Epistemic Injustices, Marginalized Knowledges, and Trust Conflicts

International Conference

A central hypothesis of the research initiative “ConTrust – Trust in Conflict” is that trust dynamics are not always harmonious, but driven and even sometimes fostered by conflicts. Thus, one potential type of conflict is about knowledge claims and epistemic positions in society. The planned conference aims to investigate and explore the systematic connections between epistemic injustices, marginalized knowledge, and conflicts of trust.
In this regard, the philosophical debate about epistemic injustices (whose main proponents are, among others, Miranda Fricker and José Medina) has shown how the epistemic trustworthiness of speakers and subjects as knowers is deeply dependent on social hierarchies and structural inequalities. Hence, knowledge and its pervasiveness does not only hinge on epistemological but also on social and political factors. The reciprocal trust of social groups within a society, but also trust in expertise may therefore be wedded into these hierarchies and power relations.
The questions we want to address at the conference are (among others):

• To what extent does the marginalization of certain bodies of knowledge contribute to distrust in societies?
• How is trust in science and expertise influenced by epistemically just or unjust relations within society?
• Can concrete efforts to foster marginalized knowledge resources like Indigenous knowledge help us to epistemically navigate contemporary challenges like the climate catastrophe?
  To better understand these issues, we want to take different perspectives and traditions from social philosophy and political theory into account and don’t restrict ourselves to one philosophical “school” or line of thought

Organized by Regina Schidel and Lukas Sparenborg

Please register in advance gierss@em.uni-frankfurt.de

Program:

Thursday, June 22nd

15:00 Welcome / Introductory Remarks

15:30-17:30 Panel 1

Epistemic Trust and Epistemic Injustices – A perspective from social and political philosophy

Rainer Forst (Frankfurt): The Noumenal Power of Trust: Ideological or Critical

Hilkje Hänel (Potsdam): Silence and Survival as Epistemic Resistance

Franziska Dübgen (Münster): Testimonial Injustices during the NSU Trials. Consequences for the Trust in the German Constitutional Democracy

Comments: Martin Saar

18:00-20:00: Keynote Serene Khader(CUNY New York) (via Zoom): Colonial Epistemic Habits in Moral and Political Philosophy?

Reception afterwards

Friday, June 23rd 

10:00-12:00 Panel 2

The Connection between Trust in Expertise and Epistemic Injustices

Maria Paola Ferretti (Frankfurt): Workplace Safety, Epistemic Duties, and Responsibility 

Nadja El Kassar (Lucerne): Trust and Self-Trust in Expertise 

Regina Schidel (Frankfurt): Trusting Experts – Why Trust in Expertise is Political

Comments: Hanna Pfeifer

12:00- 13:00 Lunch Break

13:00-15:00 Panel 3

The Marginalization of Knowledge and Distrust Dynamics

Oliver Precht (Berlin): Has modernity run out of steam? The challenge of ›post-truth‹

Pavan Malreddy (Frankfurt): Other ways of being human: militants, vagrants and migrants

Melina Kalfelis (Bayreuth): (Non-)Visualizing Harm. Trust and Epistemic Inequality in Media Spaces of Violent Conflict 

Comments: Vinzenz Hediger

15:30 – 17:30 Panel 4
Marginalized Knowledge Resources and Contemporary Challenges

Esme G. Murdock (San Diego): Epistemic Injustice in Courts of Conquest

Dina Townsend und Leo Townsend (Southhampton / Vienna): Epistemic injustice and resistance in consultation

Morten Byskov (Utrecht): Discursive Power Inequality as an Epistemic (Meta-)Injustice and the Underrepresentation of Non-Western Knowledges in Climate Policy and Planning

Comments: Darrel Moellendorf