Putting Epistemic Justice into Practice: The Case of the Knowledge Encounter

Abstract: Epistemic justice is a vital yet elusive goal for the field of bioethics. Although epistemic justice has previously been conceptualized as the leveling of hierarchies from knowledge generation to application and identified as a relevant consideration for international conference site selection, guidance for implementing epistemic justice in academic practice remains insufficient. This presentation explores a collaborative approach to committing to and implementing epistemic justice based on a particular knowledge encounter project led by traditional masters and anthropologists in Brazil. The knowledge encounter creates an environment of symmetric exchanges between academicians and traditional masters from native Brazilian societies, quilombos (rural communities formed by fugitive slaves), and folk art groups. The masters write in partnership with researchers and produce collaborative research and teaching projects aimed at decolonizing academic thought and practice within the scope of higher education. Further, we elaborate upon the quilombola master of knowledge Antonio Bispo’s concepts of confluence and transfluence. Confluence, based on rivers encountering each other, refers to respect for differences and sharing knowledge in direct relations. Transfluence, inspired by the movement of water in the atmosphere, connects ideas from people in diaspora around the globe. We argue that this approach, although developed in a particular disciplinary and geographic context, exemplifies epistemic justice in ways that are instructive for bioethics scholarship.

Cíntia Engel – Postdoctoral Fellow, Bioethics and Health Humanities, University of Texas Medical Branch; Grayson Jackson, BA – Bioethics and Health Humanities, University of Texas Medical Branch