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In this paper, the assumptions of Miranda Fricker’s theory of epistemic (in)justice read in the context of the neo-Wittgensteinian philosophical trend, also called therapeutic or resolute approach, will be approximated. The theory in question concerns the issue of unequal participation of the experiences of specific marginalised individuals or their groups in the practices of legal meaning-making. The aim of the paper is to show the role of the said theory in legal theory. In the first step, I will discuss the main assumptions of the theory of epistemic (in)justice and its varieties from the perspective of the lawyer-layperson epistemic dependence. I will also present normative proposals for implementing the ideal of epistemic justice as well as a justification for abandoning such a research approach. In the second step, I will show an alternative to normative approaches in the form of a theoretical innovation consisting in supplementing the assumptions of the epistemic (in)justice theory with a therapeutic-resolute reading of the late Wittgenstein in the hermeneutic perspective. In the third step, I will demonstrate that the full application of the theoretical innovation presented in the previous steps within legal institutions requires taking into account the critical category of legal imagination related to “playing” or the performance of law (the game activity) in the sense of performance studies. The fourth step will be to identify sensitive legal institutions that can be improved by including the categories proposed by the theory in question while taking into account the concept of hermeneutic therapy derived from Type III deliberation. In order to illustrate the application possibilities of the theory of epistemic (in)justice in the area of law, I will use a case study. I will apply the following methods: analytical, thick description, and critical legal studies with elements of feminist research methodology.

Abstract The British model of harm reduction has been referenced as a pioneering approach to substance use in Europe. While many have described the development of UK drug policy through different governments, few studies have focused on the role that drug user activists played in the UK drug policy reform movement. We examine the different conceptualisations of UK drug user activists in literature, including published academic journals and grey literature (news articles, podcasts, websites and unpublished dissertations). We describe the different conceptualisations of ‘the drug user activist’ based on chronological periods relevant to drug policy, namely: Pre-Misuse of Drugs Act (1870–1971), Misuse of Drugs Act (1971–1988), Thatcherite and AIDS crisis (1988–1998), New Labour and Internet (1998–2010), and Contemporary (2010 to present). In the 1900s, we see a shift from drug users portrayed as victims coming from privileged backgrounds to middle class people who displayed problematic behaviours. After the passage of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, drug user activists started to organise themselves and deliver education and outreach services. This was further amplified during the AIDS crisis and the Thatcherite era where drug users were involved in developing what later became the model for the public health approach to substance use. Drug user engagement with the government was strengthened during the New Labour government with the formation of the National Treatment Authority. Outside of government, drug users formed alliances which were crucial in ensuring accountability from the government. Upon the abolishment of the NTA, the organisations of drug users weakened. Drug user activists continued their initiatives, albeit on a smaller scale, while trying to rebuild the drug user movement. Further forms of documentation are needed to develop a more holistic historical account of drug user activism in the UK.

The British model of harm reduction has been referenced as a pioneering approach to substance use in Europe. While many have described the development of UK drug policy through different governments, few studies have focused on the role that drug user activists played in the UK drug policy reform movement. We examine the different conceptualisations of UK drug user activists in literature, including published academic journals and grey literature (news articles, podcasts, websites and unpublished dissertations). We describe the different conceptualisations of 'the drug user activist' based on chronological periods relevant to drug policy, namely: Pre-Misuse of Drugs Act (1870–1971), Misuse of Drugs Act (1971–1988), Thatcherite and AIDS crisis (1988–1998), New Labour and Internet (1998–2010), and Contemporary (2010 to present). In the 1900s, we see a shift from drug users portrayed as victims coming from privileged backgrounds to middle class people who displayed problematic behaviours. After the passage of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, drug user activists started to organise themselves and deliver education and outreach services. This was further amplified during the AIDS crisis and the Thatcherite era where drug users were involved in developing what later became the model for the public health approach to substance use. Drug user engagement with the government was strengthened during the New Labour government with the formation of the National Treatment Authority. Outside of government, drug users formed alliances which were crucial in ensuring accountability from the government. Upon the abolishment of the NTA, the organisations of drug users weakened. Drug user activists continued their initiatives, albeit on a smaller scale, while trying to rebuild the drug user movement. Further forms of documentation are needed to develop a more holistic historical account of drug user activism in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smartphone apps might offer a low-threshold approach to the detection of mental health conditions, such as depression. Based on the gathering of ‘passive data,’ some apps generate a user’s ‘digital phenotype,’ compare it to those of users with clinically confirmed depression and issue a warning if a depressive episode is likely. These apps can, thus, serve as epistemic tools for affected users. From an ethical perspective, it is crucial to consider epistemic injustice to promote socially responsible innovations within digital mental healthcare. In cases of epistemic injustice, people are wronged specifically as epistemic agents, i.e., agents of the production and distribution of knowledge. We suggest that epistemic agency relies on different resource- and uptake-related preconditions which can be impacted by the functionality of passive self-tracking apps. We consider how this can lead to different forms of epistemic injustice (testimonial, hermeneutical, and contributory injustice) and analyze the influence of the apps’ use on epistemic practices on an individual level, in mental healthcare settings, and on the structural level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informed by a combined framework of 'translanguaging' and 'epistemic injustice', this paper examines how a group of teachers and students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds negotiated their knowledge participation through translanguaging in an English medium instruction (EMI) degree program at a Chinese university. Data were collected over a 12-month classroom ethnography, including lesson recordings, stimulated recalls, and reflexive journals. A thematic analysis of the data reveals that transnational teachers and students actively employed translanguaging to challenge the prevailing hegemony of Western thinking and knowing in the EMI environment. We identified three key translanguaging capacities that facilitated transformative knowledge negotiation: (1) counteracting testimonial injustice; (2) providing hermeneutical resources; and (3) enhancing the sensitivity of trans-epistemic practices. Our study attests to the value of translanguaging as a transformative strategy to generate epistemic access for transnational students engaged in EMI learning, informing efforts to foster educational equity in the internationalization of higher education and to empower transnational teachers and students to reclaim their epistemic contribution capacities in the EMI context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Existing distributed leadership (DL) theories tend to focus on distributing financial, material and human resources in order to enhance school performance. However, their impact appears controversial. Critical scholars assert that using DL to promote trust and democracy can be a self-fulfilling prophecy orchestrated by few formal leaders. When being misused as a managerial tool, DL can reinforce epistemic injustice in school. In this conceptual paper, we retheorise DL through the lens of epistemic injustice. Drawing on the concepts of testimonial, hermeneutical and systemic injustice, we analyse how DL practices potentially marginalise, silence, and reject individuals as knowledge contributors due to their deflated credibility, the lack of concepts or language, and systemic discrimination. To build epistemic justice and reciprocity into DL, we propose three moves: building trust and self-trust; re-distributing epistemic resources; and reconfiguring relational justice. This paper makes a theoretical contribution by explicating why and how epistemic injustice is done to disadvantaged individuals in DL. It also serves as the theoretical foundation for future empirical investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research on English-medium instruction (EMI) has primarily focused on language-related challenges with scant attention paid to how language is entangled with epistemic access and epistemic injustice. Informed by the perspective of "epistemic (in)justice", this study focused on how a cohort of students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds negotiate a more epistemologically effective and equal access to knowledge negotiation in an EMI international relations master's program in a Chinese university. Data were drawn from classroom observation, semi-structured interviews, and students' reflexive journals. Qualitative thematic analysis of the data revealed unequal power relations in students' epistemic participation and their resulting epistemic silence in classroom discussions. By illustrating how students cope with the epistemic challenges by drawing on individual-cognitive and social-cognitive resources, the findings suggest potential strategies for transnational students to counter the hegemony of English in EMI learning contexts. Implications for decoloniality in EMI education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Sweden, support and service for people with disabilities is provided under the Swedish disability legislation, which has a clear focus on the individual’s right to a life like that of any other citizen and on promoting equality and participation in society. Nevertheless, having a physical impairment makes it clear that equal mental health care is not provided in practice. This becomes particularly salient when there is a need for mental health in-patient care. In this article, the aim is to explore our own experiences of epistemic injustice in relation to mental health care provision in a situation where one of us has a mobility impairment that require the presence of personal assistants in everyday life. Critical personal narrative is applied to highlight the different, but intertwined experiences of a young female mental health user with a physical disability and her mother. Diary entrances, shared discussions and extracts from health care records are used to illustrate how epistemic injustice may occur in health care practices. In the analysis, we use Fricker’s concepts that relate to different aspects of epistemic injustice, to show how power is exerted. Healthcare professionals’ inability to value and integrate patients experience-based knowledge into practice where the lack of a holistic perspective visualizes what happens when people do not fit into predefined categories. Instead of strengthening patients’ rights, health care professionals discredit patients’ and family members knowledge, and thereby giving themselves epistemic privilege. People with the combined experience of both disabilities and mental health issues are vulnerable to epistemic injustice and epistemic harm since they are commonly denied both epistemic credibility and authority. Our results highlight the importance of counteracting resilient structures of social privilege and power and identifying and, in as far as possible, removing the mechanisms that exclude the epistemic resources of people with disabilities and their family members from being part of shared epistemic resources.

When an individual's experience is discredited and their views silenced in conversation, epistemic injustice ensues, resulting in an ontological attack on the individual's human dignity. I examine how social workers claim to know and construct the facts of clients' experiences, subsequently categorizing them in accordance with professional and institutional knowledge. These constructs may differ from the clients' own experiences, perpetuating epistemic injustice. Elaborating a process of fact construction and categorization in two case examples, I interrogate the inevitable workings of power at multiple levels during assessment. I argue categorization as a site of epistemic injustice serving three functions: permitting dominant discourses to be taken-for-granted and to legitimize professional actions, framing interactional tasks to align with professional and institutional agendas, and enticing clients and workers with activity-bound accountability, obligation, and entitlement. This analysis invites social workers to reflect critically on how to resist epistemic and social injustice in everyday assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tries to understand the power of knowledge within collaborative care networks to provide insights for designing successful collaboration within care networks by combining intersectionality and epistemic (in)justice. Becoming an informal carer for someone with an acquired brain injury (ABI) causes a dramatic disruption of daily life. Collaboration between professionals and carers with a migration background may result in unjust and unfair situations within care networks. Carer experiences are shaped by aspects of diversity which are subject to power structures and processes of social (in)justice in care networks. In this study, intersectionality was used to both generate complex in-depth insights into the different active layers of carer experiences and focus on within-group differences. Intersectionality was combined with the theoretical concept of epistemic (in)justice to unravel underlying dynamics in collaborative care networks contributing to the understanding that carers with a migration background are often not seen as 'knowers of reality.' This qualitative study conducted in the Netherlands between 2019 and 2022 incorporated three informal group conversations (N = 32), semi-structured interviews (N = 21), and three dialogue sessions (N = 7) with carers caring for someone with an ABI. A critical friend and a community of practice, with carers, professionals, and care recipients (N = 8), contributed to the analysis. Three interrelated themes were identified as constituting different layers of the carer experience: (a) I need to keep going , focusing on carers' personal experiences and how experiences were related to carers social positioning; (b) the struggle of caring together , showing how expectations of family members towards carers added to carer burden; and (c) trust is a balancing act , centering on how support from professionals shaped carers' experiences, in which trusting professionals' support proved challenging for carers, and how this trust was influenced by contextual factors at organizational and policy levels. Overall, the need for diversity-responsive policies within care organizations is apparent. Carers with a migration background need to feel heard so they can meaningfully tailor care to meet recipients' needs. • This study used an approach combining intersectionality and epistemic (in)justice. • Generating theoretical and practical insight in lived experiences of migrant carers. • Carers face racialization and silencing, impacting their health and wellbeing. • Care organizations should put diversity-response policies into practice. • Dialogue to address discrimination in care networks should be emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contrast between third- and first-personal accounts of the experiences of autistic persons has much to teach us about epistemic injustice and epistemic agency. This paper argues that bringing about greater epistemic justice for autistic people requires developing a relational account of epistemic agency. We begin by systematically identifying the many types of epistemic injustice autistic people face, specifically with regard to general assumptions regarding autistic people's sociability or lack thereof, and by locating the source of these epistemic injustices in neuronormativity and neurotypical ignorance. We then argue that this systematic identification pushes us to construe epistemic agency as resulting from a fundamentally relational and dynamic process between an individual, others around them, and their social, cultural, or institutional environment, rather than as a fixed and inherent property of individuals. Finally, we show how our relational account of epistemic agency allows us to introduce the novel concepts of epistemic disablement and epistemic enablement. We argue that these two concepts allow us to more accurately track the mechanisms that undermine or facilitate epistemic agency, and thereby to better understand how epistemic injustice arises and to design more effective interventions to foster greater epistemic justice for autistic people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of a pluralistic perspective on research design, processes of data collection and analysis and dissemination of findings, has the potential to enable psychotherapy research to make a more effective contribution to building a just society. A review of the key features of the concept of pluralism is followed by a historical analysis of the ways in which research in counselling, psychotherapy and related disciplines has moved in the direction of a pluralistic position around knowledge creation. Core principles of a pluralistic approach to research are identified and explored in the context of a critical case study of contemporary research into psychotherapy for depression, examples of pluralistically oriented research practices, and analysis of a pluralistic conceptualisation of the nature of evidence. Implications of a pluralistic perspective for research training and practice are discussed. Pluralistic inquiry that emphasises dialogue, collaboration, epistemic justice and the co-existence of multiple truths, creates opportunities for individuals, families and communities from a wide range of backgrounds to co-produce knowledge in ways that support their capacities for active citizenship and involvement in open democratic decision-making. To fulfil these possibilities, it is necessary for psychotherapy research to be oriented towards social goals that are sufficiently relevant to both researchers and co-participants to harness their passion and work together for a common good.

The adoption of a pluralistic perspective on research design, processes of data collection and analysis and dissemination of findings, has the potential to enable psychotherapy research to make a more effective contribution to building a just society. A review of the key features of the concept of pluralism is followed by a historical analysis of the ways in which research in counselling, psychotherapy and related disciplines has moved in the direction of a pluralistic position around knowledge creation. Core principles of a pluralistic approach to research are identified and explored in the context of a critical case study of contemporary research into psychotherapy for depression, examples of pluralistically oriented research practices, and analysis of a pluralistic conceptualisation of the nature of evidence. Implications of a pluralistic perspective for research training and practice are discussed. Pluralistic inquiry that emphasises dialogue, collaboration, epistemic justice and the co-existence of multiple truths, creates opportunities for individuals, families and communities from a wide range of backgrounds to co-produce knowledge in ways that support their capacities for active citizenship and involvement in open democratic decision-making. To fulfil these possibilities, it is necessary for psychotherapy research to be oriented towards social goals that are sufficiently relevant to both researchers and co-participants to harness their passion and work together for a common good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ways that multilingual children attempt to access the English medium curriculum in Cameroonian primary education. We focus on Francophone Yaoundé where there has been a sharp rise in the number of children from predominantly Francophone multilingual homes attending English medium schools. The paper draws from a child-centred case study and data generated through classroom observations, child-group and individual interviews and recordings of student interactions around unsupervised tasks to show how learners are drawing from their multilingual resources to attempt to transgress monolingual norms in the classroom. The data also shows that learners are doing what they can to 'get by' but they are doing this in ways that are not supported by policy, pedagogy, or teaching materials. The paper concludes with a discussion of the ways that monolingual policies epistemically exclude children in an immensely complex multilingual context and draws implications for more inclusive policy and classroom practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on epistemic injustice currently displays a logocentric or propositional bias that excludes people with intellectual disabilities from the scope of epistemic agency and the demands of epistemic justice. This paper develops an account of epistemic agency and injustice that is inclusive of both people with and people without intellectual disabilities. I begin by specifying the hitherto undertheorized notion of epistemic agency. I develop a broader, pluralist account of epistemic agency, which relies on a conception of knowledge that accounts not only for propositional knowing, but also for other types of knowing that have been largely neglected in debates on epistemic injustice and agency. Based on this pluralist account of epistemic agency, I then show that people with intellectual disabilities qualify as epistemic agents and therefore as subjects of epistemic justice. Finally, I argue that this pluralist account of epistemic agency pushes us to revisit the current conception of epistemic injustice and to expand its taxonomy in two important ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of the article is on how knowledge is created, who creates knowledge, how knowledge is co-constructed, whose knowledge is excluded and how knowledge is being used to challenge inequalities and strengthen social movement capacity. This article grew from a fascinating conversation that the three of us had in Montreal in September of 2019. We decided to share our stories about knowledge and justice with a wider audience in part as a way for us to reflect further on the meaning of our initial conversation, but also to invite others into the discussion. Baptiste Godrie works in a research centre (CREMIS) affiliated with Quebec's health care and social services system, Isabel Heck works with the anti-poverty organization Parole d'excluEs, both affiliated to universities, and Budd Hall works at the University of Victoria and is the Co-Chair of the UNESCO Chair in Community-Based research and social responsibility in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Museums do not simply reflect the world; they shape and mobilise our seeing and thus knowing of the world. As highly trusted, authoritative institutions, museums educate a common sense of historical, social, aesthetic and cultural value. Despite efforts to change, feminist cultural theorists remind us that women in all their diversity continue to be excluded or problematically imagined in stereotypical ways in museum representations and discourses. These epistemologies of mastery hide in plain sight to preserve and perpetuate the hermeneutical gap of gendered epistemic injustice. This article describes the Feminist Museum Hack, an adaptable, methodological, analytical, and interventionist feminist adult education tool we have designed to develop a feminist oppositional gaze that can see that which does not wish to be seen. We illustrate how museums can act as critical spaces of feminist teaching and learning to render visible and challenge epistemic gender injustice and encourage the resistant imagination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I explore the position that the transformation and decolonisation of the education curriculum in Africa constitute a way of attaining epistemic justice. Drawing on Miranda Fricker's seminal work, epistemic justice is understood as partly residing in the genuine acknowledgement and acceptance of the contribution of the indigenous people of Africa to knowledge generation, and involves the significant presence of their knowledge paradigms in the formal education curriculum presently dominated by Western knowledge paradigms. I present the argument that epistemic justice ought to surpass this parameter and lead to the awakening of the agency of learners, such that they contribute meaningfully to the determination of their own destiny in life. This dimension has been largely neglected, as defenders of decolonisation through transformation are often preoccupied with attaining epistemic justice, that is, recognition and acceptance of the epistemological paradigm of the indigenous people of Africa as one among knowledges that ought to inform the education curriculum in Africa. I propose here that the problem that education suffers in Africa surpasses the problem of exclusion of the indigenous people's knowledge paradigms, to include, most importantly, how such knowledge paradigms could be of use in responding to their prevailing circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A client's experience of being heard and understood by a social worker contributes to not only fostering alliance and positive outcomes in practice, but also positioning the client as the knower of their own experience. One's capacity to be recognized as a trustworthy conveyer of knowledge is essential to achieving a sense of human value. Philosopher Miranda Fricker describes this recognition as epistemic justice. When the client's experiences are discredited/marginalized, epistemic injustice occurs. We apply these constructs to clinical social work practice to explore how social workers accomplish or fail at the task of empathically listening and conveying understanding to clients and subsequently, accomplishing or failing epistemic justice. Using Conversation Analysis, we conduct a turn-by-turn analysis of videotaped social work encounters in a community mental health agency. Our findings identify and illustrate the moment-by-moment discursive patterns in both epistemically just and unjust clinical social work encounters. The identified discursive patterns can be used for the clinical training of social workers, encouraging critical reflection on their own everyday conversations toward promoting epistemic justice. This study thus has implications for social work education as an illustrative example of making a link between micro practice skills and macro justice issues in social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]