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Epistemic Injustice and Security MASARYK UNIVERSITY Faculty of Social Sciences Department of Political Science Epistemic Injustice and Security Master Thesis David Rypel Supervisor: Mgr. Pavel Dufek, Ph.D. UČO: 415064 Field of Study: Security and Strategic Studies Matriculation Year: 2015 Brno, 2018 Declaration of Originality and Compliance of Academic Ethics I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work. I have identified all material in this text which is not my own work through appropriate referencing and acknowledgement. Where I have quoted from the work of others, I have included the source in the references. Signed: Date: May 30, 2018 Acknowledgements I would like to thank: - Pavel Dufek, supervisor of my thesis, that he trusted me that the topic I selected makes sense. - Debbie Lisle for kindly opening the abyss of critical security studies for me. Without her introduction to margins of international relations, I would have taken the path which led to this thesis much later or never at all. - My parents who allowed me to focus on my studies rather than survival without ever questioning what I do. (I think they do not know that I wrote a bachelor thesis on morality of terrorism.) - My partner for being around and helping me with the list of figures in this thesis. - EU taxpayers and Masaryk University scholarship policy which allowed me to spend almost two years of my studies abroad. Abstract This thesis is concerned with potential benefits of application of the theory of epistemic injustice on cases pertinent to security studies. Its goal was twofold: First, to present the theory of epistemic injustice in the way that will be easily understandable for readers with no background in epistemology. Second, to demonstrate how the theory is relevant to the field of security studies. Towards the fulfilment of the first goal, the author of the thesis presented and explained working of three possible kinds of epistemic injustice, i.e. testimonial, hermeneutical, and contributory. As far as the second goal is concerned, the author briefly presented five already existing applications of the concept of epistemic injustice on cases pertinent to security studies and then proposed his own contribution in the form of integration of epistemic injustice apparatus into securitisation theory. As a result, he offered a version of securitisation framework which is sensitive to epistemic injustice while itself does not contribute to epistemic injustice. Key Words: epistemic injustice, virtue epistemology, social epistemology, securitisation theory, security, ethics Anotace Tato práce se zabývá možnými přínosy aplikace teorie epistemické nespravedlnosti na případy spadající do oboru bezpečnostních studií. Má dva cíle: Zaprvé, představit teorii epistemické nespravedlnosti způsobem snadno pochopitelným pro čtenáře, kteří se v oblasti epistemologie neorientují, a zadruhé, ukázat, čím je tato teorie relevantní pro obor bezpečnostních studií. Za účelem naplnění prvního cíle je v práci představeno a vysvětleno fungování tří možných druhů epistemické nespravedlnosti, tj. “svědectví”, “hermeneutické” a “kontribuční”. Co se týče naplnění druhého cíle, autor nejprve stručně představuje pět existujících aplikací konceptu epistemické nespravedlnosti v oblasti bezpečnostních studií, a poté navrhuje integrovat aparátu epistemické nespravedlnosti do teorie sekuritizace. Vlastním přínosem je návrh sekuritizačního rámce, který bere v potaz epistemickou nespravedlnost, a zároveň k ní sám nepřispívá. Klíčová slova: epistemická nespravedlnost, epistemologie ctnosti, sociální epistemologie, sekuritizační teorie, bezpečnost, etika Table of Contents Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................... 2 1 Epistemic Injustice: A Proposition ....................................................................................................... 5 1.1 Testimonial Injustice ......................................................................................................................... 8 1.2 Hermeneutical Injustice ................................................................................................................. 14 2 Epistemic Injustice: Replies .................................................................................................................. 20 2.1 Distribution of Credibility and Structural Testimonial Injustice ................................... 21 2.2 Epistemic Objectification and Derivatization ........................................................................ 26 2.3 Being Insensitive to Insensitivity: Wilful Ignorance and Contributory Injustice .... 30 3 Security and Epistemic Injustice ......................................................................................................... 39 3.1 Securitisation Theory and Silent Jury ....................................................................................... 43 3.2 From Illocution to Perlocution and Audience with Agency ............................................. 46 3.3 Epistemic Injustice of Securitization Theory ......................................................................... 52 3.4 Epistemic Injustice in Securitisation and Desecuritisation .............................................. 58 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................... 67 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................... 70 List of Figures Table 1: Four Basic Cases of Epistemic Injustice in Securitisation and Desecuritisation and Their Variants ................................................................................................................................................... 61 Character count: 180 103 1 Introduction A young man who escaped from a war-torn country which used to be his home yet fails to convince people that horrors he experienced are real. A woman who is regularly sexually assaulted by her husband yet struggles to find appropriate words to explain to others what is happening to her. A researcher who tries to prove that radical ideas cannot be dealt with brute force yet is treated with ridicule by people who think they know better. These are moments of powerlessness wherein one tries to convey what she or he knows, believes or opines, but for some reason fails. Slightly more than ten years ago, British philosopher Miranda Fricker (2007) published a book in which she asserted that situations like these are not mere accidents. There is a pattern behind them, which correlates with inequalities in power relations. Scholars coming from feminist, postcolonial or critical race theory circles had noticed these moments of distrust and failure in communication before, but Fricker demonstrated that they are not limited to the experience of women or minorities. To the contrary, these situations take place everywhere around us – they are normal. But normal does not mean right. Indeed, situations such as outlined above are unjust and are instances of what Fricker calls epistemic injustice. Her book generated a wave of interest: A number of articles and at least two books (Kidd, Medina, and Pohlhaus Jr. 2017; Medina 2013) followed. This interest led to the evolution of the theory, sometimes in unforeseen ways as Fricker (2017, 59) herself admits. It is thus no longer a project of one author but a theory shaped by valuable insights of scholars with diverse backgrounds, which already lives on its own. It did not raise only theoretical discussion though – it was already applied to cases in settings as diverse as medicine and healthcare, digital environment, the law or cultural heritage1, and often brought interesting observations. Since this thesis is submitted towards the fulfilment of one of the requirements for the Master’s degree in Security and Strategic Studies, you may rightly ask how is this relevant to our field. This is the question I want to pursue in this text. I believe – it is my hypothesis if you will – security studies scholars could benefit from attention to the theory of 1 See, for instance, case studies in Kidd, Medina, and Pohlhaus Jr. (2017) 2 epistemic injustice too. When I started working on this thesis, I did not know how exactly and what my argument will be. Indeed, I approached the task as an “exploratory enterprise”: At the beginning, I had an idea how the theory could be relevant, and it evolved as I proceeded and learnt more. Many things were completely new for me: I am neither a student of philosophy, nor epistemology and I share Ann J. Cahill’s confession that “I am swimming in unfamiliar waters!” (2014, 66). At the same time, I do not write this text for philosophers either. I want to address political scientists, to show them what can we learn from work done in other disciplines, and so to approach our research in a more multidisciplinary way. I thus want to invite you to understand this thesis as a “study trip” to the field of epistemology and ethics. What I present here is what I learnt during this process and what I propose to think about. I, therefore, set two goals that I wish to fulfil in this thesis. First, I want to present Fricker’s formulation of the theory of epistemic injustice and some contributions to it by other authors in the way that will be easily understandable to readers who are not cognizant of epistemological
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