Description
This thesis is a feminist epistemological evaluation of the field of comparative cognition, a normalizing psy discipline, exploring how continued work within this field contributes to oppression in modern times. I use autoethnography as a method to make sense of my own experiences within the field. I then use Foucauldian genealogical analysis to investigate the emergence of the field out of the eugenics movement in the US, and the roots of the foundational assumptions and traditions of the field. Specifically, I explore how abnormality was co-constituted as being deficient morally, cognitively, and physically as a result of degeneracy theory. Linking these together allowed for individuals who were characterized as abnormal in any regard to be attributed a low moral status. This was used as a justification to dehumanize of individuals who did not approximate normative and prototypical (i.e., Western) standards of behavior and cognition. I also explore the function of the psy disciplines, and comparative cognition, in the normalizing process, namely, how they worked to identify and manage abnormality. I also perform discourse analysis on a notable publication within the field of comparative cognition in order to evaluate how these problematic origins are manifested within contemporary cross-cultural work. Specifically, I explore how “culture” is used as a euphemism for comparing race, how many Western researchers do not have the appropriate epistemic standpoint to conduct cross-cultural work, how cross-cultural studies are ethnocentric and privilege white Western culture and values, and how the implications of cross-cultural work are not value-free and have very real detrimental impacts on the subjects of their work (as reflected throughout Western history).
