African philosophy and global epistemic injustice

Chimakonam, Jonathan O.

doi:10.1080/17449626.2017.1364660

Cited by 50 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Jonathan Chimakonam shows that there is a significant injustice associated with the exclusion of African philosophies from global epistemology discourse. Importantly, this marginalizes the contemporary African diaspora (Chimakonam 2017). It also marginalizes the extracontinental diaspora's relationship with their own history.…”

Section: The Unconstruction Of Black Women As Physicistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making Black Women Scientists under White Empiricism: The Racialization of Epistemology in Physics

Prescod-Weinstein

2020

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society

108

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Making Black Women Scientists under White Empiricism:The Racialization of Epistemology in Physics W ho is allowed to be an observer in physics, and who is fundamentally denied the possibility? In this article, I propose that race and ethnicity impact epistemic outcomes in physics, despite the universality of the laws that undergird physics, and I introduce the concept of white empiricism to provide one explanation for why. White empiricism is the phenomenon through which only white people (particularly white men) are read has having a fundamental capacity for objectivity and Black people (particularly Black women) are produced as an ontological other. This phenomenon is stabilized through the production and retention of what Joseph Martin calls prestige asymmetry, which explains how social resources in physics are distributed based on prestige. In American society, Black women are on the losing end of an ontic prestige asymmetry whereby different scientists "garner unequal public approbation" in their everyday lives due to ascribed identities such as gender and race (Martin 2017, 475). White empiricism is one of the mechanisms by which this asymmetry follows Black women physicists into their professional lives. Because white empiricism contravenes core tenets of modern physics (e.g., covariance and relativity), it negatively impacts scientific outcomes and harms the people who are othered.White empiricism comes to dominate empirical discourse in physics because whiteness powerfully shapes the predominant arbiters of who is a valid observer of physical and social phenomena. Based primarily on their own This work and its open-access publication have been made possible by FQXi's "Physics of the Observer" Large Grant program. I wish to thank the following for helpful conversations,

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Section: The Unconstruction Of Black Women As Physicistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making Black Women Scientists under White Empiricism: The Racialization of Epistemology in Physics

Prescod-Weinstein

2020

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society

108

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“…It involves cultivating conversations across borders along both horizontal and vertical lines. Chimakonam (2017) here argues that while horizontalisation of the conversation brings all partners of conversations to the equal plane with same rights, dignity and responsibility, verticalisation requires that we must not shy away from emphasising certain unique aspects of our epistemic and theoretical traditions which is missing in dominant Eurocentric epistemologies. As Chimakonam writes:…”

Section: With and Beyond Global South: Ontological Epistemology Of Pa...mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…To cultivate these border-crossing links, for example, between epistemology and aesthetics, we also need border-crossing conversation across different sociological, philosophical and theoretical traditions. This is a part of what can be called planetary conversations and planetary realisations (Arif, 2015;Chimakonam, 2017;Giri, 2013). Planetary realisations challenge us to realise that we are children of the Mother Earth and as children we have an inborn debt and responsibility to learn about and with each other, and our cultures.…”

Section: With and Beyond Global South: Ontological Epistemology Of Participation And Planetary Conversationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

With and Beyond Epistemologies from the South: Ontological Epistemology of Participation, Multi-topial Hermeneutics and the Calling of Planetary Realisations

Giri

2021

Sociological Bulletin

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Our contemporary moment is a moment of crisis of epistemology as a part of the wider and deeper crisis of modernity and the human condition. The crisis of epistemology emerges from the limits of the epistemic as it is tied to epistemology of procedural certainty and closure. The crisis of epistemology also reflects the limits of epistemology closed within the Euro-American universe of discourse. It is in this context that the present essay discusses Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide. It also discusses some of the limits of de Sousa Santos’ alternatives especially his lack of cultivation of the ontological in his exploration of epistemological alternatives beyond the Eurocentric canons. It then explores the pathways of ontological epistemology of participation which brings epistemic and ontological works and meditations together in transformative and cross-cultural ways. This helps us in going beyond both the limits of the primacy of epistemology in modernity as well as Eurocentrism. It also explores pathways of a new hermeneutics which involves walking and meditating across multiple topoi of cultures and traditions of thinking and reflections which is called multi- topial hermeneutics in this study. This involves foot-walking and foot-meditative interpretation across multiple cultures and traditions of the world which help us go beyond ethnocentrism and eurocentrism and cultivate conversations and realisations across borders what the essay calls planetary realisations.

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“…As such, we are focusing on the accountability of researchers to different communities, and on other ways in which research is imbricated in asymmetric relations and historical injustice. (The DETECT project and the programmes with which it is associated, namely AstrobiologyOU, have developed a theoretically grounded ethical framework that highlights how ethical considerations need to be factored in decision making about the use of resources, ownership and use of data, as well as relationships within and outside the project team [Chimakonam, 2017;Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2018;de Sousa Santos, 2018]. Considerations about relationships include explicit reference to power dynamics and addressing epistemic injustice, whenever possible.)…”

Section: Fairness In Knowingmentioning

confidence: 99%

A case study from Guyana of adapting engaged research design to promote ‘fairness in knowing’

Holliman¹,

Marino²,

Grand³

et al. 2022

Research for All

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In this paper, we have combined ideas drawn from philosophy (epistemic injustice), critical theory (epistemicide) and practical approaches (engaged research design) with Indigenous knowledge to promote ‘fairness in knowing’ in a project called DETECT (Integrated Space Technology Vector Control for Enhancing community health and resilience against escalating climatic disruptions), an early warning system to support communities in identifying mosquito breeding sites using satellite, drone and ground-sensing technologies. DETECT used engaged research design to inform pre-award planning. We document how the project team, comprising Indigenous and other researchers, re-imagined the plans in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic to allow project participants to meet safely and equitably, and reflect on some of the key challenges in engaging across borders and cultures in the context of rapidly changing conditions characterised by vulnerability, risk, complexity and uncertainty.

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African philosophy and global epistemic injustice

Cited by 50 publications

References 18 publications

Making Black Women Scientists under White Empiricism: The Racialization of Epistemology in Physics

Making Black Women Scientists under White Empiricism: The Racialization of Epistemology in Physics

With and Beyond Epistemologies from the South: Ontological Epistemology of Participation, Multi-topial Hermeneutics and the Calling of Planetary Realisations

A case study from Guyana of adapting engaged research design to promote ‘fairness in knowing’

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