Haraway, D. (1988) ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’, Feminist Studies, 14(3), pp. 575–599.



Haraway’s situated knowledge rejects both the sovereign view from nowhere and a relativism in which every position becomes equivalent. Objectivity is reconstructed as embodied, partial and answerable vision: reliable knowledge emerges not by escaping location but by specifying the material, technical and political conditions from which something becomes visible. Her critique of the “god trick” exposes disembodied universality as an apparatus that conceals its own instruments and privileges. Yet subjugated standpoints are not romanticised as automatically innocent; they require interpretation, mediation and critical accountability. The essay’s methodological force lies in transforming perspective from a limitation into an epistemic discipline. Vision is prosthetic and constructed, whether enacted through eyes, microscopes, satellites or computational images. Haraway thus connects feminist epistemology to science and technology studies, ecology and media theory. Knowledge becomes a negotiated encounter with an active world whose objects are agents rather than inert material awaiting authoritative representation.