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Paper short abstract

This paper explores how distributive epistemic injustices imposed by (neo)colonial and gendered powers within smallholder pig farming contexts in northern Uganda contribute to the endemicity of parasites such as the pork tapeworm, as well as further marginalises the already marginalised knowers.

Paper long abstract

Critical discussions on hermeneutical and testimonial injustices have been gaining more traction within the field of Global Health, particularly within the global South context. However, the complex impact of more distributive epistemic injustices—understood here as the exclusion of marginalised and gendered bodies from formal education systems or from receiving health-preserving and holistic (scientific or health) knowledges—on knowers, their realities and even their credibility, are matters that have yet to be fully foregrounded within said field. This oversight is especially evident in conversations on Neglected Tropical Diseases such as the zoonotic parasite Taenia solium (pork tapeworm) that it is found to be endemic in many districts in northern Uganda. This paper argues that the access to epistemic goods that are vital to holistically addressing the parasite is controlled by deeply ingrained power (neo/colonial and gendered) dynamics and prejudices existing within the smallholder pig farming context in post-conflict Acholi land. So much so that those who are (labelled as) marginalised/othered—most often the women pig farmers—within these contexts are continuously excluded from receiving, forming, contributing and utilising protective knowledges on and against T. solium. Additionally, in this work, these injustices are seen to connect and transcend temporalities, spaces and bodies in ways that result to the further marginalisation of the already marginalised knowers. This paper offers a more tangible dialogue on the often-theoretical discussions on (distributive) epistemic injustices by being grounded on the empirical work of a larger PhD project conducted in two Acholi districts in northern Uganda.