From the Global to the Personal -Sri Lankan Feminist Epistemologies

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to examine the construction / application of epistemologies in Sri Lankan research on women, gender and feminism. Despite the understanding that research content and methodologies are not neutral or independent of research contexts, researchers in the Social Sciences as well as Sciences are still to pay sufficient attention to methodological implications / assumptions of methods, ontology, epistemology, theory, and politics within research processes. By focusing on these facets of research methodology, this paper strives to provide insights into the discipline of Women's / Gender Studies, and methodological issues for fellow researchers to engage with in their work. The paper looks at feminist research studies in the Sri Lankan context of the past 30 years - ever since the proliferation of women's research in the country following the UN International Year of Women in 1975. Based on the theoretical understandings of feminist globalism, postcolonial feminism, liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, feminist standpoint epistemologies, and gender mainstreaming, the paper focuses on research studies from a methodological perspective. It is supported by a literature survey of Sri Lankan feminist research and interviews with feminist bibliographer/researchers, as well as an examination of selected research studies. The paper concludes that feminist epistemologies in Sri Lankan research are symbiotically linked to the ontological politics of the research context.