From the political scientist María do Mar Castro Varela:
“Dominant discourses silence those who stand on the other side of truth, rationality, universality, and science. A critical practice must be able to think the unthought of dominant discourses and listen to those who become targets of epistemic violence.” 133
“Epistemic violence” or “epistemic injustice” describes a form of violence intended to problematise the oppression of marginalised groups through dominant discourses. As with all other forms of oppression, the presumed impacts on those affected are primarily relevant. Verifiable facts play a lesser role.
The concept of “epistemic violence” traces back to the essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” by the postcolonial theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.134 In her essay, Spivak addressed the allegedly enforced silence of the so-called “subalterns”: through colonial rule, the oppressed subalterns are deprived of the ability to speak for themselves on every level—including through the destruction of their knowledge, belief, and language systems.135 The concept of epistemic violence is now part of the postcolonial mainstream, using a very broad definition of violence. Particularly critical there are allegedly neutral criteria such as rationality, universality, truth, and science.
From a new-left perspective, the struggle for (epistemic) authority represents a fundamental conflict: dominant groups allegedly systematically oppress the experiences and forms of knowledge of marginalised groups.136 This occurs not for factual reasons or by chance but through malicious intent: marginalised forms of knowledge would endanger dominant “Eurocentric viewpoints” from which dominant groups benefit (see Privileges and Standpoint Theory). Allegedly, marginalised groups can never speak on fair epistemic terrain, which is to be changed through allyship, decolonisation, and deconstruction.137