Is Science Multicultural?: Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies

Sandra Harding is a very intresting writer with a lot to say about feminism and culture.Especially the neutral sciences discussion gives a new dimension to a very important issue and adds culture as a new factor.All woman interested in research should read her book to get the historical background and the new directions for thinking about science.Her statement that social progress for humanity is not progress for woman can not be overseen even if it shows the darkness of todays development for woman.

Sandra Harding's work is a sharp reply to the elitism of the neo-positivists. In refuting realism, she seeks to put together the best of postcolonial, feminist and postmodern critiques of modern science. In a sharply dialectical manner(so rare these days) Harding maps the contributions and limitations of modern Science. She dismantles scientific myths, highlighting the fact that since its inception modern European Science has been multicultural. She does not throw the baby with the bathwater and argues for the possibility of a reconstructed notion of objectivity. For reconstructing objectivity, she goes back to what has been in her earlier works, her forte- 'standpoint epistemology'. She demonstrates how political disadvantage translates into an analytical advantage; experiences and knowledges of the oppressed are critical resources for a theory of society and nature. Thus Harding rejects realism but unlike many others who do so, does not get trapped into relativism.Overall, Hardings book is an excellent resource on how feminist and postcolonial scholarship is an engagement with the politics of Science. This work shows how not all postmodern epistemologies are necessarily anti-modern. A must for all feminist and postcolonial scholars.