The Problems of Positionality

Positionality is the idea that all knowledge is a function of the position or positions held by the participants in research and debate. Previous chapters have examined the origins of this idea in Orientalism and its modern version – the West versus the Rest. To some extent, this divide has been challenged by globalisation and growing cosmopolitanism. Nevertheless, the western notion of rationality stemming from the Enlightenment often questions the role of religion in public discourse. Western philosophers from Immanuel Kant to Juergen Habermas have questioned the place of religion in public debate. Habermas established the ‘proviso’ that religious participants in public discourse must express their position in a language that is intelligent to secular participants. The religious reforms in the Roman Catholic Church through Vatican II opened the door to religious dialogue. The ’strong programme in sociology’ was defended by Pierre Bourdieu that includes the standard that sociology must be impartial to the truth or falsity of statements uttered by subjects of empirical research.