CFP: Information Segregation: Mechanisms and Consequences

Physical segregation of human beings has an epistemic aspect: when individuals are required to occupy separate spaces, information is consequently segregated, creating barriers to the generation and transmission of knowledge.  If there is a norm that says folks who live uptown ought to stay uptown and folks who live downtown ought to stay downtown, an obvious consequence will be ignorance of what things are like on the other side of town (with asymmetries between uptown and downtown kinds of ignorance familiar from standpoint and feminist theory).  This kind of ignorance is a familiar feature of racial segregation, and more broadly of norms that proscribe freedom of movement.  This conference is devoted to discussion of the mechanisms that sustain information segregation and its epistemological, ethical, and political consequences, along with related issues in ethics, political philosophy, and social epistemology.  

Our questions include:

• Does physical segregation entail information segregation?    
• Is information segregation always problematic? (Consider e.g. norms establishing privacy.) Are some forms inevitable? (Consider e.g. information about the phenomenal qualities of your lived experience.)
• Who is responsible for the ignorance that constitutes information segregation?  What duties do individuals, institutions, and the state have to mitigate information segregation?
• What role does information segregation play in sustaining injust social and political systems?
• Does information segregation constitute a violation of individuals' right to know?
• How do communication technologies (social media platforms, vertical video, chatbots) contribute to or mitigate information segregation?
• Repairing relationships sometimes comes with a decision to "forgive and forget"; should this be taken literally, as prescribing ignorance of past transgressions or trauma?  

Speakers:

• Joanna Burch-Brown (University of Bristol) 
• Allan Hazlett (Washington University in St. Louis)
• Ryan Nefdt (University of Cape Town)
• Brianna Toole (Claremont McKenna College)

If you would like to present at the conference, please send a 500-word abstract of a talk, to be presented in 30-40 minutes, to [email protected] by January 15th, 2026.  Acceptance decisions will be made by February 15th.