Epistemic Justice: Whose Knowledge Counts?

Sor Juana insisted that knowledge comes from multiple sources—lived experience, observation, study, reason—not just institutional authority. In policing, epistemic injustice occurs when officer knowledge is automatically trusted while community knowledge is dismissed. A community member's understanding of neighborhood dynamics, family relationships, or someone's character is often ignored; police 'expert' interpretation prevails legally. Across cultural lines, this deepens injustice: officers dismiss community explanation of actions as lies or evasion, while their own interpretations—often filtered through cultural ignorance—become official truth. Building cross-cultural policing requires valuing multiple knowledge sources. Officers should learn from community members as experts in their own contexts. Witness testimony from within cultural communities deserves credibility equivalent to police interpretation. This creates accountability: when police claims contradict community knowledge, both should be examined, not automatically weighted by hierarchy. Sor Juana's insistence on intellectual credibility applies: those who live within communities know patterns that outsiders miss.