Epistemic Injustice and Self-Awareness

Sor Juana fought against epistemic injustice—the dismissal of her intellectual contributions because she was a woman and a colonial subject. This concept names how privilege operates at the level of knowledge itself: whose expertise is trusted, whose questions are deemed worthy, whose interpretations count as authoritative. Acknowledging privilege means becoming aware of whose voices we habitually trust and whose we dismiss without hearing. It requires examining our own tendency to assume competence in those who resemble us and doubt in those who don't. For practitioners, this involves active listening practices, deliberate amplification of marginalized perspectives, and the courage to question our default assumptions about credibility and authority.