Un/Doing Epistemic Violence

In Western academia, knowledge is often seen as being opposed to violence, whereas the latter, separated from its ideational and material context, is reduced to its most visible manifestations. As a consequence, the global entanglements of Western knowledge and the violent conditions of global modernity have become an academic non-issue, obscuring the role of knowledge in colonial and imperial enterprises. In contrast, the concept of epistemic violence brings into focus the constitutive relationship between knowledge, domination and violence in colonial modernity. Building on the critical traditions of feminist, post- and decolonial, and indigenous theorists, as well as including experiences from and within social movements, authors of this special issue explore violent formations of knowledge regarding the Global South and connect them to other forms of violence. They show how deeply embedded epistemic violence is in research practices, scholarly disciplines and academia in general. Furthermore, they search for counter-hegemonic ways of challenging and changing imperial modes of knowing the world and highlight the complex challenges of trying to undo epistemic violence.