Sandra G. Harding, a global trailblazer in feminist and postcolonial philosophy, critical science, technology studies, social justice and activism, died March 5. She was 89.
Harding was a professor at the University of Delaware from 1975 to 1996 and then at UCLA until 2014. Before her retirement, she was a distinguished professor of education and gender studies and then a distinguished research professor emerita. She served as director of the UCLA Center for the Study of Women from 1996-1999.
She was internationally acclaimed for her pioneering development of “standpoint theory,” which apprehended science as a contextualized and culturally embedded undertaking, in sharp distinction to the conventional view of science as neutral and objective.
Harding wrote or edited 18 books, including the prize-winning “The Science Question in Feminism.” A forthcoming book, “Decentralizing Knowledges: Essays on Distributed Agencies,” will be published posthumously. Astonishingly prolific, Harding also published more than 100 scholarly articles and book chapters.
Throughout her career, Harding served as a consultant to several international entities, including UNESCO, the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development and the UN Development Fund for Women (now known as UN Women). In 2013, the Society for the Social Studies of Science awarded her the John Desmond Bernal Prize.
Harding is survived by her daughters Dorian and Emily, her beloved granddaughter Eva and sisters Constance Joy and Victoria.
Read the full obituary on Sandra Harding.
