ABSTRACT
Feminism has entered the academy on the basis that knowledge is not the learned reflection of the world but rather shapes the world in particular ways, for particular interests. Knowledge production occurs within the context of particular kinds of social power relationships, and the question 'whose knowledge, for what purpose' is a crucial one for feminism. The device of the disembodied scholar has presented feminism with particular methodological problems in authorising kinds of knowledge which take feminine experience as their point of departure. This chapter suggests that one strategy might involve the generation of different metaphoric systems which link to explicitly feminine points of view when trying to produce systematic kinds of knowledge about the world. This is the kind of strategy pursued by the feminist scientist Donna Haraway, whose work intervenes in particular areas of scientific discourse—immunology and cybernetics, for example—to suggest ways in which the 'imaginaries' of these disciplines can be reworked.
