Sociological Research Techniques: Scientific Bias in Social Sciences

Scientific Bias in Social Sciences and International Relations

What is Bias?

- Bias is not merely a flaw or a deviation from truth; it is a lens through which we understand and construct reality. - All knowledge is produced from a particular standpoint-shaped by historical, cultural, political, and social contexts. - The traditional scientific view promotes a separation between subject and object, aiming for "objectivity" as neutrality. - However, critical scholars argue that this view obscures the inherent positionality of all research. In Other words, that all research is situated in time and place, of which it serves as expression. - Rather than eliminating bias, the idea is that, instead, we must become aware of it-"reflexivity" is the key to responsible knowledge production. - Therefore, bias becomes problematic only when it is denied, hidden, or imposed as universal truth.

Thinkers Challenging Objectivity and Embracing Scientific Bias

• Sandra Harding
• Donna Haraway
• Thomas Kuhn
• Robert Cox
• Edward Said
• Ann Tickner
• Cynthia Enloe
• Postcolonial & Decolonial Thinkers
• Pierre Bourdieu
• Gayatri Spivak
• Achille Mbembe

Sandra Harding's Contributions

Key Concepts from Sandra Harding

• Standpoint Theory: knowledge is shaped by one's social position.
• Strong Objectivity: a more rigorous science comes from acknowledging subjectivity.

Main Ideas from Sandra Harding

- Traditional science falsely assumes a "view from nowhere." - Harding argues that marginalised perspectives offer more complete and critical insights. - Feminist epistemology shows that questions, methods, and interpretations are all influenced by the social position of the researcher. To be truly objective, science must include a diversity of standpoints and critically reflect on its own assumptions.

Key Works by Sandra Harding

• The Science Question in Feminism (1986)
• Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? (1991)

Donna Haraway's Perspective on Knowledge

Key Concepts from Donna Haraway

• Critique of the "god trick": the illusion of omniscient - Scientific vision is not a detached gaze but is objectivity. embodied, gendered, and historically located.
• Advocates for "situated knowledges": acknowledging partial, embodied perspectives.

Main Ideas from Donna Haraway

- Haraway critiques how science has historically claimed a neutral, all-seeing position, which she calls the "god trick." - She argues for "situated knowledges" - a call to embrace partial perspectives rooted in material and cultural specificity. - She promotes accountability and responsibility over claims of neutrality. - Her work also intersects with feminist science studies and critiques militarised technoscience.

Key Work by Donna Haraway

• Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism (1988)

Thomas Kuhn's Paradigm Shifts

Key Concepts from Thomas Kuhn

• Paradigm shifts: To Kuhn, science changes through revolutions, not evolution.
• Paradigms shape what scientists see and how they interpret data.

Main Ideas from Thomas Kuhn

- Kuhn challenges the idea of science as a cumulative, linear process. - In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, he introduces the notion of "paradigms"- shared worldviews that guide scientific inquiry. - Scientists operate within paradigms until anomalies disrupt the status quo, leading to scientific revolutions. - Paradigms are not "chosen" solely based on logic or evidence-they involve social factors, authority structures, and historical context. - Kuhn's insights invite us to see science as a human, contingent practice-not a purely rational or objective endeavour.

Key Work by Thomas Kuhn

• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

Robert Cox's Critical Theory

Key Concepts from Robert Cox

• Problem-solving theory vs. "critical theory".
• To Cox, theory is never neutral-it always serves someone.

Main Ideas from Robert Cox

- Mainstream IR theories maintain the existing world order by focusing on managing the system rather than questioning it. - Problem-solving theories take the status quo for granted. - Critical theory, in contrast, investigates the conditions of possibility for the system and asks how it could be different. Theories reflect the context of their production - they are historically contingent and politically interested.

Key Work by Robert Cox

• Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory (1981)

Edward Said and Orientalism

Key Concepts from Edward Said

• Orientalism: The West's systematic representation of the East as "Other", intrinsically different from the Western "self"
• Knowledge and power are intertwined in colonial discourse.

Main Ideas from Edward Said

- Said shows how Western literature, art, and scholarship constructed the East as exotic, irrational, and backward in order to justify colonial domination. - Orientalism is thus understood as a discourse that shaped how the West came to know-and control-the East. - Said draws on Foucault to argue that knowledge is never innocent; it serves power. - His work resonates strongly in multicultural and postcolonial contexts by showing how entire cultures have been objectified and essentialised. - Said critiques both the content and structure of knowledge that underpins international relations, foreign policy, and academic disciplines. - He calls for contrapuntal reading-analysing power and resistance simultaneously from multiple perspectives.

Key Work by Edward Said

• Orientalism (1978)

Ann Tickner's Feminist Critique of IR

Key Concepts from Ann Tickner

• A feminist critique of IR's focus on power, rationality, and the state.
• Challenges the exclusion of ethics, emotion, and care in traditional IR analyses.

Main Ideas from Ann Tickner

- In You Just Don't Understand, Tickner critiques Kenneth Waltz's realism for assuming a masculine, rationalist - Gender in International Relations (1992) worldview. - She argues that IR has gendered foundations- privileging autonomy, violence, and rationality over interdependence, care, and ethics. - Tickner introduces a feminist epistemology rooted in relationality and context. - She advocates for pluralism and methodological inclusivity in the discipline. - Her work is both a critique and a proposal for rethinking what counts as knowledge in IR.

Key Works by Ann Tickner

• You Just Don't Understand: Troubled Engagements Between Feminists and IR Theorists (1997)

Cynthia Enloe's Gendered Global Politics

Key Concepts from Cynthia Enloe

• Global politics is deeply gendered.
• Everyday actors (e.g., domestic workers, military spouses) are also part of IR.

Main Ideas from Cynthia Enloe

- Enloe famously asks: "Where are the women?"- revealing how traditional IR overlooks the role of women in global politics. She investigates how "the personal" and "the international" intersect through militarism, diplomacy, and globalised labour. - Enloe uses a "bottom-up approach", showing how everyday lives are shaped by international forces. - Encourages a "feminist curiosity": always asking what assumptions are being made and who benefits from them. - Her work empowers students to see IR not only in terms of states and wars but in daily life, labour, and identity.

Key Works by Cynthia Enloe

• Bananas, Beaches and Bases (1989)
• The Curious Feminist (2004)

Postcolonial and Decolonial Thinkers

Key Figures in Postcolonial and Decolonial Thought

• Walter Mignolo, Aníbal Quijano, Boaventura de Sousa - Decolonial thinkers argue that modernity is inseparable Santos, Achille Mbembe from colonialism.

Key Concepts in Postcolonial and Decolonial Thought

• Coloniality of power: colonial ways of thinking persist in modern institutions, shaping how decisions are made. - IR must open itself to "epistemic plurality" - listening to indigenous, Afro-diasporic, and Southern knowledge traditions.
• They call for epistemic disobedience: challenging dominant Western epistemologies.
• "Pluriversality": embracing many coexisting ways of knowing.

Main Ideas from Postcolonial and Decolonial Thinkers

- They challenge Eurocentric knowledge systems that continue to marginalise other ways of knowing. - Their work reclaims the right to theorise from the Global South and reframes global politics from below.

Achille Mbembe's Necropolitics

Key Concepts from Achille Mbembe

• Necropolitics: The power to determine who may live and who must die.
• He links colonial violence to contemporary practices such as mass incarceration, refugee abandonment, and militarised borders.
• His work expands IR by centering bodies, death, and racialised vulnerability as core political concerns.

Main Ideas from Achille Mbembe

- Mbembe explores how modern sovereignty is increasingly exercised through control over death, especially in postcolonial and racialised contexts. - In "necropolitical" regimes, some populations are abandoned or exposed to premature death.

Key Work by Achille Mbembe

• Necropolitics (2003/2019)

Pierre Bourdieu's Sociological Concepts

Key Concepts from Pierre Bourdieu

• Habitus: internalised social norms.
• Field: the structured space where knowledge is produced.
• Capital: forms of power (cultural, symbolic, etc.).

Main Ideas from Pierre Bourdieu

- Bourdieu calls for "reflexivity" -researchers must understand how their social location shapes their work. - Academia itself is a "field" with its own power struggles over legitimacy and authority. - Scientific knowledge reflects hierarchies of capital and symbolic power.

Key Works by Pierre Bourdieu

• The Logic of Practice (1990)
• Science of Science and Reflexivity (2004)

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and the Subaltern

Key Concepts from Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

• Subaltern: All those excluded from dominant discourse.
• Epistemic violence: the process of silencing through representation.

Main Ideas from Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

- Spivak critiques how Western intellectuals often speak "for" subaltern groups, reinforcing their silence. - In Can the Subaltern Speak?, she argues that subaltern voices are often mediated through elite frameworks. - Calls for "radical reflexivity" and a rethinking of who gets to produce knowledge. - Highlights the limits of even critical theory in addressing deep inequalities of voice and recognition. - Encourages scholars to listen differently and decenter the Western gaze.

Key Work by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

• Can the Subaltern Speak? (1988)