Full Description
Argues for a transactionally situated approach to science and medicine in order to meet the needs of marginalized groups.
The Limits of Knowledge provides an understanding of what pragmatist feminist theories look like in practice, combining insights from the work of American pragmatist John Dewey concerning experimental inquiry and transaction with arguments for situated knowledge rooted in contemporary feminism. Using case studies to demonstrate some of the particular ways that dominant scientific and medical practices fail to meet the health needs of marginalized groups and communities, Nancy Arden McHugh shows how transactionally situated approaches are better able to meet the needs of these communities. Examples include a community action group fighting environmental injustice in Bayview Hunters Point, California, one of the most toxic communities in the US; gender, race, age, and class biases in the study and diagnosis of endometriosis; a critique of Evidence-Based Medicine; the current effects of Agent Orange on Vietnamese women and children; and pediatric treatment of Amish and Mennonite children.
Contents
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: Knowing (in) This place
2. The Career Woman's Disease: Endometriosis and Experimental Inquiry
3. Grounding Knowledge Through the Mothers Committee of Bayview Hunters Point
4. Transactionally Situated Frameworks, Gold Standards, and Silent Epidemics
5. The Needs of Living: Agent Orange in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam
6. Rooted in a Community
7. Where We Should Begin and End
Notes
References
Index
