Knowledge, experience, and ruling relations : studies in the social organization of knowledge / edited by Marie Campbell and Ann Manicom.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This tribute to Smith's empowering contribution as a thinker and teacher reveals how empirical studies can illuminate concepts usually presented in the abstract. As the first compilation of applications of Smith's methodology, this is a landmark work in the developing field of the social organization of knowledge.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

For those following sociologist Dorothy Smith's work, this collection is a welcome addition to feminist methodologies and standpoint theories. The case studies--which include the institutional ethnographies and constructions of AIDS discourse, multiculturalism, international relations, domestic violence, school policy and practice, clerical and social work, photographs, adolescent sexuality, nursing, local land use policy, and literacy--articulate the conceptual and practical implications of Smith's sociology. Editors Campbell and Manicom, with the other colleagues of Smith represented here, expand the original concept of a sociology viewed from women's perspective to one applicable to many kinds of institutional and discursive subordination. Despite powerful analyses and the collective enterprise that Smith's work has engendered, problems remain. For example, whose standpoint should take priority when mothers and teachers are both disfranchised by school discourse, yet mothers are also dismissed by teachers? Because the feminist theoretical and epistemological implications of the framework are not engaged, theory remains unchallenged and many contributions lose the support of a formal explanation. Nevertheless, the volume is highly recommended for women's studies, sociology, and the sociology of knowledge. Upper-division undergraduates and above. J. L. Croissant University of Arizona