Embodied Inquiry and Lived Epistemology

Though Sor Juana worked within intellectual and religious institutions, her writing constantly returned to the lived reality of her own body, desires, and experience as grounds for knowledge. She refused to abstract herself away or position her body as merely an obstacle to mind. Her work affirms that embodied, lived knowledge—what one learns through sensory, emotional, relational, and physical experience—is epistemically legitimate. In Pacific gender diversity contexts, this means validating that people know their own gender through living it—through how their bodies feel, how they move, how they relate to others, how they experience spiritual or cultural connection. This concept resists the demand that individuals justify their gender through abstract categories or external validation. Instead, embodied inquiry recognizes that each person's lived experience with their own gender is a source of authority and knowledge that deserves respect. Spiritual traditions, relational practices, and bodily knowledge all count.