Patricia Hill Collins Quotes on Knowledge
Patricia Hill Collins's Black Feminist Thought (1990, revised 2000) developed the most influential contemporary theory of standpoint epistemology. Black women's standpoint, Collins argues, is generated from a distinctive social location at the intersection of race, gender, class, and sexuality, and produces forms of knowledge — about the family, about labor, about violence and resistance — that the dominant epistemological frameworks of European and American sociology have systematically been unable to recognize as knowledge. The matrix of domination supplies Collins's analytical category for the interlocking systems of oppression that constitute the social conditions of any given knower, and her later work — Black Sexual Politics, Intersectionality (with Sirma Bilge), and Lethal Intersections — extends the framework to contemporary global political analysis.
Quotes
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Attributed to Patricia Hill Collins:
“Knowledge produced by the oppressed is not less rigorous; it is differently rigorous.”
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Attributed to Patricia Hill Collins:
“Black feminist thought is shaped by, and shapes, Black women's everyday lives.”
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Attributed to Patricia Hill Collins:
“Theory built without standpoint is theory built on missing data.”
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“Oppressed groups are frequently placed in the situation of being listened to only if we frame our ideas in the language that is familiar to and comfortable for a dominant group. This requirement often changes the meaning of our ideas and works to elevate the ideas of dominant groups.”
Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (2000) p. vii -
“Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (2000) p. vii”
Oppressed groups are frequently placed in the situation of being listened to only if we frame our ideas in the language that is familiar to and comfortable for a dominant group. This requirement often changes the meaning of our ideas and works to elevate the ideas of dominant groups. -
“…In the United States, the dominant discourse is shaped by intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation as systems of power. In my work, I have investigated how racism, sexism, class exploitation, and heterosexism operate to shape the lived experiences of different social groups. Black women’s experiences were the point of entry into these larger questions of power and knowledge, but African-American women’s experiences are not the endpoint…”
On how she approaches any research regarding social inequality in “The Representation of African-American Women: An Interview with Patricia Hill Collins” in Global Dialogue -
“On how she approaches any research regarding social inequality in “The Representation of African-American Women: An Interview with Patricia Hill Collins” in Global Dialogue”
…In the United States, the dominant discourse is shaped by intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation as systems of power. In my work, I have investigated how racism, sexism, class exploitation, and heterosexism operate to shape the lived experiences of different social groups. Black women’s experiences were the point of entry into these larger questions of power and knowledge, bu -
“…In the United States and similar multicultural societies, media representations of women differ depending on varying combinations of race, gender identity, ethnicity, class and citizenship status. The white middle-class heterosexual woman holding US citizenship is held up as an ideal type for women from other groups. This is an ideal, a representation, a social construction and not an actual category of people…”
On what is considered an ideal representation of U.S. femininity in “The Representation of African-American Women: An Interview with Patricia Hill Collins” in Global Dialogue -
“On what is considered an ideal representation of U.S. femininity in “The Representation of African-American Women: An Interview with Patricia Hill Collins” in Global Dialogue”
…In the United States and similar multicultural societies, media representations of women differ depending on varying combinations of race, gender identity, ethnicity, class and citizenship status. The white middle-class heterosexual woman holding US citizenship is held up as an ideal type for women from other groups. This is an ideal, a representation, a social construction and not an actual cate