Knowledge as Relational Justice

For Sor Juana, knowledge was never isolated scholarship—it was a relational practice embedded in her community and her struggle for recognition. In contexts of harm, punitive approaches often silence victims and perpetrators alike, preventing the shared understanding necessary for genuine accountability. Restorative frameworks grounded in knowledge as relational justice create spaces where harm can be fully named, understood, and contextualized. This requires what Sor Juana modeled: rigorous intellectual honesty combined with compassionate curiosity about how systems perpetuate harm. When all parties involved in harm can access and shape the narrative of what happened—and why—restoration becomes possible. This approach treats ignorance and misunderstanding not as individual moral failures but as structural conditions that restorative practice must address through dialogue and truth-telling.