Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-7jkgd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-17T13:31:05.695Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rethinking Epistemic Appropriation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2021

Paul-Mikhail Catapang Podosky Open the ORCID record for Paul-Mikhail Catapang Podosky [Opens in a new window]
Paul-Mikhail Catapang Podosky*
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Emmalon Davis has offered an insightful analysis of an under-theorized form of epistemic oppression called epistemic appropriation. This occurs when an epistemic resource developed within marginalized situatedness gains inter-communal uptake, but the author of the epistemic resource is unacknowledged. In this paper, I argue that Davis's definition of epistemic appropriation is not exhaustive. In particular, she misses out on explaining cases of epistemic appropriation in which an intra-communal epistemic resource is obscured through inter-communal uptake. Being attentive to this form of epistemic appropriation allows us to identify unique forms of epistemic oppression that emerge as a result of socially maintained active ignorance.

Keywords

Appropriationepistemic appropriationactive ignoranceepistemic injustice
Type
Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 2023 , pp. 142 - 162
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Camp, E. (2015). ‘Logical Concepts and Associative Characterizations.’ In Margolis, E. and Laurence, S. (eds), The Conceptual Mind, pp. 591–621. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Camp, E. (2018). ‘Perspectives in Imaginative Engagement with Fiction.’ Philosophical Perspectives 31(1), 73–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cappelen, H. (2018). Fixing Language: An Essay on Conceptual Engineering. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cappelen, H. (2020). ‘Conceptual Engineering: The Master Argument.’ In Burgess, A., Cappelen, H. and Plunkett, D. (eds), Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics, pp. 132–51. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, E. (2018). ‘On Epistemic Appropriation.’ Ethics 128, 702–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dotson, K. (2011). ‘Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing.’ Hypatia, 26(2), 236–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dotson, K. (2012). ‘A Cautionary Tale: On Limiting Epistemic Oppression.’ Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 33(1), 24–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dotson, K. (2014). ‘Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression.’ Social Epistemology 28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricker, M. (2016). ‘Epistemic Injustice and the Preservation of Ignorance.’ In Peels, R. and Blaauw, M. (eds), The Epistemic Dimensions of Ignorance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Frye, M. (1983). The Politics of Reality: Essay in Feminist Theory. Trumansburg, NY: The Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Haslanger, S. (2012). Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martín, A. (2020). ‘What is White Ignorance?’ Philosophical Quarterly doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqaa073.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthes, E.H. (2016). ‘Cultural Appropriation Without Cultural Essentialism?’ Social Theory and Practice 42(2), 347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Medina, J. (2013). The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and Resistant Imaginations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millikan, R. (1984). Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mills, C. (1997). The Racial Contract. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Mills, C. (2007). ‘White Ignorance.’ In Sullivan, S. and Tuana, N. (eds), Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, pp. 11–38. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Mirzael, A. (2020). ‘Where ‘Woke’ Came From and Why Marketers Should Think Twice Before Jumping on the Social Activism Bandwagon.’ The Conversation https://theconversation.com/where-woke-came-from-and-why-marketers-should-think-twice-before-jumping-on-the-social-activism-bandwagon-122713.Google Scholar
Outlaw, L.T. (2007). ‘Social Ordering and the Systematic Production of Ignorance.’ In Sullivan, S. and Tuana, N. (eds), Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, pp. 197–212. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Pohlhaus, G. Jr. (2012). ‘Relational Knowing and Epistemic Injustice: Toward a Theory of Willful Hermeneutical Ignorance.’ Hypatia 27(4), 715–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Santos, B.R.G. (2020). ‘Echo Chambers, Ignorance and Domination.’ Social Epistemology. doi: https://doi.org/10/1080/02691728.2020.1839590.Google Scholar
Woomer, L. (2019). ‘Agential Insensitivity and Social Supported Ignorance.’ Episteme 16(1), 73–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, J.O. (2005). ‘Profound Offense and Cultural Appropriation.’ Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63, 136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, J.O. (2008). Cultural Appropriation and the Arts. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar