Epistemic Justice and Corruption

Sor Juana was silenced partly because her identity as a woman made her testimony dismissible in her era. Epistemic injustice—the systematic denial of credibility to certain groups—is a corruption vector. When Indigenous peoples, women, workers, or minorities are not believed or heard, their evidence of abuse and fraud is ignored. Corrupt systems weaponize epistemic injustice: they discredit witnesses, delegitimize alternative accounts, and control whose knowledge counts. Fighting corruption requires reversing this: actively listening to those historically excluded, validating their perspectives, and integrating their insights into accountability mechanisms. Sor Juana's struggle models the necessity of expanding who gets to speak, who is believed, and whose knowledge shapes justice. This is not only ethical; it is practically essential to corruption detection and prevention.