were not working on the inclusion
of gender relations into their own
work.
Each of these groups have worked
in generating knowledge and
confidence in the worth of that
knowledge. However I cannot, I
10
find, say more about the details. It
would be to give too much away
about how to bend the rules and
present impressions which lead a
group to prosper and grow strong. It
would also implicate people still
embroiled in struggles with their
institutions. Unlike Bowbrick’s story,
it is all too recent.
...Mutual support and knowledge
I have argued often enough that politics inform knowledge; that knowledge cannot be
understood outside the political context in which it arose. This is a view that underpins my
arguments for collaboration. It is another way of expressing the conclusions of the
epistemology of perspective (the politics of knowing) I was alluding to earlier. All this is, I
realise, quite the reverse of the usual Western epistemologies, which are empiricist in origin,
sharply distinguish fact and value, and, in the famous phrase, are inclined to ‘just stick to the
facts’. As if facts could be got outside a political context!
For those who are of such an empiricist persuasion, the two examples of collaboration I used
there in the right hand column have no particular epistemological import. One is a story of a
failed piece of knowledge through the usual methods of criticism and argument. The other is
a story of political resistance. In a way this does not matter. They are both stories of
collaboration, and as such, evidence for the processes of collaboration. In a way it matters
very much. They are a demonstration of the significance of the politics of knowing for the
generation and circulation of knowledge (i.e. public in some space or other). Only when the
women came together and provided a space for mutual respect and support could their
perspectives be developed. Similarly for work produced by lower status (more likely to be
female, black, young, temporarily employed) research assistants and used by their higher
status employers or supervisors. Usually the perspectives of assistants and directors do not
carry anything approaching equal weight. Collaboration would imply that respect was due to
each one, though I am not suggesting that power and authority are wished away, or could be.
However new models of mutual respect and support could result in knowledge being
developed from more than one perspective.
There is oddity about talking of ‘mutual support and knowledge’. It sounds altogether too
soft and cosy. The generation of knowledge is supposed, in the Western tradition, to flourish
in a culture of competitive individualism. It proceeds through adversarial criticism. Or so the
story goes. The process seems to be something altogether more complicated. Nobody who
has tried to collaborate would think it to be cosy and comfortable. Nor is it, I am arguing a
matter of rational debate. However there can be no doubt that the human interactions that
characterise collaboration can provide mutual support, even if it is not always comfortable. I
