Authority/Experience
Gender - K. Merinda Simmons
K. Merinda Simmons [+]
University of Alabama
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K. Merinda Simmons is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Graduate Director of the Religion in Culture MA Program at the University of Alabama. Her books include Changing the Subject: Writing Women across the African Diaspora (Ohio State UP, 2014), The Trouble with Post-Blackness (co-edited with Houston A. Baker, Jr., Columbia UP, 2015), and Race and New Modernisms (co-authored with James A. Crank, Bloomsbury, 2019). She is editor of the book series Concepts in the Study of Religion: Critical Primers (Equinox).
Description
Appeals to experience as a primary site of authority and legitimacy still dominate within gender studies and religious studies. This chapter will introduce standpoint theory—its appearance on the stage of identity studies, its possibilities, and its pitfalls. We will discuss the heuristic and political utility of stable identity monikers (like “women” and “Christians,” just to name a couple of examples) for activist groups hoping to implement social and political change. We will also discuss the limits of appeals to political pragmatism as ends in themselves.