Being in the Room Privilege

Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference

November 17, 2022

The call to 鈥渓isten to the most affected鈥 or 鈥渃enter the most marginalized鈥 is ubiquitous in many academic and activist circles. But from a societal standpoint, the 鈥渕ost affected鈥 by the social injustices we associate with politically important identities like gender, class, race, and nationality are disproportionately likely to be incarcerated, underemployed, or part of the 44 percent of the world鈥檚 population without internet access 鈥 and thus both left out of the rooms of power and largely ignored by the people in the rooms of power.

In this talk, Ol煤f岷固乵i O. T谩铆w貌, associate professor of philosophy at Georgetown University, discusses problems of elite capture and deference epistemology and proposes constructive epistemology as an approach to organize new rooms that focus on structural, practical change.