Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Matthew Zinsli
(University of Wisconsin Madison)
Molly Clark-Barol (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract:
How can STS function as liberatory praxis in epistemic struggles, and can we balance a concern for epistemic justice with our discipline’s own concern for scientific credibility and authority?
Long Abstract:
Social theorists of knowledge have convincingly demonstrated that power shapes and is shaped by knowledge produced about the world. In this context, policymakers, regulatory agencies, civil society, and the courts rely on sanctioned knowledge to clarify socio-political problems and derive legitimate authority. Yet this demand also marginalizes the lived experience and intimate institutional knowledge of the people and publics most impacted, which feminist philosophers and critical theorists have recognized as a form of “epistemic violence” (Spivak 1988) or “epistemic injustice” (Fricker 2007). For instance, as the randomized controlled trial becomes the ‘gold standard’ for evidence-based policymaking, how can the experiences of structurally marginalized actors be considered ‘credible’ knowledge? This panel welcomes papers exploring “epistemic justice” as a framework for transformative interventions in public policy or institutional programming. We envision works addressing questions such as: How do arguably ‘subordinate’ groups make credible claims in interactions with ‘evidence-based’ government programs, civil society organizations, or development agencies? How are institutional actors empowered to determine criteria for credibility concerning policy successes and failures, and what are the consequences of these decisions? We especially invite perspectives on the role of sociology in empirically demonstrating the mechanisms by which ‘subordinate’ groups are afforded or denied credibility and by which epistemic justice can be achieved or thwarted. To what extent can sociology function as liberatory praxis in epistemic struggles, and how can we as sociologists balance a concern for epistemic justice with our discipline’s own concern for scientific credibility and authority?
Accepted papers:
Session 1Natalie Egan
Short abstract:
Different communities hold varied perspectives on the relationship between weight and health, yet only some are considered to be legitimate knowledge producers in this area. This paper explores emotions and rationality as mediating factors maintaining this sociopolitical hierarchy of knowledge.
Long abstract:
For 30+ years, the weight-centred health paradigm (WCHP) has prevailed in modern Western policy and health science communities, translating into three decades of policy efforts to tackle obesity justified by a goal of improving population health and reducing health inequalities. Concurrently, a growing community of activists (from the fat activism/body liberation movements) and scholars have critiqued anti-obesity efforts from various intertwined social justice perspectives. Historically, these critiques have seldom infiltrated the scientific communities that re(produce) the WCHP. Resultantly, epistemic injustice occurs between producers of the WCHP, who hold significant institutional and political power and activists/scholars who critique the paradigm with little success. This paper studies emotions as a mediating factor that serves to uphold this epistemic injustice and maintain the hegemony of the WCHP in the health science/policy communities. Drawing from an interview study with obesity experts, secondary sources and autoethnographic data from my experience as a researcher positioned in an obesity research group, I explore the dynamics of emotions in relation to debates concerning the WCHP. I identify how the maintenance of epistemic injustice relating to the WCHP is made possible through a fabricated hierarchy of who is considered too emotional to produce legitimised knowledge about weight and who is afforded the label of a rational thinker and subsequently a valid knowledge producer. By identifying examples of where this hierarchy manifests, I offer suggestions for disrupting the socio-political hierarchy of emotions/knowledge relating to the WCHP with the aim of pursuing greater epistemic justice in the health science community.
Matthew Zinsli (University of Wisconsin Madison) Samer Alatout (University of Winsconsin-Madison)
Long abstract:
This paper examines the coordination of diverse world-making projects inherent in the process of setting food quality standards. We use a case study of the dynamics of standard-setting practices within a state-coordinated project to establish a denomination of origin for coffee from the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador. This project, which sought to restrict the marketing use the archipelago’s name to local residents while promoting socio-ecological sustainability of this ‘natural laboratory’ and national park, became a locus of contention among coffee growers, intermediary traders, government officials, and scientists. Drawing on qualitative data collected in 2018 and 2019, including stakeholder interviews and documents related to the project, we explore the divergent practices proposed to determine eligibility to use the denomination of origin. We employ the analytical framework of ‘ontological politics’ to reveal how different modes of coffee qualification enact distinct versions of coffee, and how qualification practices contribute to the construction of competing narratives of the socio-natural history and future trajectories of the Galápagos Islands. Our analysis underscores how quality standards serve as socio-technical objects that both reflect and shape power dynamics within agricultural values chains. Ultimately, this study suggests that the recognition of multiple ontologies can elucidate the political dimensions of seemingly technical endeavors and demonstrates that authoritative knowledge can be both empowering and limiting for actors competing for market space and recognition in global agrofood systems.
Jennifer Singh (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Short abstract:
This paper critically examines the domains of epistemic injustice that exist in major sites of knowledge production in autism research in diagnosis, causes, and caring practices and examines alternative ways of knowing that do not fit the the ideal type represented in scientific knowledge regimes.
Long abstract:
What we know and understand about autism is largely rooted in scientific knowledge production, which, historically, has not emphasized the inclusion of racial and ethnic diverse experiences of living with neurological difference and/or navigating a range of medical, educational, and therapeutic services. Drawing on the ideas of stratified biomedicalization, epistemic injustice, and intersectionality, this paper critically examines the domains of scientific racism that exist in major sites of knowledge production in autism, including research on the diagnosis of autism, the genetic causes of autism, and the quality of care experienced by caregivers who have children with autism. Despite major scientific regimes established to understand autism diagnosis, causes, and caring practices, these sites of knowledge production are limited based on the biased assumptions built into the structures of inclusion that perpetuates the status quo. By examining alternative ways of knowing through qualitative interviews with racial and ethnic minorities who have children with autism, I argue that these ways of knowing affect how people who do not fit into the ideal type represented in scientific knowledge regimes are left invisible in certain diagnostic categories, treatment trajectories, and intersectional realities of living with human conditions that do not fit hegemonic scientific structures. I end by sharing an interdisciplinary model of engagement with diverse families of children with autism within these different spheres of knowledge production (clinical diagnosis, research, and care coordination) to highlight anti-racist approaches that target structural racism that exists in various domains of autism research and practice.
Michael Zanger-Tishler (Harvard)
Long abstract:
This research is still in process, therefore the full abstract is not available as the conclusions may change with further fieldwork.