Epistemic Justice Lecture Review

Epistemic Justice: Occurs when people are undermined or dismissed in their capacity as potential knowers, highlighting how certain knowledge is pushed down or excluded (e.g., social media algorithms, AI bias).
Knowledge Justice: Principle that every person has equal capacity to be knowledgeable; involves recognizing and challenging the dominance of Euro-Western knowledge systems, engaging in dialogue across multiple perspectives, and approaching diverse epistemologies with humility.

Positionality: How differences in social position, power, and privilege shape identities, worldviews, and interactions.
Academics' positionalities often do not reflect the general population's, impacting research and knowledge accessibility.
Example: Vast majority of Canadian dietitians are white, English-speaking women, which influences valued evidence and care.
Positionality Reflection: Critical step before seeking evidence to uncover biases and blind spots.
- Identities thought about most often: areas of oppression.
- Identities thought about least often: areas of power/privilege.
Society bakes in power structures (e.g., university vs. college education) that often go unrecognized.

A tool to broaden understanding of whose evidence counts, encouraging inclusion beyond academic literature.
Five Categories of Knowledge Holders:
- Persons with Lived Experience: Direct personal experience (e.g., individuals with diabetes sharing their journey).
- Community Representatives: Advocacy groups, non-profits, Indigenous governments (e.g., Diabetes Canada).
- Arm's Length Observers: Journalists, academics, research institutions who report on phenomena without direct embedded experience (e.g., academic articles on diabetes).
- Power Holders: Governments, lawmakers, healthcare institutions, regulatory bodies (e.g., Government of Canada's framework for diabetes).
- Care Providers: Frontline healthcare workers like dietitians, midwives, doulas, and non-registered caregivers.
Emphasis on seeking lived experience from equity-deserving communities, often found in social media or blogs, as their knowledge may not be privileged in peer-reviewed spaces.

Between 1942 and 1952, nutrition experiments were conducted on Indigenous peoples without consent in residential schools.
Indigenous food systems were not acknowledged in the Food Guide until its February 2019 release.
Early versions of the Food Guide reflect a biomedical model, prioritizing Western science and othering diverse knowledge systems (e.g., Indigenous peoples' view of food as medicine).

Critical analysis of evidence involves identifying power holder and arm's length observer voices and considering their representation.
Example: Critiquing Canada's Food Guide for overrepresenting academic/government voices and underrepresenting experiences of low-income communities or diverse cultural food practices.