The reclamation of lived experience as valid knowledge source and evidence, particularly against institutional claims to exclusive authority and universal truth.
Sor Juana constantly referenced her own experience—her learning, her observations, her thoughts—as legitimate grounds for knowledge claims, challenging the ecclesiastical monopoly on authority. She insisted that her female, Mexican, colonial perspective offered valid understanding unavailable to European male clergy. This assertion of personal experience as authoritative appears across liberation movements: women claiming knowledge from their lives, colonized peoples validating indigenous wisdom, marginalized communities trusting their own perception over expert gaslighting. In systems that deny certain groups' experiences—that say women don't think logically, colonized peoples can't govern, workers don't understand economics—reasserting the authority of personal experience becomes epistemologically radical. This concept legitimizes knowledge that emerges from specific locations and perspectives rather than claiming false universality. It validates experiential knowing alongside abstract theorizing and protects individuals from having their own experiences invalidated by institutional authority.
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