EPISTEMIC OPRESSION DA: Normative knowledge production is grounded in ableist understandings that deem the disabled body as unproductive and undeserving -- spills into broader social functions

My sense is that people generally think about disability as consisting of a physical or cognitive “deficit.” This raises all sorts of questions related to, for example, “epistemic oppression” — a form of oppression that occurs when people in positions of power assert that those who are disabled will only benefit from the people they deem as having epistemological expertise and as possessing “genuine” knowledge (very often those who are deemed “able-bodied”). And while it is important not to conflate the dynamics of epistemic oppression within the context of anti-Black racism, I think that it is important that we challenge the differential ways in which knowledge possession is assumed to be devoid vis-à-vis those who are disabled. Could you elaborate on how you understand epistemological oppression within the context of disability studies, and discuss how you conceptualize disabled knowers and the richness and complexity of their knowledge, and how their knowledge can transform epistemic forms of arrogance and hegemony?

There is a long history of disabled people being denied epistemic authority in regard to our own bodyminds and experiences. (I use Margaret Price’s term “bodymind” to emphasize the inextricability of the body and mind and the fact that many impairments are not readily apparent.) The Disability Rights Movement’s slogan “Nothing About Us without Us” is, in part, a challenge to epistemic oppression — which entails the assumption that disabled people are unable to make contributions to shared knowledge, as well as ways in which the disabled people’s knowledge claims are actively undermined. In spite of good intentions, nondisabled “experts” on disability have sometimes made the lives of their patients or students worse by privileging normalization. In other words, health care professionals and educators attempted to get their patients/students to look and function as closely to a mythical “normal” bodymind as possible (e.g., prohibiting D/deaf children from using sign language or forcing children with polio to walk rather than using a wheelchair). There is still an overemphasis on cure rather than helping people to figure out how to live with impairments and chronic illnesses.

Disabled people and our allies continue to demand epistemic justice. I would suggest that a central assumption of disability studies is that disabled people are capable of living worthwhile lives and that we have important contributions to make — including epistemic ones. Unfortunately, these assumptions still seem to go against the grain, and this is readily apparent within philosophy.

When I first read philosophy containing false assertions about the lives of disabled people, I thought that this should be easy to fix. Philosophers are concerned with truth and engaging in just epistemic practices, right? I thought that this lack of knowledge could be corrected through engagement with empirical research and testimonies of disabled people. However, it turns out that the problem is much deeper and more difficult to address. Certain bioethicists, in particular, are so sure that they know about the lives of disabled people that they dismiss any claims that challenge the views they hold, sometimes paying lip service to the positions of disability theorists/activists, but then going on to contradict them. The epistemic arrogance is truly astounding. I now believe that epistemic humility is a necessary condition for the knowledge of disabled people to make any difference in the beliefs of nondisabled knowers such as these bioethicists. Encountering the richness and complexity of this knowledge is not enough; having an openness to being wrong (i.e., demonstrating epistemic humility) and valuing the knowledge of disabled people are both necessary.