Whither standpoint theory in a post-truth world?

Abstract

This paper begins with a brief overview of the origins and continued use of standpoint theory in the social sciences. It highlights both historical and contemporary challenges to the utility of standpoint theory as a critical scholarly tool, including developments such as intersectionality and transgenderism/transracialism. Specifically, the implications of a post-truth era for standpoint theory are considered alongside the affective turn, purity politics and the critique of critique. Given the slow, but steady, erosion of the ivory tower in which academics enjoyed privileged access to ‘truth’, this paper concludes with the need to foster scholar activism via new forms of knowledge politics that move beyond existing approaches to standpoint theory.