A methodological proposal from situated knowledge epistemology: Narrative Productions

The Narrative Productions’ Methodology emerges from Haraway’s epistemological and political concept of “situated knowledges”. According to this perspective, all knowledge emerges from semiotic and material conditions that give rise to a specific gaze, which diverges from both a gaze “from nowhere”–realism–and a gaze “from everywhere”–relativism. Unlike realist and relativist perspectives, the Narrative Productions’ Methodology reintroduces the notion of an “author” localized in a web of relations and speech genres. Furthermore, in the Narrative Productions’ Methodology, the alternative to the critique of the representation of others through the research act–typical of traditional research–consists in the possibility of partial connections with those close to the phenomenon under study. Thus, this methodology suggests that the research team connects with these positions over several sessions. This procedure will produce a hybrid text that expresses a certain way of understanding the phenomenon and guarantees the participants’ agency over the product. This article will introduce the fundamental principles of this methodology using a study on the events that happened in Barcelona in June 2001 on the occasion of the World Bank summit.