Epistemic oppression, resistance, and resurgence

Abstract

Epistemologies have power. They have the power not only to transform worlds, but to create them. And the worlds that they create can be better or worse. For many people, the worlds they create are predictably and reliably deadly. Epistemologies can turn sacred land into 'resources' to be bought, sold, exploited, and exhausted. They can turn people into 'labor' in much the same way. They can not only disappear acts of violence but render them unnamable and unrecognizable within their conceptual architectures. They can portray intentionally produced structural harms as 'tragic' and unforeseeable acts of fate (Ruíz, forthcoming). They can revision deliberate genocides as the inevitable and irreversible costs of the march toward 'progress' in the linear hierarchy of civilizations. Colonial epistemologies

Discrepancies in infant feeding recommendations between grandmothers and healthcare providers in rural Mexico

“…Additionally, this study examined how mothers responded to the opinions and recommendations received from both grandmothers and healthcare professionals. For our analysis, we build on previous research that highlights Indigenous and non-Western perspectives [ 25 – 27 ] in the context of colonization [ 28 ]. We expect that our findings will be of significance as the effects of colonization are ongoing and continue to impact various aspects of Indigenous peoples’ lives, including the healthcare they receive [ 29 ].…”

Epistemic injustice in Climate Adaptation

“…Several authors have argued that Indigenous communities and knowledges in general are subject to epistemic injustice (Berenstain et al 2021;L. Townsend and Townsend 2020;D.…”

“…The exclusion of Indigenous knowledges, crucially, is not merely coincidental but rather systematic. As Berenstain et al (2021), Cooke (2004), and Wolfe (1999;Lloyd and Wolfe 2016) all argue, the oppression of Indigenous knowledges has been, and continues to be, a feature of settler colonialism and the general oppression of Indigenous peoples:…”

You Just Need More Resilience: Racial Gaslighting as “Othering”

“…While resilience may be simply regarded by some as simply a psychological experience or state of mind, these previous characterizations of resilience may be too narrow, reductionist, to capture all the dimensions of resilience as lived by BIPOC people subjected to racial gaslighting daily (Berenstain et al, 2021). Moreover, these conceptualizations of resilience along the lines of a psychological state may tacitly contribute to unreflective deficit-narratives that further stigmatize and punish BIPOC people and communities whose notions of resilience, by necessity, may fall outside the logics, binaries, values, and limitations of western epistemologies that value and privilege individualism over collectivism (Medina, 2013).…”