Identity Restoration and Epistemic Justice

Sor Juana's works directly addressed epistemic injustice—the systematic denial of her status as a knower and truth-teller. Restorative justice must address not only material or relational harm but epistemic harm: when survivors are disbelieved, when their interpretations are invalidated, when their expertise about their own experience is dismissed. This concept calls practitioners to actively restore victims' epistemic standing in their communities and their own self-understanding. Restoration requires public acknowledgment that they were right about what happened, that their analysis matters, and that their voice deserves weight in future decisions. For those causing harm, it means genuinely learning from those they've wronged rather than maintaining defensive certainties. Sor Juana's intellectual legacy teaches that true justice restores people's right to be recognized as authorities on their own experience, as contributors to knowledge, and as thinkers whose insights shape communal understanding and future practice.