Audiences often saw Amanda as 'representing' poor women; she was often the only individual on low income in the room, telling her story; while others, academics and researchers from other agencies were the audience. Few, if any, in the audience, had had experiences where they would be speaking of their lives as middle- and upper-class individuals to a group on low income. Amanda was frequently not heard, her story translated by those present into something that would fit their framework. (Boggan and Butterwick, 2004, p.17)

Boggan and Butterwick's chapter presents an alternative to collaborative research between university-based and non university-based researchers. As each one acknowledges her own location and in an honest and respectful dialogue learns about the differences in their experiences and perspectives, they develop their own, and maybe a shared, perspective. Essentially, both recognize the other as a knower and the dialogue between the two presents a complex perspective of the situation of single mothers on welfare. Theirs is an example of how collaboration can become a space where different perspectives develop and draw from one another. In the next section of this chapter, I turn to feminist theories to frame a discussion of the potential of collaboration to foster the development of standpoints and dialogue.

Standpoint feminism

Standpoint theory originally developed in the 1970's and 80's as a "feminist critical theory about relations between the production of knowledge and practices of power" (Harding, 2004, p. 1). Standpoint theorists argue that epistemologies are based on the material lives of knowers and consequently are influenced by the conditions that surround knowers.

Dorothy Smith (1987) claims that the tools of knowledge generation had become part of the structures of domination. She especially examines how sociology is produced with no connections to the experiences of those the discipline is supposed to be studying and therefore maintains the capitalist and patriarchal relations of ruling. Smith proposes and outlines a theory of the everyday where the starting point is the personal lives of women and minority groups. These local experiences are framed within the larger relations of domination.

Standpoint theorists argue that starting from women's everyday life experiences results in a more truthful and comprehensive account of social relations (Harding, 1993, 2004). These everyday experiences are shaped by the conditions under which the women live. Nancy Hartsock (1998) contends that historical and material conditions structure women's experience of the world. For her, the similarities among women's experiences and their differences from men's experiences can be explained as manifestations of the institutionalized sexual division of labour. Hartsock (2004) claims that some knowledge should be privileged over other knowledge for ethical and political reasons. Her goal is to find ways to use theoretical tools to create theories of social justice that can support social change. In that regard, she wants to privilege "the knowledge that offers possibilities for more just social relations and she sees this happening as groups of individuals transform into resistant, oppositional, and collective subjects" (Hartsock, 2004, p. 245).