Feminist theory, method, and praxis: Toward a critical consciousness for family and close relationship scholars

Abstract

Feminism provides a worldview with innovative possibilities for scholarship and activism on behalf of families and intimate relationships. As a flexible framework capable of engaging with contentious theoretical ideas and the urgency of social change, feminism offers a simultaneous way to express an epistemology (knowledge), a methodology (the production of knowledge), an ontology (one’s subjective way of being in the world), and a praxis (the translation of knowledge into actions that produce beneficial social change). Feminist family science, in particular, advances critical, intersectional, and queer approaches to examine the uses and abuses of power and the multiple axes upon which individuals and families are privileged, marginalized, and oppressed in diverse social contexts. In this paper, I embrace feminism as a personal, professional (academic), and political project and use stories from my own life to illuminate broader social-historical structures, processes, and contexts associated with gender, race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, nationality, and other systems of social stratification. I provide a brief history and reflections on contemporary feminist theory and activism, particularly from the perspective of my disciplinary affiliation of feminist family science. I address feminism as an intersectional perspective through three themes: (a) theory: defining a critical feminist approach, (b) method: critical feminist autoethnographic research, and (c) praxis: transforming feminist theory into action. I conclude with takeaway messages for incorporating reflexivity and critical consciousness raising to provoke thought and action in the areas of personal, professional, and political change.

“Failed” Matches, Child Removals, and Disrupted Placements: Devastating and Invisible Losses During the Family-Building Journey for LGBTQ Adoptive Parents

“…These prospective parents revealed how they navigated the emotional “work” of learning that their anticipated child would not be coming home with them—or even died—alone, in isolation. In general, death and bereavement in families is the one topic that we, as a society, cannot or will not discuss (Allen, 2022; Doka, 1989). Participants’ sense of aloneness and stigma, with little socialization process or support system in place to guide them, adds a depth to their suffering, of which health care providers need to be aware (Blythe et al, 2012; Petrenko et al, 2019).…”

Family theorizing for social justice: A critical praxis

“…Feminist theorizing is a transdisciplinary enterprise embedded in multiple intellectual and activist traditions (K. R. Allen, 2022). Feminism is both a worldview and a practice, providing strategies—epistemological (what counts as knowledge), methodological (ways of producing knowledge), and ontological (ways of being in the world)—for translating knowledge into actions that lead to transformative social change (K. R. Allen, 2016; Harding, 1991; Lewis, 2009).…”

“…Although the mainstay of the family theory canon is exploring, describing, and explaining family diversity and complexity (Adamsons et al, 2022; Bengtson et al, 2005; Doherty et al, 1993), we extend the canon to critical praxis, which involves generating new approaches to help family scholars and practitioners understand what we do not know and the limitations of the knowledge we take for granted (K. R. Allen, 2022; Burton et al, 2010; Connidis, 2020; Walker, 2000). One of the main avenues for this discovery mechanism is the creative use of juxtaposing the taken‐for‐granted ideas upon which a discipline has been built, with the call for new ideas that are emergent as a result of transformative social change, as evident in earlier critiques and revisions of theories and research about Black family lives (W. R. Allen, 1978; Johnson, 1988; Peters & Massey, 1983).…”

“…Beginning with her early research on the family lives of older single White working class women (K. R. Allen, 1989), Katherine has been collecting, telling, and interpreting the biographies of families often on the margins, and in particular, helping to bring the study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ) families into center stage in the family science field (e.g., K. R. Allen & Demo, 1995; K. R. Allen & Goldberg, 2020; Goldberg & Allen, 2020). Among her contributions to feminist family scholarship, she has also championed the use of an informed reflexive consciousness in family social science, detailing ways in which scholars and practitioners need to “come to our senses” and become more transparent about how we produce and reproduce knowledge (K. R. Allen, 2000, 2016, 2022).…”

Significados de familia para familias contemporáneas

“…El panorama en México es diferente, en el sentido de que no se permite que parejas del mismo sexo puedan adoptar (Vázquez, 2016). Allen (2022), en su trabajo con una población asiático-estadounidense, presenta una re#exión desde la perspectiva feminista sobre las narrativas acerca de las relaciones familiares. Expresa que la familia debe ser examinada desde diferentes puntos de vista para comprender su composición, su entorno y sus interacciones entre sí y con otros.…”