Periagoge
Concept
1 min read

The Silenced Voice and Linguistic Justice

Confronting how power systems silence specific bodies and voices, and reclaiming the right to articulate one's own physical and intellectual existence.

Juana
Why It Matters

Sor Juana was commanded to renounce her writings and her intellectual pursuits. Silence was imposed on her as punishment and control. Yet her few surviving letters document her refusal to be erased—she spoke even when told not to, she wrote even when forbidden. The silencing of a body is a denial of its right to exist publicly; breaking that silence is an assertion of identity itself. This concept applies directly to embodied experience: whose voices are silenced in medical encounters, in family systems, in workplaces? Whose bodies are not believed, not heard, not centered? Linguistic justice means recognizing that your right to speak about your body—its experiences, its needs, its boundaries—is inseparable from your right to exist as a full person. The practice is reclaiming narrative authority over your own physical reality.

Helpful guides
Juana
Identity & Justice
Peri
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