Care ethics and critical friends: feminist research practice as an insider/outsider

Abstract

Building upon its development in educational scholarship, feminist scholars have incorporated the concept of ‘critical friend’ into their methodologies. Within political science, feminists have articulated critical friendship as relational research praxis, applying the concept to relationships between feminist academics and gender experts in institutions. We bring this research into conversation with feminist care ethics, asking how commitments to care ethics interact with commitments to being a ‘critical friend’ in feminist political science research. Based on interviews with feminist researchers, we argue that care is intrinsic to feminist research and underpins friendship. Whether or not it is explicitly articulated, the concept of ‘critical friend’ carries assumptions about the centrality and practice of care. These findings suggest that feminist scholars need to surface care explicitly in methodological discussions and articulate caring strategies, including self-care. Such surfacing must include acknowledging care as a source of depletion and nourishment, as well as fundamentally political.