Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression
Item
Title
Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression
Abstract/Description
Epistemic oppression refers to persistent epistemic exclusion that hinders one’s contribution to knowledge production. The tendency to shy away from using the term “epistemic oppression” may follow from an assumption that epistemic forms of oppression are generally reducible to social and political forms of oppression. While I agree that many exclusions that compromise one’s ability to contribute to the production of knowledge can be reducible to social and political forms of oppression, there still exists distinctly irreducible forms of epistemic oppression. In this paper, I claim that a major point of distinction between reducible and irreducible epistemic oppression is the major source of difficulty one faces in addressing each kind of oppression, i.e. epistemic power or features of epistemological systems. Distinguishing between reducible and irreducible forms of epistemic oppression can offer a better understanding of what is at stake in deploying the term and when such deployment is apt.
Author/creator
Date
In publication
Volume
28
Issue
2
Pages
115-138
Resource type
Research/Scholarly Media
Medium
Print
Background/context type
Conceptual
Keywords
Open access/free-text available
No
Peer reviewed
Yes
ISSN
0269-1728
Citation
Dotson, K. (2014). Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression. Social Epistemology, 28(2), 115–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2013.782585
Resource status/form
Published Text
Scholarship genre
Theoretical
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