Epistemic Justice and Recognition

Sor Juana faced systematic epistemic injustice—her interpretations dismissed, her intellectual contributions attributed to others or deemed inappropriate for her station. Achieving epistemic justice means recognizing her and others like her as legitimate authorities on their own experiences and valid contributors to knowledge. This concept addresses how political identity across cultures is diminished when certain groups are treated as incapable of reasoning, interpreting, or understanding. Multicultural societies struggle with epistemic injustice when they privilege some voices as authoritative while dismissing others as biased or unqualified. Sor Juana's insistence on her right to interpret scripture, engage in philosophical debate, and contribute to intellectual discourse was fundamentally about achieving recognition as a knower. True political identity and inclusion require not merely tolerance but genuine acknowledgment that people from all cultural backgrounds possess reasoning capacity and legitimate perspective.