Epistemologies of Engagement

An entrenched Western philosophical will to mastery habitually codes irreducible differences as obstacles to truth and to political action. Instead, I argue that these differences are our most valuable resource, crucial nodes of potential dialogue, epistemological transformation, and effective political action. Philosophically and historically implicated in the racist, sexist, classist episteme they are also trying to challenge, U.S. academic feminists, among other critics of empire, need themselves to be challenged on the most fundamental levels, a process which cannot be undertaken unilaterally. Noncolonizing, nonhierarchical dialogue both requires and enables such a transformation.