Epistemic Agency, Harms, and the Right to Be Known

The Epistemic Reparations Global Working Group is seeking abstract submissions for the fifth of a series of workshops on epistemic reparations, understood as “intentionally reparative actions in the form of epistemic goods given to those epistemically wronged by parties who acknowledge these wrongs and whose reparative actions are intended to redress them” (Lackey 2022, 70).

This installment will focus on questions at the intersection of epistemic agency, harms, and the right to be known. Topics may include (but are not limited to):

·      What kinds of epistemic harms generate the need for epistemic reparations?

·      How do harms such as invisibility, vilification, and systemic distortion of identity interact with our epistemic agency?

·      How can epistemic reparations restore epistemic agency, and in what contexts?

·      How can decolonial epistemology incorporate or contribute to our understanding of the “right to be known”?

Day 1 of this workshop will consist of a series of interdisciplinary panel discussions organized by Dr. Shayna Plaut, Director of Research at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Invited speakers (complete list TBA) will explore the right to be known in six thematic contexts:

·      Indigenous Legal Traditions

·      Health and Healing

·      Education

·      Community-led Restorying

·      Art/Curation and

·      Media 

Day 2 will consist of five 45-minute philosophy sessions, based on accepted abstracts from this CFA. We would like to particularly foreground First Nations, Inuit, and Métis philosophical voices in this project.

This will be the fifth major event of a three-year collaboration on Epistemic Wrongs, Blame, and Reparations between Jennifer Lackey (Northwestern University), Cameron Boult (Brandon University), and Veli Mitova (University of Johannesburg).

Abstract length: max 500 words

Submission deadline: 30 June, 2024

Email to: boultc [at] brandonu.ca