The UC Irvine Department of Philosophy and the Center for Knowledge, Technology & Society present: Identities and Epistemic Injustice Conference

Research on epistemic injustice investigates the epistemic harms that people belonging to marginalized groups suffer because of prejudices connected to their social identity. The concept of identity is central in it.

Yet, its presuppositions and implications have not received full consideration. We would like to promote a deeper investigation on this issue through a dialogue with other disciplines and perspectives of research such as feminism, critical race theory, gender and queer studies, and literary theory, in the conviction that such a dialogue would benefit multiple fields of research.

One aspect that the conference will address in particular is that mixed, non-binary, and complex identities show how sometimes it is not the membership within a social group, but the non-belonging, or the refusal to belong, that generates prejudice, violence, and oppression, coming from multiple directions. Examples include children with parents of different races, second generation immigrants, intersex and transgender individuals, and individuals with bisexual and pansexual orientation. The principal goal of the conference is to make this problematization matter in research on epistemic injustice.