Sandra Harding, UCLA professor of education and gender studies, has been honored with the 2013 John Desmond Bernal Prize, the highest honor given by the Society for the Social Studies of Science. The award is given annually in recognition of an individual who has made outstanding contributions to social studies of science.
Among Professor Harding’s many research interests are feminist and postcolonial theory, epistemology, the philosophy of science and multicultural science education. She is currently focusing on identifying gender, science and technology issues for women living in developing nations. Her 2008 book, “Sciences from Below: Feminisms, Postcolonialities, and Modernities,” examines how Western ideals of modernity and progressiveness distort an understanding of women’s “development needs” and of how the negative effects of science and technology transfer to cultures in developing nations. Her edited collection, “The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader” (Durham: Duke University Press Books, 2011) is the first to integrate postcolonial studies and science and technology studies insights.
Harding is known as a philosopher, and spoke in an interview about this background helps her examine the overlooked human factors in science:
“Philosophers analyze how people think about things. So, I’ve been analyzing how people think about postcolonial and feminist issues. I look at the kinds of things that scientists, for example, say about women’s biology or about best practices in science. I critically evaluate what they are doing, for example, asking why, when they talk about “good methods,” these seem not to include interviewing women about their lives or cultures, or do not take into account of the kinds of things that we now think they should know about women’s health. So, I’m interested in socially approved and institutionalized ways of thinking, not in how any individual scientists happen to think.
For more information and to read the full interview with Harding, visit UCLA Ampersand.
