The understanding that professional fields are not neutral knowledge systems but living traditions shaped by power, exclusion, and the embodied experiences of practitioners.
Sor Juana didn't simply absorb theological and philosophical traditions; she inhabited them as a woman, a colonial subject, and an intellectual outsider, which transformed what those traditions could mean. This concept challenges the false neutrality of professional knowledge: mathematics has a history of gender exclusion; medicine was built on non-consensual experimentation on enslaved bodies; law developed to protect property over personhood. When professionals engage their disciplines, they inherit this weight. Professional identity develops not through pretending neutrality but through conscious relationship to tradition's historical limitations and whose experiences shaped it. For Sor Juana, engaging theology meant asking who was authorized to interpret scripture, whose spiritual experiences were validated, what kinds of minds were imagined as capable of understanding divine truth. Modern professionals in every field can ask parallel questions: Whose perspectives shaped this discipline's foundational concepts? Whose ways of knowing are excluded from legitimacy? How does my positionality transform my relationship to this tradition? This framework prevents naive participation in systems of intellectual injustice.
Peri can explain this concept, give practical examples, help you decide whether it applies to your situation, or recommend a journey if appropriate.
Explore related journeys or tell Peri what you're working through.