The struggle to have one's knowledge, testimony, and intellectual contributions recognized as valid and authoritative against systems that deny credibility to the colonized.
Sor Juana's constant battles for her work to be taken seriously—to be heard as a legitimate theological and philosophical voice—exemplify epistemic injustice: the systematic denial of credibility to certain knowers based on their social position. Miranda Fricker's framework applies: women, the colonized, and religious minorities face credibility deficits imposed by power structures. Sor Juana's brilliance was undeniable yet constantly questioned, her authority questioned by those with institutional power. Postcolonial identity formation requires epistemic justice: the recognition that colonized peoples' knowledge systems, oral histories, ecological wisdom, and intellectual traditions are valid ways of knowing, not inferior approximations. Decolonization involves decentering European epistemology and validating alternative knowledge production. Sor Juana's insistence on her own intellectual authority prefigures the decolonial commitment to epistemic pluralism and the legitimacy of subjugated knowledges.
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