Working Papers

Resistance Culture as a Remedy for Epistemic Injustice

Abstract

This paper theorizes a distinctive kind of oppression I call “epistemic subjection,” which occurs when people are governed by formal political institutions designed to peremptorily reject their understandings of important social concepts (justice, cooperation, etc.) by excluding them, rendering them unintelligible, or declaring them inadmissible. I argue epistemic subjection both constitutes epistemic injustice and can create epistemic injustice as a downstream effect. Next, I examine how these injustices could be remedied. I argue that solutions internal to the very institutions that cause epistemic subjection—such as increasing epistemically subjected people’s participation in them, reforming them to encourage institutional epistemic virtue, or recruiting more epistemically virtuous officials—won’t eliminate epistemic subjection or its attendant injustices. I therefore propose an alternate remedy: cultivating spaces and practices of resistance among epistemically subjected people via which they can develop, preserve, and communicate the very ideas their governing institutions are designed to peremptorily reject. Such resistance can mitigate both the intrinsic and downstream epistemic injustices that epistemic subjection produces. Thus, cultivating a “resistance culture” among epistemically subjected people may be necessary to remedy the epistemic injustices they face. Finally, I examine my view’s implications for the ethics of resistance. If my arguments are correct, it may be permissible for epistemically subjected people to engage in resistance (even law-breaking resistance) as a first resort—not only after having staked their claims unsuccessfully via mainstream governing institutions. Importantly, my arguments apply equally well to nearly just institutions and significantly unjust ones. Thus, we have reason to reject the common liberal view that people in nearly just societies should only engage in law-breaking resistance as a last resort.