EPISTEMIC INJUSTICE AND GENDERED NATIONALISM
Society should form knowledge by including many voices. However, in many human societies the socio-political power dynamics - through the mechanism of socially shared collective identities shaped by the powerful - perpetuates various forms of epistemic injustice and leads to the failure of inclusive knowledge formation. Certain social groups are inappropriately marginalized in the creation, interpretation and validation of knowledge. This research aims at extending the understanding of epistemic injustice to the context of Hindutva nationalism by tracking in it the various forms of epistemic injustice that are perpetuated by gender identity constructions. These injustices contribute to the broader epistemic, moral and social disfunctions in Indian society. Finally, this thesis also explores the ways of overcoming epistemic injustice to achieve inclusive knowledge formation in contemporary Indian society.
Research Objectives
Theoretical: Extending the understanding of epistemic injustice to national identity politics through gender identity constructions.
Empirical: Looking at the social phenomena and analysing how different forms of epistemic injustice manifest in real-life contexts in the Indian political scenario within Hindutva nationalism.
Practical: Exploring the ways and means, particularly epistemic synodality, to achieve collective knowledge formation in divided societies.
Research Questions
How do socio-political power operations, through socially shared collective social identities, lead to different forms of epistemic injustice and the failure of inclusive knowledge formation in pluralistic societies?
How does ‘Epistemic Injustice’ perpetuate -in its different forms such as testimonial injustice, hermeneutical injustice, and contributory injustice- inappropriate exclusion of some social groups from knowledge formation?
Does Hindutva nationalism in its theory and practice commit such epistemic injustices in and through its exclusive social conceptions of India's national identity particularly through gender identity constructions through the controlling images of women that leads to epistemic, moral and social disfunction? If so, how can we achieve collective knowledge formation?
Research Methods
This study, within the framework of social epistemology, employs analytical and logical argumentative methods, conceptual analysis, social analysis and social criticism.
Literature
Fricker, Miranda. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Dotson, Kristie. “Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing.” Hypatia 26, no. 2 (2011): 236–257.
Dormandy, Katherine. “Exploitative Epistemic Trust.” In Trust in Epistemology, edited by Katherine Dormandy, 241–264. London: Routledge, 2020.
Sarkar, Tanika. “Women and the Hindu Right.” Economic and Political Weekly 30, no. 44 (1995): WS51–WS59.
Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar. Essentials of Hindutva. Nagpur: Bharat Prakashan, 1923. Reprinted in Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu? New Delhi: Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 1969.
Supervisor
Univ.- Prof. Dr. Katherine Nordskog Dormandy
Department of Christian Philosophy
Doctoral Candidate
Martin Gnanaprakasam
martin.gnanaprakasam@student.uibk.ac.at
