Epistemic Inequality has always existed, but as the world shifts more and more online, it has gotten stronger. Online corporations track and record all they can of us, whether this is our location, our communication with each other, our purchases or interests in products, our searches, or our biometric information.
Epistemic equality depends on epistemic justice, the scope of which is framed by three essential questions based on knowledge, authority, and power. These questions are, put simply, “Who knows?” “Who decides who knows?” “Who decides who decides who knows?” The answers to these questions determine a society’s progress toward epistemic equality.
So epistemic inequality really relies on who we don’t know, and who we don’t willingly give power to.
