Epistemic oppression, intersectionality and the epistemology of ignorance in a multicultural, multiple-identity society

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In the age of social media and in multicultural societies where various actors with multiple aspects of identities have expanding opportunities to engage epistemically with each other, epistemic wrongs such as undermining, silencing, language policing, gaslighting and epistemic oppression occur with increasing frequency. Much research has been devoted to how racist or sexist subjects epistemically suppress marginalised groups, but little attention has been given to epistemic oppression committed by those subjects who claim to be anti-racist and anti-sexist or, in short, those who fly the flag for progression. The focus of this research proposal is the investigation of such cases of epistemic oppression. I will try to explore the question, 'How do well-intentioned socio-political subjects epistemically exclude or even oppress marginalised groups?' By socio-political subjects, I mean activists, social media influencers, politicians or just ordinary people who try to promote progressive values, but who are often ignorant of their epistemic privileges. So, the other relevant question is, 'How do epistemically privileged subjects commit epistemic oppression?' or, to be more precise, 'How does a privileged progressive subject whose stated purpose is to fight against all forms of injustice, unknowingly impose epistemic oppression on marginalised groups? What are the epistemic and non-epistemic mechanisms of such oppression?'I will use the case of a movement that I will call 'the good activists' to investigate how progressive movements epistemically oppress marginalised people with different identities or from less privileged backgrounds. The idea of epistemic oppression is interesting in itself, but my concern is to investigate those cases which at first sight do not clearly count as instances of epistemic injustice or silencing. The discussions surrounding epistemic injustice and oppression mostly address the injustice and discrimination perpetrated by oppressive subjects in oppressive societies. In this project, I want to show that epistemic oppression may be committed by progressive subjects in a democratic society. My research proposal is to study, using conceptual tools such as the epistemology of ignorance, rhetorical spaces, standpoint epistemology, and intersectionality, cases of epistemic oppression committed by well-intentioned subjects. However, my research will go beyond the descriptive level: I will try to propose a remedy for such epistemic oppression by using the concept of epistemic responsibility, and more specifically epistemic resistance. So, another interesting question is, 'Who should be considered an epistemically responsible subject?' Is it the privileged subject with more epistemic capacity or the underprivileged subject whose epistemic resistance arises from their unique epistemic standpoint? I believe that this project is not only relevant, but critical, in the current socio-political climate, in which communities are epistemically divided, and marginalised groups are vulnerable to epistemic oppression even by well-intentioned progressive socio-political actors involved in human rights, social media and social movements.