Singleness as standpoint epistemology, methodology and method

Presentation title: Singleness as standpoint epistemology, methodology and method: Unmarried positionality and the politics of research

Professor Kristin Aune, Coventry University.

Professor Kristin Aune, Coventry University. 11 March 2025, 1600-1730 (UK time). Hybrid (In person and online). Venue: 17 Blenheim Terrace Boardroom

Online (zoom) link: https://universityofleeds.zoom.us/j/88114034940?pwd=OXElBzULlLhySOPvQwg27h32FkWKkH.1

Abstract

This paper makes the case for regarding singleness as a new lens for research epistemology, methodology and method. Being single, I will argue, makes a difference to what a researcher can know, especially in contexts where there are clear divisions between marriage and singleness – for example, societies where marriage is the social or religious norm. Singleness enables a particular perspective on a subject of study, a particular standpoint. Scholars have made a convincing case for feminist standpoint epistemology, and for other forms of standpoint epistemology including Black, queer, working-class and others. Yet that work has, curiously, ignored being single as a resource for understanding the social world. Perhaps this is because much scholarship, and much theorising about research methodology, has been undertaken by secular scholars, in contexts where marriage is decreasing in social importance. This paper contends that singleness is both a form of positionality and a new methodological tool for revealing and challenging power relations. Singleness also shapes methodology (theory on how research should proceed), and method (how data is gathered).

What does this look like in practice? The paper will outline how my ethnographic study on gender in a British evangelical Christian church movement was carried out using a single, Christian, feminist epistemology, methodology and method, and discuss how participants’ constructions of my marital status shaped the knowledge I produced about them. This paper reclaims being unmarried or unpartnered as a form of positionality that can be transformative for knowledge production, alongside gender, ‘race’ or ethnicity, religion, sexuality and other intersections.

Bio

Kristin Aune is Professor of Sociology of Religion at the Centre for Peace and Security, Coventry University. Her research is on religion and higher education, and religion and gender, and she has published widely on these topics, most recently in the Journal of College and Character, the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education and Sociology of Religion. Her research has been funded by, among others, the Arts & Humanities Research Council, the Economic & Social Research Council and the Office for Students. She has just completed the study ‘Building positive relationships among university students across religion and worldview difference’ (collaborating with Durham, North Carolina State and The Ohio State universities), funded by Porticus and the Spalding Trust. She is editor of the journal Religion and Gender.