Toward epistemic justice: An approach for conceptualizing epistemicide in the information professions

Patin, Beth; Sebastian, Melinda; Yeon, Jieun; Bertolini, Danielle

doi:10.1002/pra2.242

Cited by 30 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Information science has advocated an agenda for social justice (Cooke et al, 2016; Mehra et al, 2007); however, one critical type of justice overlooked in our field is epistemic justice. We argue epistemic injustices (Fricker, 2007) occur in our field and cumulatively lead to epistemicide (Patin et al, 2020). Epistemicide and its injustices present a complex, structural problem by impacting our fundamental capacity as knowers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…This “systematic destruction of rival forms of knowledge” (Bennett, 2007, p.154) includes tangible and intangible systems of knowing (de Souza Santos, 2014). Indigenous and ethnic communities have long thought about these types of epistemic injustice (Patin et al, 2020). Indigenous knowledge has repeatedly been devalued and written over with a colonizer‐focused narrative, advancing the “perception that Native people are not authorities on their own experiences” (Littletree & Metoyer, 2015, p. 642).…”

Section: Framing Epistemicide and Its Injustices In The Information Professionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We define epistemicide as the killing, silencing, annihilation, or devaluing of a knowledge system (Patin et al, 2020). We believe epistemicide happens when several epistemic injustices occur that collectively reflect a structured and systemic oppression of particular ways of knowing (see Figure 1).…”

Section: Framing Epistemicide and Its Injustices In The Information Professionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Conceptualization and analytic application of epistemicide has an established tradition in a number of social science fields while information scientists have only recently acknowledged epistemicide (Patin & Yeon, 2019). Building from our recent identification of the existence of epistemicide within the IS field (Patin et al, 2020), this work challenges the information field to become an epistemologically just space working to correct the systemic silencing of certain ways of knowing. We name some of the epistemic injustices currently happening within our field and suggest epistemic justice‐focused solutions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Epistemicide is the killing, silencing, annihilation, or devaluing of a way of knowing (Patin et al, 2020). Conceptualization and analytic application of epistemicide has an established tradition in a number of social science fields while information scientists have only recently acknowledged epistemicide (Patin & Yeon, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Interrupting epistemicide: A practical framework for naming, identifying, and ending epistemic injustice in the information professions

Patin

Sebastian

Yeon

et al. 2021

Asso for Info Science & Tech

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The information professions need a paradigmatic shift to address the epistemicide happening within our field and the ways we have systematically undermined knowledge systems falling outside of Western traditions. Epistemicide is the killing, silencing, annihilation, or devaluing of a knowledge system. We argue epistemicide happens when epistemic injustices are persistent and systematic and collectively work as a structured and systemic oppression of particular ways of knowing. We present epistemicide as a conceptual approach for understanding and analyzing ways knowledge systems are silenced or devalued within Information Science. We extend Fricker's framework by: (a) identifying new types of epistemic injustices, and (b) by adding to Fricker's concepts of Primary and Secondary Harm and introducing the concept of a Third Harm happening at an intergenerational level. Addressing epistemicide is critical for information professionals because we task ourselves with handling knowledge from every field. Acknowledgement of and taking steps to interrupt epistemic injustices and these specific harms are supportive of the social justice movements already happening. This paper serves as an interruption of epistemic injustice by presenting actions toward justice in the form of operationalized interventions of epistemicide.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Framing Epistemicide and Its Injustices In The Information Professionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Framing Epistemicide and Its Injustices In The Information Professionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Interrupting epistemicide: A practical framework for naming, identifying, and ending epistemic injustice in the information professions

Patin

Sebastian

Yeon

et al. 2021

Asso for Info Science & Tech

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Methods for a feminist technoscience of information practice: Design justice and speculative futurities

Floegel

Costello

2021

Asso for Info Science & Tech

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article builds on the argument that feminist technoscience will advance information practice scholarship beyond its current limitations. These limitations reflect neoliberalism in the field of information science and include a reliance on extractive logics in theories and models, monological individualism, binaries constructed between people and technologies, and techno-solutionism. Here, we address the question: what does it look like to apply technofeminism to the study of information practice at methodological and methods levels? We first outline our metatheoretical conception of feminist technoscience, which embraces intersectionality and assemblage theory in order to move past white and colonialist logics embedded in cyborg theory. We next offer design justice as a methodological framework and movement that provides a necessary overhaul of the neoliberal ways that information science approaches scholarship, particularly in terms of participatory research. We suggest that speculative futurities provide a promising method for advancing technofeminism in information practice research because they explicitly reject neoliberalism and its techno-solutionist bent. Overall, a feminist technoscience of information practice offers directions for our field that are rooted in liberatory epistemologies. We emphasize that in order to achieve liberation, a major overhaul in how our discipline approaches arrangements of information, people, and technologies is sorely needed.

show abstract

At the Margins of Epistemology: Amplifying Alternative Ways of Knowing in Library and Information Science

Patin

Oliphant

Allard

et al. 2021

Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Tech

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This panel argues a paradigm shift is needed in library and information science (LIS) to move the field toward information equity, inclusion, relevance, diversity, and justice. LIS has undermined knowledge systems falling outside of Western traditions. While the foundations of LIS are based on epistemological concerns, the field has neglected to treat people as epistemic agents who are embedded in cultures, social relations and identities, and knowledge systems that inform and shape their interactions with data, information, and knowledge as well as our perceptions of each other as knowers. To achieve this shift we examine epistemicide-the killing, silencing, annihilation, or devaluing of a knowledge system, epistemic injustice and a critique of the user-centered paradigm. We present alternative epistemologies for LIS: critical consciousness, Black feminism, and design epistemology and discuss these in practice: community generated knowledges as sites of resistance and Indigenous data sovereignty and the "right to know".

show abstract

Toward epistemic justice: An approach for conceptualizing epistemicide in the information professions

Cited by 30 publications

References 37 publications

Interrupting epistemicide: A practical framework for naming, identifying, and ending epistemic injustice in the information professions

Interrupting epistemicide: A practical framework for naming, identifying, and ending epistemic injustice in the information professions

Methods for a feminist technoscience of information practice: Design justice and speculative futurities

At the Margins of Epistemology: Amplifying Alternative Ways of Knowing in Library and Information Science

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About