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Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Kristie Dotson
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Abstract

Too often, identifying practices of silencing is a seemingly impossible exercise. Here I claim that attempting to give a conceptual reading of the epistemic violence present when silencing occurs can help distinguish the different ways members of oppressed groups are silenced with respect to testimony. I offer an account of epistemic violence as the failure, owing to pernicious ignorance, of hearers to meet the vulnerabilities of speakers in linguistic exchanges. Ultimately, I illustrate that by focusing on the ways in which hearers fail to meet speaker dependency in a linguistic exchange, efforts can be made to demarcate the different types of silencing people face when attempting to testify from oppressed positions in society.

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Type
Epistemic Justice, Ignorance, and Procedural Objectivity
Information
Hypatia , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , Spring 2011 , pp. 236 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by Hypatia, Inc.

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