By Sarah Cummings, Charles Dhewa, Gladys Kemboi, Stacey Young and Mike Powell.
Can you imagine that you are in a situation where no-one listens to you or believes what you have to say? And the reason they are not listening or believing is because of your race or your gender or where you come from or your accent, or an intersectional combination of all four?
Or imagine that the knowledge of your community is seen as worthless and ignored, even when the community will suffer most when efforts to change it go awry?
This phenomenon is called epistemic injustice. Originally elaborated by social philosopher Miranda Fricker (2007), epistemic (or knowledge-related) injustice comprises unfair treatment in which the voices, experiences and solutions of marginalized individuals, communities and societies are ignored. We consider that it poses an existential threat to individuals and communities. As the author, Rebecca Solnit (2017) wrote:
“If our voices are essential aspects of our humanity, to be rendered voiceless is to be dehumanized or excluded from one’s humanity.”
Epistemic justice
Based on an extensive literature review of epistemic injustice from many academic fields, we have recently developed a framework of epistemic justice, as shown in the figure below, to better signpost the way towards more just knowledge practices. We have done this not only because it will increase fairness and justice as it relates to knowledge but also because listening and valuing the knowledge of all stakeholders will lead to better knowledge and more effective change processes. The framework has three components: individual/collective, structural and systemic.
Most directly relevant to individuals and collective groups is counteracting intersectional identity prejudice on the part of the hearer. Testimonial justice comprises giving equal credibility to testimony without identity prejudice on the hearer’s part.
Secondly, ‘epistemic justice of the interpretative burden’ is where the interpretive burden is shared across epistemic actors, rather than being placed unfairly on marginalised groups.
Structural epistemic justice comprises two main interlinked concepts, hermeneutic justice and network justice. Hermeneutic justice provides socially disadvantaged groups with tools and terminologies to access and use knowledge, whilst requiring researchers to equip themselves to work with unfamiliar concepts. It combats hermeneutical marginalisation, broadening society’s interpretative resources, and emphasising the importance of participation and ‘reflexive critical sensitivity’ where listeners recognize that a speaker’s intelligibility may be affected by collective understanding gaps.
Network justice involves access to helpful epistemic peers, countering the deprivation of access seen in epistemic network injustice.
Systemic epistemic justice involves linguistic justice, decolonization of knowledge systems, and curricula justice. Linguistic justice involves identifying and counteracting epistemic linguistic biases, fostering metalinguistic awareness, and supporting speakers beyond mainstream ‘international’ languages.
Decolonization of knowledge systems seeks to identify and dismantle coloniality in patterns of knowledge production and distribution, including their institutional and commercial arrangements. In the process, it promotes intersectional epistemologies, new discourses, and practices that value local knowledge. These new discourses and practices involve endogeneity, namely a process of re-centring and localising aesthetic and political structures. For example, the work of one of us (Charles Dhewa) both explores and demonstrates the need for increased recognition of the role of indigenous markets in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa.
Curricula justice advocates for inclusive and contextually relevant educational and research content.
Epistemic justice and transdisciplinary research
Our framework for epistemic justice can enable successful transdisciplinary research. At the individual/collective level, it involves the voices of stakeholders being heard and listened to, with more powerful actors defending the voices of the marginalized.
At the structural level, it involves marginalized groups having the cognitive tools and terminologies to access and communicate knowledge, supported by their participation in networks.
At a systemic level, it involves new approaches to language and curricula which facilitate access to knowledge and education, as well as the decolonization of knowledge systems to create appropriate institutional, management and distribution arrangements to support a new and more open research practice.
Concluding questions
Does our framework resonate with your work? Are there additional issues that you would cover? Can you imagine a situation in which you might be able to use the framework of epistemic justice yourself?
To find out more:
Cummings, S., Dhewa, C., Kemboi, G. and Young, S. (2023). Doing epistemic justice in sustainable development: Applying the philosophical concept of epistemic injustice to the real world. Sustainable Development, 31, 3: 1965–1977. (Online – open access) (DOI): https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2497
This article provides sources for our work.
References:
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic justice: Power and the politics of knowledge. Oxford University Press: Oxford, United Kingdom.
Solnit, R. (2017). Silence and powerlessness go hand in hand – women’s voices must be heard. The Guardian (8 March 2017). (Online): https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/08/silence-powerlessness-womens-voices-rebecca-solnit. (The article is an extract from Rebecca Solnit’s book, The Mother of All Questions.)
Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement: Generative artificial intelligence was not used in the development of this i2Insights contribution. (For i2Insights policy on generative artificial intelligence please see https://i2insights.org/contributing-to-i2insights/guidelines-for-authors/#artificial-intelligence.)
Sarah Cummings PhD aims to have a positive social impact by changing policies, practices and understanding which reduce knowledge-related inequalities. She currently works at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands as PhD coordinator and as a consultant at her own company, Knowledge Ecologist. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Knowledge Management for Development Journal and co-leader of the KM4Dev community of practice
Charles Dhewa MPhil is a knowledge broker and knowledge management specialist in agriculture and rural development. Based in Harare, Zimbabwe, he is the Chief Executive Officer of Knowledge Transfer Africa which he founded in 2006 after realizing that agricultural value chain actors needed knowledge brokering services.
Gladys Kemboi MSc is a global knowledge manager and communities of practice leader with over 10 years of knowledge management experience. She leads and executes knowledge management strategies, develops and improves knowledge management processes, tools and technologies, and builds sustainable communities of practice to meet evolving needs at global and local level. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, USA.
Stacey Young PhD is the US Agency for International Development’s first Chief Knowledge Officer, leading agency-wide knowledge and learning approaches. She also co-chairs the Multi-Donor Learning Partnership of 11 major donor organizations working to advance organizational learning and knowledge management in international development. She is based in Washington DC, USA.
Mike Powell is an independent consultant and researcher working on combining development practice and information management in a forthcoming book “Challenging Ignorance”. He is based in Alnwick, UK.