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‘situated’. And with that recognition comes
the possibility of ‘a usable, but not an innocent
doctrine of objectivity’ (Haraway, 1991c,
p. 189). This form of ‘usable objectivity’
depends upon the two terms that underpin it:(1) Embodiment means recognizing that
knowledge is produced by specific bodies
that always leave traces. Moreover, em-
bodiment is not only human but also
‘machinic’. Machines see and record
the world and, like humans, they are
more than passive observers; they con-
struct it on the basis of particularalgo-
rithms and assumptions (cf. actor-
network theory). For example, soft-
ware used in the computer programs of
geographical information systems
brings a systematic set of biases, hidden
assumptions andaporias. Printouts and
screenshots are not mirror copies of the
world, ‘the view from nowhere’ but al-
ways the view from somewhere. Further,
embodiment is collective not singular,
mobile not fixed. Haraway (1991,
p.195) writes: ‘feminist embodiment. .. is not about fixed location in a reified
body ... but about nodes in fields, in-
flections in orientations, and responsibil-
ity for differences in material-semiotic
fields of meaning’. Haraway’s objectivity
is constantly in motion, tugged and
pulled among the various nodes of its
constitutive field.
(2) Partial knowledge implies a recognition
that no one, except gods and goddesses,
possess full (objective) knowledge. There
are only partial perspectives, a conse-
quence of our own circumscribed subject
location that makes us who we are, and
what we know. Haraway (1991, p.193)
writes: ‘the knowing self is partial in all
its guises, never finished, whole, simply
there and original; it is always constructed
and stitched together imperfectly.’
Embodiment and partiality are the condi-
tions under which knowledge is acquired.
Only when they are recognized as such is there
hope of an attainable as opposed to a mythical
objectivity. These are also the conditions of
any politics. Embodied and partial knowledge
necessitates that people literally reach out to
one another and constructnetworksof affili-
ation: that is, they must engage in discussion,
deliberation and evaluation; they thus come to
recognizedifferencebut also common beliefs
and shared responsibilities. Through these‘shared conversations in epistemology’,
Haraway (1991, p. 191) argues, it is possible
to forge ‘solidarity in politics’. This does not
mean that the end result is unanimity, or even
that networks and conversations set us on a
collective trajectory towards some final agree-
ment. To the contrary, that was the assumption
(and the failure) of the old type of objectivity.
Rather, ‘shared conversations’ are open-ended,
varied, sometimes inconsistent and paradox-
ical. But they are all we have, and the necessary
condition for both political projects, such as
feminism, and epistemological ones, such as
science. As a result, the traditional notion of
objectivity must be recast, conceived as an
incomplete process, not a final outcome.
Objectivity then becomes the process of work-
ing out difference and commonality, of strug-
gling epistemologically and politically to make
connections, affiliations, and alliances. While
situated knowledge is often contradictory, it
contains the possibility of critical promise.
It is in exactly this spirit that Gregory
(1994) argues that visions of moderngeog-
raphy as an intrinsically European science
whose origins can be traced back to the late
eighteenth century, and in particular to scien-
tific expeditions beyond the shores ofeurope
(seeexploration), mask itsgenealogyas a
distinctivelyEurocentricscience. Geographical
knowledges, like any others, are always situ-
ated knowledges: their production often
involves travel, like Cook’s voyages into the
South Pacific or the orbits of Earth-sensing
satellites through space, and the products
themselves enter into complex circuits of
exchange, transfer and accumulation, but
they are always marked by the situations in
which and through which they are constituted
(see also ethnocentrism; eurocentrism;
orientalism). Merrifield (1995) treats quite
other, more recent and more radical ‘exped-
itions’ as exercises in the production of situ-
ated knowledge, while Cook (2001a, 2004)
has used Haraway’s proposals as a research
method, a pedagogy, a form of writing and
an exploration ofmaterial culture. In all
these cases, however, it is important not to
confuse situated knowledge with a form of
ideology-critique that subscribes to quite
traditional notions of objectivity. For, as Rose
(1997b) emphasizes, anyone claiming to fully
situate their own knowledge is practising pre-
cisely thesamekind of god trick that they
criticize in others. All situated knowledge is
partial, including the situated knowledge we
have of ourselves and, of course, every entry in
thisDictionary(cf.local knowledge). tbGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_S Final Proof page 684 1.4.2009 3:23pmSITUATED KNOWLEDGE