Abstract
Epistemic injustices occur when individuals are wronged in their capacity as knowers due to social prejudices and power dynamics, limiting participation in knowledge production and transmission. Drawing on Miranda Fricker’s foundational categories – testimonial injustices (credibility deficits from identity bias) and hermeneutical injustices (interpretive resource gaps) – this chapter expands to related forms like epistemic silencing, appropriation, exploitation, trespassing, and dialogic injustice, illustrated via Shakespearean characters (e. g. Desdemona, Calpurnia) to reveal individual harms (psychological damage, exclusion) and societal costs (inequality reproduction, collective knowledge impoverishment). Tracing feminist and critical race theory roots – from Wollstonecraft’s rationality critiques and Sojourner Truth’s intersectional testimony (via Cavarero’s narratable self ) to Medina’s active ignorance and epistemic virtues – this analysis highlights the discourse’s transformative aim. Contemporary cases like the #MeToo public discussion exemplify the transformative potential and the resistances that emerge when marginalised subjects reclaim their epistemic agency. From a political-philosophical point of view, engaging interdisciplinarily illuminates contemporary manifestations of the phenomenon and implications for democratic publics.