive world of the narratives and autobiographies, used by mem-
two women' (Riessman 1987:190). In the bers of oppressed groups, as strategies developed
second case, 'the interviewer tried to impose to write themselves into social sciences. These
white middle-class standards about how a texts are often situated in the borderlands
narrative should be organized' which 'produced between literature and sociology, between sub-
not coherence but confusion' (Riessman jective experience and collective forms of resis-
1987:190). tance. These voices focused more on emotions
The third criticism underlined that the and feelings of oppression and exclusion, and on
experience of women as claimed within the ways of bridging these gaps within the move-
theory was actually the experience of white, ment, than on sociological investigation of how
middle-class, heterosexual women. Audre Lorde these exclusions were structured.
addresses the effects of this universalizing of We suggest that the criticism was often
white women's experiences: conceptualized as undermining the academic
feminist project in a time of backlash, inter-
As white women ignore their build-in privilege of
preted as threatening the analytical and poli-
whiteness and define woman in terms of their own
tical power of the concepts 'gender' and
experience alone, then women of Color become
'other', the outsider whose experience and tradi- 'woman'. A brief overview of the literature
tion is too 'alien' to comprehend. (Lorde shows that the demand of decentering theory
1984:117) was transformed into 'the problem of differ-
ence'. Susan Bordo, while recognizing the
Actually this criticism was not a critique of the absence of other women in academia, still
notion of experience as such but a claim that
had been made marginal and argues that
other experiences
peripheral to feminist thought. These research- . . . these challenges, arising out of concrete
ers emphasized their collective experiences as experiences of exclusion, were neither grounded
central to their claims to know, collective in a conception of adequate 'theory' nor did they
experiences that in their understanding, and demand a theoretical response. Rather. . . the
with similarity to the 1970s, were produced chief imperative was to listen. (Bordo 1990)
and named within political movements. Chan-
This stands in sharp contrast to Maria Lugones'
dra Mohanty gives an illustration of this point
World argument:
in her conceptualization of Third
Women as an analytical and political category, But since your language and your theories are
defined as: inadequate in expressing our experiences, we only
succeed in communicating our experience of
. . . imagined communities of women with diver- exclusion. (Lugones & Spelman 1983:575)
gent histories and social locations, woven together
by the political threads of opposition to forms of The result was that for mainstream academic
domination that are not only pervasive but also feminists, remained the compulsory
gender
systemic. (Mohanty 1991:4) main divider, and those bringing in difference
Western feminism was harshly criticized for its were (and still are) the non-white, non-hetero-
distance from alliance politics; particularly its sexual and non-middle-class.
distance from men bearing subordinated forms To conceptualize informants as knowing
of masculinities. The critics asserted that as subjects aiming to break the oppressive relation
Black, Third World women and lesbians they that constructs them as objects of study, while at

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 Exploringthe Notion of Experiencein FeministThought 291

the same time opening a new agenda, also starting point towards theorizing the construc-
created serious problems. Among others these tion of discourses of womanhood that made
were: the unilinear link developed within the those experiences possible. Joan Scott puts it the
theory between experience, knowledge and following way: 'It is not individuals that have
claims to truth based on researcher's 'authentic' experience, but subjects who are constituted
identities as lesbians, Blacks or working-class; through experience' (Scott 1992:26).
the often a priori assumption that the knowl- Like Lacan and Derrida, French feminist
edge of the oppressed is 'innocent', 'pure' or postmodernists aim through deconstruction to
'true'; and the tendency to grant authority to challenge ordinary notions of identity and
certain groups while silencing others (Skeggs unified and integrated selfhood. Irigaray and
1997). Cixous search for a female subjectivity frame-
worked in the imaginary that has not been
named; for them the feminine is related to
4. Experience as texts: women as fragments biological women and the masculine to biolo-
gical men. They use feminine sexuality and the
Undoubtedly the challenge of the 1980s female body as sources for oppositional forms of
demanded new ways of thinking theory within writing from the periphery and the margin that
feminist research. Feminists were also divided challenge the phallocentric order. Braidotti
along new lines during the 1980s, particularly argues, in her article 'The Politics of Ontologi-
over what had been considered typical feminist cal Difference' (1989) for essentialism as the
issues such as pornography and sexual freedom only way to define 'woman as other-than a
(Snitow et al. 1984; Vance 1984). The focal non-man', and to be able to speak 'as a feminist
point of these debates was the ways experiences woman'. According to Julia Kristeva:
of oppression were thought within feminist
While these debates were polarizing The belief that one is a woman is almost as absurd
theory.
and obscurantist as the belief that one is a man. i
contemporary feminist thought, feminists and
say almost because there are still many goals
most women confronted a shift in discourse, in
which women can achieve: freedom of abortion
the context of structural adjustment, cuttings in and contraception, daycare centers for children,
the welfare system worldwide and 'pro family' equality on the job. Therefore we must use 'we are
and 'pro father' movements. women' as an advertisement or slogan for our
In the struggle against male-dominated demands. On a deeper level, however, a woman
science and in exploring the notion of margin- cannot 'be'; it is something which does not even
alized subjectivities, feminists entered a critical belong in the order of being. It follows that a
with that seemed to be feminist practice can only be negative, at odds with
dialogue postmodernism
an alternative to the 'crisis' in feminism, a what already exists so that we may say 'that's not
it' and 'that's still not it'. In 'woman' I see
possibility of thinking gender(s) and differ-
something that cannot be represented, something
ence(s). The impact of postmodernism within that is not said, something above and beyond
feminist theory may be mirrored in the produc- nomenclatures and ideologies. (Kristeva, quoted in
tion of several anthologies aimed at reflecting Marks & De Courtivron 1981:137-138)
and grasping the debate (see for example
Feminism/Postmodernism (Nicholson 1990), How then is difference theorized? The creation
Feminists Theorize the Political (Butler & Scott of difference is placed as an inevitable conse-
1992) and Destabilizing Theory (Barrett & quence of naming, thus inherent in language.
Phillips 1991 )). We will argue that postmodern- Feminist post-structuralists have designated
ism has legitimated a shift of focus from language phallocentric as a point of departure;
collective experiences of political subjects to thus gender is ontologically the trope of
explorations of subjectivity understood in terms difference. Teresa de Lauretis claims that
of individuality. differences among women may be better under-
Postmodern intellectuals' central contribu- stood as differences within women.
tions are commonly summarized in the follow-
For if it is the case that the female subject is en-
ing areas: the exploration of language, the
gendered across multiple representations of class,
notion of discourse, the problematization of
race, language and social relations, it is also the
difference and the practice of deconstruction. case that gender is a common denominator: the
The alliance between feminism and postmo- female subject is always constructed and defined in
dernism meant a shift from the construction of gender, starting from gender. In this sense, there-
theories where women's experiences were the fore, if differences among women are also differ-

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292 ACTASOCIOLOGICA
1999 VOLUME
42

enees within women, not only does feminism exist and analysing one's experiences, as expressed
despite those differences, but, most important, as by Cherrie Moraga:
we are just beginning to realize, it cannot continue
to exist without them, (de Lauretis 1988:14) I am talking about believing that we have the
power to actually transform our experience,
Years after the first criticism towards universa- change our lives, save our lives. (Moraga &
lizing tendencies within feminist theory, de Anzald?a 1983:xviii)
Lauretis suggests that gender through the
power of language is after all the ontological We suggest that postmodernism implies a shift
female subjectivities. within feminist theory's 'authoritative' voices
principle constructing
Differences created by intersecting oppressions from the field of social sciences to the huma-
are named differences among women as a way nities, from sociology to literature. In research
of privileging and subsuming other there is a shift from the collective experience of
gender
oppressive forms of social relations as less political actors towards subjectivity and perso-
relevant to analyse in the construction of nal narratives. Feminist aims to theorize
female subjectivity. a women's collective experiences and to grasp
Through psychoanalytic
and within and understand the modes of ruling in society is
shift, difference among women
individual women becomes the same. Such a replaced by individualized notions of subjectiv-
shift completely ignores the difficult task of ity and local stories linked to abstract theorizing
about the formation of the subject.
theorizing privilege.
In post-structuralist thinking naming is We do agree with Eleni Varikas, who
always excluding, and it is through boundaries argues that there are limits to a post-structural
that the subject is violently constructed. In the investigation 'built around textuality and the
words of Judith Butler: internal dynamic of discourse, that regards any
reference to the experiences of actors as a
The subject is constituted through the force of or rationalization' (Varikas
positivist ideological
exclusion and abjection, one which produces a The resistance within postmodern-
1995:99).
constitutive outside to the subject, an abjected
ism to define some accounts of reality as more
outside, which is, after all, 'inside' the subject as its
important than others hinders the emancipa-
own founding repudiation. (Butler 1993:3)
tory project within feminist scholarship. Elisa-
The ability to speak is derived from 'citings of the beth Spelman analyses the way in which
law'. To be intelligible, to cite, one has to be postmodern claims are constructed:
named, to be a gender, a subject. And as such,
to Butler, one participates in the In short there are quite different ways to ensure
according
that my picture of the world remains unchal-
excluding practices of discourse. The ones
the abjected on the outskirts of lenged. One is to present my particular picture as
unnamed, the picture. . . the other is to insist. . . that any
discourse, cannot speak. Thus, in citing the other picture is going to have the same problem as
law, speaking subjects become equally a part of mine. (Spelman 1988:184)
creating the order and the Other. Change is an
unintended consequence, emanating from iro- By this move, the question of how accounts of
nic and hyperbolic citings of the law that women's experience are constructed is rendered
coincide with openings in the discourse. The irrelevant in the statement that all accounts of
possibility of resistance true to deconstructivism experience are and will be equally problematic.
is destabilization and desidentification. An interrogation into areas of privilege and
This is central to our ambivalence towards difference turns into a generalized statement
the postmodern feminist project, being inspired about how narratives are constructed. A serious
by it but still at odds with it when reading consequence of these notions is that oral
thoroughly. Resistance in postmodern theoriz- testimonies and collective memories, two of
ing cannot be deliberate. The formation of the central weapons of oppressed groups rele-
collective action is already inside the discourse vant for sociological analysis, are within a
and thus cannot be thought of as resistance. feminist postmodern framework impossible to
Change can be opted for by destabilization, and use as statements that can provide true versions
the direction of change cannot be worded. of lived events.
Experiences are always local, situational and Another strand of postmodernism might
constructed, and can only be read as an effect of be named constructivist rather than decon-
discourse. This conceptualization of experience structivist, and can be exemplified by the work
denies the transformative potential of wording of the philosopher of science Donna Haraway

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 Exploringthe Notion of Experiencein FeministThought 29 3

(1991) in her exploration of new identities. In big difference in the theorization of difference,
her creation of the cyborg Haraway accepts the bell hooks touches on the same issue, pointing
deconstructive critique of identity politics based to the fact that while postmodernism underlines
on structural oppression as necessarily exclud- the notion of the 'other', such research system-
ing. The cyborg, half human/half machine, atically excludes issues concerning immigrant
beyond sex and racialized identities, is inclusive women and working-class, disabled and 'Third
with permeable boundaries. The cyborg is an World women'. The notion of 'difference' is
analysis of the increasing blurring of bound- separated from structural forms of oppression
aries between human and machine, but also a and often turned into cultural difference. In the
metaphor of hope for radical change through words of bell hooks:
collective action. We would argue that the
The failure to recognize a critical black presence in
cyborg plays with two appellations to experi- the culture and in most scholarship and writing on
ence, the first being the experience of not fitting post-modernism compels a black reader, particu-
within the boundaries of the ascribed identities, larly a black female reader, to interrogate her
as formulated in hegemonic culture, an experi- interest in a subject where those who discuss and
ence made by those defined as Other'. The write about it seem not to know black women exist
other is of a very different kind; it is an or even to consider the possibility that we might be
to the possibility to move, crossing somewhere writing or saying something that
appellation
and confusing boundaries and doing it with should be listened to, or producing art that should
be seen, heard, approached with intellectual
pleasure. seriousness. This is specially the case with works
While the cyborg speaks to us as never
that go on and on about the way in which
fitting, we do not recognize the ability to move postmodernist discourse has opened up a theore-
with pleasure. The transcendence beyond the tical terrain where 'difference and Otherness' can
body is the ancient patriarchal dream, and be considered legitimate issues in the academy,
moving across boundaries out of pleasure (hooks 1990:24)
speaks to experiences of privileged subjects and
We believe that the linguistic turn in social
elites. Although we think that crossing and
science with its focus on discourse and texts
confusing boundaries of gender is part of the
has deprived sociologists of one of the central
feminist project, retaliation and penalty is often
tasks of the discipline: the explanation of
an answer to the crossing. We do not argue
human agency. Kristin Waters (1996) suggests
against or feel threatened by multiple subjectiv-
that the postmodern style of high theory, dense
ities or split selves. This realization is very much
discussion and esoteric terminology partly
part of our lives. But, as Susan Leigh Star argues
issues from an embarrassment, especially in
(1991), multiplicity is not acted out the same
the humanities, of discussing concrete matters:
way in every location, and some works to lend
as so many women are raped, so many Latinas
unity to others.
have been sterilized, so many children are
The claim that women, lesbian and immi-
abused, so many African American women
grant are categories compulsorily ascribed and
as such oppressive is a claim that silences the
hold part-time jobs and so on. The author
asserts that these issues developed from an
increasing empirical research of the struggle for
academic structure against empirical research
politics of representation of subordinated
that operates most assuredly in philosophy, but
groups. To name oneself as a woman, or a
also in literature.
lesbian, Black or Third World is a politically
articulated notion of the self. In the words of Liz
Stanley:
5. Between collective experience(s) and
I sigh another bitter sigh at yet another, although
subjectivities
surely unintended, theoretical centrism: the resur-
gence of theory from those who were once the assumed that feminist theory has
It is often
certificated namers of other women's experiences
and who are now likely to become the certificated 'developed' and 'matured' in the 1990s. This
deconstructors of the same. (Stanley 1990:154) conception is based on the assumption that
knowledge is cumulative and that science
Stanley points to the fact that academic femin- develops through its research practices. There
ism is still dominated by white, middle-class is, however, another assumption. While never
heterosexual women. The fact that they are fully stated, beyond this interpretation of
divided along theoretical lines might not mean a feminist development lies the assumption that

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294 ACTASOCIOLOGICA
1999 42
VOLUME

feminist theory and its practitioners have left theory. Are we, through our citations that are
behind the exotic tendency they had during the mostly from writers located in the US and UK,
mid-1970s to mix justice with science. The link reinforcing the Anglo-Saxon hegemony within
between women's social movements and fem- theory? In a way yes, we are writing a
inists in academia is presented as symbols or hegemonic Anglo/US story. On the other hand,
icons of a faraway childhood. The writings of an analysis of the impact of these hegemonic
the intellectuals linked to the women's move- trends within the periphery, as well as of the
ments with their political rhetoric are con- channels the periphery has had to influence the
fronted with the texts of the feminist French agenda of the theory, demands further and
postmodernists with what is experienced as necessary research. There is a lack of compara-
their sophisticated analysis. The shift from tive research that focuses on the content, shape
feminist studies (with its political connections) and development of Scandinavian Feminist
towards gender studies with its more academic Thought that explores regional and nation-
postmodern elegance is only an illustration of state differences and similarities. Peripheries'
this process. Joan Alway (1995) suggests that relations with each other are often mediated by
the wider impact that feminist postmodernism the centre, and we learn and teach more about
has had within sociology, if compared with US-based feminism than we learn and teach
radical and Marxist feminist theory, may be in about Finnish feminism. What re-interpreta-
part explained by the fact that the theory is not tions and resistance (if any) can we find in Latin
obviously tied to a social movement or parti- America, Asia, Africa, the Nordic countries and
cular interest group, thus benefiting from an East and South Europe? It is in this context that
illusion of objectivity. our analysis is mostly based on and narrowed by
The mid-1970s feminist intellectuals and the Swedish context, although we think that
Black, lesbian and 'Third World' criticism several topics and issues we point out may be
represent a tradition of thought where notions relevant for other Nordic countries.
of marginality, periphery and repression are Central and specific to Swedish feminist
theoretically understood as frameworked in scholarship has been the analysis, influenced
structures, time and space and in relations of by Marxist theory, of the interconnections of
power. This understanding allows for research gender and class and of women's experience
methodologies aiming to grasp the articulation within the welfare state. The 1990s implied
of individual lived experiences to collective two hegemonic types of antagonistic reactions
identities and to structures of domination. towards postmodern and post-structuralist
Central to our discussion is that these voices criticism. The first is one of denial and erasure
aim to develop a more inclusive social science of issues of 'race' and sexuality and a re-
and a feminist perspective that claims it is affirmation of gender as the central category of
possible to produce knowledge about the world analysis. Paradoxically, these researches that
which can and should be used to name, have maintained their 'loyalty' towards the
illuminate and overcome social inequalities. gender and class equation have failed to
We have argued that the postmodern shift incorporate the new debates on class and
in feminist theory has not implied a de- class analysis. Swedish feminist research has,
centering of the Western subject but a ritual with few exceptions, continued with discourses
and linguistic search for distance from everyday on women and the welfare state that system-
life experiences of oppression and struggle and atically obscure forms of racialized class
from the materiality of women's lives - this oppression or the link between lesbian house-
through re-readings of texts canonized as holds and poverty. The second reaction is an
central to western thought. The hope that the uncritical import of the 'difference debate'
postmodern turn would offer a solution to the through postmodernism when difference was
problem of difference has not been fulfilled; already appropriated and divorced from struc-
instead the notion of experience has been tural oppression. The Anglo-Saxon debates of
emptied of its radical political potential. the 1980s on sexuality and 'race' never hit the
core of Swedish feminist thought, and have had
little, if any, impact on theory construction. We
6. The Nordic Context use the concept of import because while it also
became common to speak discursively about
The above discussion mirrors an effort to reflect women's differences, and even in some circles
about the development of mainstream feminist to iconize the works of Spivak, this was done

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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Exploringthe Notion of Experiencein FeministThought 295

with few links to homophobia and racism in academic exercise nor a 'laundry list of women's
Sweden.3 issues' but 'provides a basis for understanding
every area of our lives, politically, culturally,
economically and spiritually' (Bunch 1983:
250).
7. Reclaiming experience the text we have unpacked the
Throughout
notion of experience as developed in feminist
. . . the recognition that experience of the self, theory. Angela MacRobbie's edited anthology
which is often discontinuous and fragmented, Back to Reality (1994) will help us to conclude
must be historicized before it can be generalized this article. Trained as a feminist within
into a collective vision. In other words experience Cultural Studies, MacRobbie's point of depar-
must be historically interpreted and theorized if it ture is to put reality within quotation marks.
is to become the basis of feminist solidarity and
She suggest that 'back to reality' does not point
struggle. (Mohanty 1992:88-89) to a return to a moment of purity, authenticity
Through these pages we have shown the or absolute reality, but towards the need for
strength, weakness and relevance of the concept reflection of the political reality of doing cultural
of experience for feminist theory. We have also studies, particularly when the field moves into
argued for a specific notion of experience, one much larger and more expansive institutional
linking lived worlds to social structures. More space. Her analysis is relevant for feminist
than that, we have claimed that a debate and theory. The concept of gender is becoming
discussion of the concept of experience is central mainstream within several academic fields and
to feminist thought. the institutional framework of women's studies
We argue for the need to hold onto the is expanding. Feminist theory has become
notion of experience, a notion that has inspired within certain cultural circles a mark of class
feminist theory in the uncovering of vast areas privilege more than one of political and
of research hitherto neglected and in the theoretical resistance.
developing of new theoretical frameworks. We think feminists should recognize and
Experience(s) of oppression create the context problematize their new positions as insiders,
for the development of particular forms of particularly the consequences of these in the
knowledge and must be understood in the ways the experience of several groups of women
context of a struggle to de-construct the notion are named or silenced within theory. We believe
of dis(embodied), dis(interested) knowers within that there is something paradoxically (frighten-
science. ing) that while poverty has increased and
We have focused on the concept of women lose their jobs or are offered new
experience from within feminist theory. How- 'flexible' ones, the category of class and the
ever, the debate of experience must be frame- engendered racialized and sexualized forms
worked in feminist tensions within sociology through which class is experienced have nearly
and the struggle of what counts as theory. Liz disappeared from feminist theory.
Stanley has commented on the 'almost fetishis- Beverly Skeggs (1997) points out that a
tic attitude towards 'MarxWeberDurkheim' as a retreat from class has occurred across a range of
totemic structure' within sociology (1992:258) academic sites. While postmodernist scholars
and Joan Alway (1995) has suggested that have criticized the concept as essentialist and
despite the general lack of consensus over what deterministic, others make retreats from class
sociological theory is, there is considerable analysis by using empirical evidence to suggest
consensus about who counts as a sociological that the significance of class has declined. She
theorist. Feminist research has been inspired further suggests that there is an end to asking
and engaged in a dialogue with the works of the whose experience is being silenced and ignored
founding fathers as well as with most modern and whose lives are considered worthy of study.
social theorists; however, these encounters have In her own words:
been voiced and interpreted through the experi-
ence of women, not through the works of the
We also need to think about the relationship
founding fathers. The position of theory inside between responsibility and knowledge (through
feminist thought has also been debated. Char-
privilege) from the effects of privilege. To think that
lotte Bunch suggests that theory is not 'simply class does not matter is only a prerogative of those
intellectually interesting', but that it is 'crucial unaffected by the deprivations and exclusions it
to the survival of feminism'. It is not an produces. Making class invisible represents a

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296 ACTASOCIOLOGICA
1999 VOLUME
42

historical stage in which the identity of the middle mean disentangling experience from conflation
class is assured. (Skeggs 1997:7) with identity and political commitment, while
This is why we think that a feminist sociological still seeing their interconnections. Only then
can we build common political projects, not
project is more important now than it has ever
been. Sociologists necessarily built on shared experience, and only
Dorothy Smith and Patricia
then can we start investigating and theorizing
Collins provide in our view a theoretical land-
privilege. This is a sociological feminist imagi-
scape in which the notion of experience can be
that nation that conceptualizes experience not as
re-thought. The first common strategy
granted, nor presupposed, but as real historical
these researchers share, according to Mann and
is their call for reflexive meth- products and social practices, always in process
Kelly (1997),
that the and always contested.
odologies in order to understand
process through which we dissociate ourselves
First version received June 1998
from our informants is the process through Final version accepted February 1999
which we create the conceptual structures we
often mistake for reality. The second is the
notion of bifurcated consciousness (the out- Acknowledgements
sider-within perspective) and privileged knowl- We thank AndersNeergaardand the two refereesfor valuable
edge, suggesting that the contradictions that comments.
subjugated groups experience provide angels of
vision for critical insights into relations and
process of oppression. Smith and Collins work Notes
within a notion of experience that is empirically
grounded in substantial research. Their theore- 1 We
categorizeourselvesas 'minority'feminists,having as
tical project aims to grasp the material condi- a starting point our politicalidentitiesas immigrant(Mulinari)
tions that shape, construct and create these and lesbian (Sandell):politicalidentitiesthat up to the present
that the have locatedus in the marginsof mainstreamwomen'sstudies.
experiences through an understanding 2 Nevertheless,we had
long discussionsoverwhere to send
everyday world is organized by social relations this article. Should we send it to a sociological journal or a
not apparent within it. Recognizing the difficul- feministone? In submittingthis articleto a sociologicaljournal
ties and the serious problems of their own we are (still) faced with questions of how feminist scholarship
both authors advocate the notion relatesto sociology,and if a 'sociological'readerwill care to read
perspectives, a 'feminist' text. The formulationof the questions of course
of partial perspectives, a webbed account for
ignores the group of scholars that do not find sociology and
knowledge(s). It is central particularly for Smith feminism to be mutually excluding, as well as work done that
that feminist theory produces knowledge with does not adhereto this division.The questionsneverthelessraise
the 'practical possibility' that one account can concern about boundary making in sociology. Joan Alway
invalidate another. argues that while feminism has developed in critical and
productivedialogues with various traditions of social theory,
Inquiry itself does not make sense unless we hegemonic sociologyrepresentedby major theoreticaljournals
remains uninterestedand resistantto feministthought.
suppose that there is something to be found and 3
that that something can be spoken of to another, as Why didn't this discussion reach the core of feminist
we might say 4Well this is the way it is. This is how thought in Sweden?This is an importantquestion, but outside
the scope of this article. Maybe there were too few Others'
it works'. It would not be enough to say 'This is within the feminist movement, and in academia, to challenge
how it looks to me' when that is not just a way the norm of women's studies in Sweden.
station toward something more final, but is all we
are going to be able to say. If we want to be able to
offer something like a map or diagram of the References
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