Epistemic Injustice and Indigenous Women: Toward Centering Indigeneity in Social Work

Affilia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 088610992098526
Author(s):  
Marjorie Johnstone ◽  
Eunjung Lee
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
Indigenous Resistance ◽  
Systemic Analysis ◽  
Life Journey ◽  
Women And Girls ◽  
Miranda Fricker ◽  
Individual Perspective

Using the theoretical framework of epistemic injustice articulated by philosopher Miranda Fricker as an analytic tool, we analyze recent victories of Indigenous feminist activism in gathering the stories of Indigenous women, challenging dominant meta-narratives and rewriting the herstory of Canada. We use the epistemic concept of the hermeneutic gap to consider the implications of this resistance in conjunction with the increased visibility of the intersectional positionality of Indigenous women. To illustrate our analysis, we focus on two case studies. Firstly, an individual perspective through the life journey of a feminist Anishinaabe Activist, Bridgett Perrier. Secondly, we conduct a systemic analysis of the recent Report on the National Inquiry into the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). We close with a discussion on how critical it is for social workers—especially non-Indigenous social workers—to relearn and document the meaning of the MMIWG issues. This includes recognizing Indigenous resistance, activism, and the newly formulated hermeneutic understandings that are emerging. Then, the final task is to apply these concepts to their practice and heed the calls to action which the report calls for.

Evidence-based practice and management-by-knowledge of disability care: rigid constraint or fluid support?

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabella Pistone ◽  
Allan Lidström ◽  
Ingemar Bohlin ◽  
Thomas Schneider ◽  
Teun Zuiderent-Jerak ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Evidence Based Practice ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Dynamic Interactions ◽  
Local Practices ◽  
Rigid Constraint ◽  
Care Practices

Background: Although increasingly accepted in some corners of social work, critics have claimed that evidence-based practice (EBP) methodologies run contrary to local care practices and result in an EBP straitjacket and epistemic injustice. These are serious concerns, especially in relation to already marginalised clients.Aims and objectives: Against the backdrop of criticism against EBP, this study explores the ramifications of the Swedish state-governed knowledge infrastructure, ‘management-by-knowledge’, for social care practices at two care units for persons with intellectual disabilities.Methods: Data generated from ethnographic observations and interviews were analysed by applying a conceptual framework of epistemic injustice; also analysed were national, regional and local knowledge products within management-by-knowledge related to two daily activity (DA) units at a social care provider in Sweden.Findings: In this particular case of disability care, no obvious risks of epistemic injustice were discovered in key knowledge practices of management-by-knowledge. Central methodologies of national agencies did include perspectives from social workers and clients, as did regional infrastructures. Locally, there were structures in place that focused on creating a dynamic interplay between knowledge coming from various forms of evidence, including social workers’ and clients’ own knowledge and experience.Discussion and conclusions: Far from being a straitjacket, in the case studied management-by-knowledge may be understood as offering fluid support. Efforts which aim at improving care for people with disabilities might benefit from organisational support structures that enable dynamic interactions between external knowledge and local practices.<br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>Examining one case of disability care in Sweden, both social workers’ and clients’ experiences were included in EBP infrastructures.</li><br /><li>In this study, Swedish EBP infrastructures functioned more like fluid support than a straitjacket.</li><br /><li>Organisational structures that combine different knowledge sources at service providers can minimise the risk of epistemic injustice within social care.</li></ul>

scholarly journals “Willing Victims”: The Prevalence of Violence And Public Discourse against Indigenous Women and Girls

INvoke ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassidy Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
Women And Girls ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Police Abuse

Drawing on the current research, I argue that the extensive violence against Canada's Indigenous women and girls is enabled by public discourses that rely heavily on racist stereotypes. I use Razack's theoretical framework of "gendered disposibility" and "colonial terror" as a lense for critically viewing violence against Indigenous women and girls. To demonstrate the severity of violence, evidence from the Highway of Tears cases, incidents of police abuse, and the creation of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls are all covered. 

scholarly journals Hagar and Epistemic Injustice: An Intercultural and Post-colonial Analysis of Genesis 16

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Beth E. Elness-Hanson
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
The Core ◽  
Epistemic Justice ◽  
Miranda Fricker ◽  
Woman's Voice

Having one's voice heard and being known by one's name are foundational aspects of respect and human dignity. Likewise, being able to contribute to shared understanding is at the core of epistemic justice. This intercultural and post-colonial inquiry of Gen 16 considers the Egyptian Hagar-known by her foreign Semitic name meaning "Fleeing One"-as an example of epistemic injustice. Integrating Miranda Fricker 's work on epistemic injustice, this study espouses the justice of hearing and seeing the marginalised and oppressed, as exemplified by Yhwh. As the Egyptian woman's voice- once ignored-gives testimony within the text to a fuller understanding of God, so also listening to/seeing other contemporary African scholars' voices/writings opens one's ears/eyes to fuller understandings of God today. These voices include the seminal work of David Tuesday Adamo, a vanguard in African biblical hermeneutics, in whose honour this examination is written.

Responding to Epistemic Injustice against Child Soldiers

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 662-700
Author(s):  
Jean Chrysostome K. Kiyala
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Child Soldiers ◽  
Social Experiences ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Research Outcomes ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Miranda Fricker

Abstract This empirical study examines the impact of epistemic injustice on child soldiers while exploring the potential of the Baraza structure – a local jurisprudence in the Democratic Republic of Congo – to pursue the “the best interests of the child” principle, particularly in the process of holding young soldiers accountable. Epistemic injustice, conceptually developed by Miranda Fricker, consists of “testimonial injustice”, when the hearer gives a deflated level of credibility to a speaker’s word due to prejudice; “hermeneutical injustice”, which takes place when a structural breach in collective interpretive imagination resources unfairly disadvantages a person or social group when trying to render intelligible their social experiences; and “distributive epistemic injustice”, which happens when “epistemic goods” (education and information) are inequitably distributed. The research outcomes suggest that Baraza jurisprudence has the potential to avert epistemic injustice, and to promote a non-discriminatory treatment of accused former child and adolescent soldiers.

scholarly journals Screening Indigenous Bodies

Screen Bodies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. v-x
Author(s):  
Brian Bergen-Aurand
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
North America ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Inland Northwest ◽  
Women And Girls ◽  
The Many ◽  
News Interview

This issue acknowledges the work of Rosalie Fish (Cowlitz), Jordan Marie Daniels (Lakota), and the many others who refuse to ignore the situation that has allowed thousands of Indigenous women and girls to be murdered or go missing across North America without the full intervention of law enforcement and other local authorities. As Rosalie Fish said in an interview regarding her activism on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG),"I felt a little heavy at first just wearing the paint. And I think that was . . . like my ancestors letting me know . . . you need to take this seriously: “What you’re doing, you need to do well.” And I think that’s why I felt really heavy when I first put on my paint and when I tried to run with my paint at first. . . . I would say my personal strength comes from my grandmas, my mom, my great grandma, and I really hope that’s true, that I made them proud." (Inland Northwest Native News interview)

scholarly journals Who Receives the Gift of Life?

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-11
Author(s):  
Meghan Cardy
Keyword(s):  
Organ Donation ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
Regulatory Body ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
National Media ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Canadian Health ◽  
Organ Donations ◽  
Women And Girls

An organ donation is a matter of life and death in the most literal sense, meaning the Trillium Gift of Life Organ Donation Network, the regulatory body for organ donations in Ontario, is aptly named. In December of 2017, Delilah Saunders, an Inuk activist for the rights of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, went into acute liver failure and was refused a spot on their waiting list. What was the reason the Trillium network cited in refusing Ms. Saunders?  She had failed to meet the requirement of a prior sixth-month period of sobriety, a sixth month period wherein she had also been called to testify on the 2014 murder of her sister Loretta at the National Inquiry on Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls. The refusal gained national media attention and sparked furious debate, especially regarding the larger issue of the discriminatory experiences of Indigenous women in the Canadian health system. This paper argues that the policy that led to the decision to refuse Delilah Saunders a liver transplant, when analyzed through the intersecting lenses of gender and settler-colonialism, displays the continued commitment of Canada to the settler-colonial logic of elimination, especially regarding Indigenous women.

scholarly journals Attention, Representation, and Unsettlement in Katherena Vermette’s The Break, or, Teaching and (Re)Learning the Ethics of Reading

Humanities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 164
Author(s):  
Cynthia R. Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Ethics Of Reading ◽  
Sexualized Violence ◽  
Literary Ethics ◽  
Classroom Conversations ◽  
Women And Girls

Theories of literary ethics often emphasize either content or the structural relationship between text and reader, and they tend to bracket pedagogy. This essay advocates instead for an approach that sees literary representation and readerly attention as interanimating and that considers teaching an important aspect of an ethics of reading. To support these positions, I turn to Katherena Vermette’s 2016 novel The Break, which both represents the urgent injustice of sexualized violence against Indigenous women and girls and also metafictionally comments on the ethics of witnessing. Describing how I read with my students the novel’s insistent thematization of face-to-face encounters and practices of attention as an invitation to read with Emmanuel Levinas and Simone Weil, I explicate the text’s self-aware commentary on both the need for readers to resist self-enlargement in their encounters with others’ stories and also the danger of generalizing readerly responsibility or losing sight of the material realities the text represents. I source these challenges both in the novel and in my students’ multiple particularities as readers facing the textual other. Ultimately, the essay argues for a more careful attention to which works we bring into our theorizing of literary ethics, and which theoretical frames we bring into classroom conversations.

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