Skip to content

epistemically disadvantaged identities

📖 Definitions

"in the arena of knowers there are epistemically disadvantaged identities. ... they are constructed as being suggestible, gullible, or vengeful. Their testimony is discredited; their memories are questioned. In instances such as these, it is not simply facts, events, practices, or technologies that are rendered not known, but individuals and groups who are rendered "not knowers." They are constructed as untrustworthy. Such individuals lack what Lorraine Code identified as key to being counted as a knowers." (Tuana, 2006, p. 13)

💡 Examples

  • Victims of incest/child sex abuse
  • racism and colonial practices of denying indigenous knowledge

🔗 Relations

📚 References

  • Tuana, Nancy. 2006. “The Speculum of Ignorance: The Women’s Health Movement and Epistemologies of Ignorance.” Hypatia 21 (3): 1–19. https: doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2006.tb01110.x.