ABSTRACT

The work of Canadian sociologist Dorothy E. Smith could be significant for taking feminist public relations to the intersection. She has argued that the goal of sociology should be "a sociology for rather than of people", urging us to begin with the standpoint of subordinated groups. Smith's social theory begins with her understanding of knowledge as a social production that bridges the experiential and the discursive and as a site of oppressive relations of ruling. Smith has elaborated on power relations in both social life and mainstream sociology. According to her, existing social structures are based on the "relations of ruling," a complex of practices and discourses providing direction and regulation. Smith's work has been located between empiricism and social constructivism, the fundamental epistemological problem of sociology as lay out by Emilie Durkheim. Her solution, drawing on Karl Marx and pragmatist George Herbert Mead, led to the conclusion that truth is intersubjective.