Critical Research: Challenges and Possibilities

The emergence of the social sciences has provided a network of technologies, knowledges, practices and discourses to regulate and govern society. The social sciences may play a central role in developing forms of social control. Modern 'knowledge societies' manage the production of scientific knowledge in a way that privileges the kind of thinking that is consistent with current hegemonic thought, and reduces the possibility of critical perspectives (Slaughter y Leslie, 1997, 2001). The social sciences are in the paradox of questioning the fundamentals of what they, in some sense, actively constitute. The development of post-fordist societies and our academic location in the belly of the beast (Haraway, 1991) prompts a reflection on the context, possibilities and forms of critical work in our present institutional circumstances. This paper considers the methodological principles and political implications of academic critical research.