Feminist Sociologies: Diffractive Readings of Histories, Contributions, Futures

As Canadian sociologist Dorothy Smith laid out in two seminal contributions - “Women’s Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology” (1974) and The Everyday World as Problematic (1987) – Canadian feminist sociology began from a position of marginalisation, both for female sociologists and for feminist concepts and theories. This marginalisation has gradually waned, although never completely dissipated. Yet feminist sociology has also evolved as a diverse and potent source of sociological critique in some parts of the discipline, as well demonstrated in the high visibility of feminist sociologists in the CSA Research Clusters, including a Feminist Sociology Cluster. My approach to mapping Canadian feminist sociology is guided by insights from feminist epistemologies, notably ‘diffractive readings’ (Barad, 2007) as mappings of ‘heterogeneous history, not about originals’ (Haraway, 1997). I selectively map roots, major contributions and current and future engagement with some of Canada’s urgent questions of social inequality, including reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, decolonization, migration and refugees, and care crises.