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What I'm Reading: THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF RESISTANCE by José Medina

Added 2017-09-24 10:00:27 +0000 UTC

If you’ve watched my show for a little while you might remember this video about 1984 and the way knowledge and justice intersect? Well Medina’s book is about that too, about how privilege and oppression shape the production of knowledge and ignorance.

I especially enjoyed the discussions about whether it makes sense to say somebody “should have known” something about which they were ignorant, and about the double-consciousness of oppressed subjects. I also liked the ways Medina built on the work of Miranda Fricker, whose book Epistemic Injustice informed that original video of mine. I think this book also has profound implications for the way artists make art, too, since art is a key way we can communicate other perspectives without falling into some of the traps Medina identifies.

I did have a few notes, though. I think the book is very theory-heavy, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but in style and difficulty it’s very much pitched at academics. Harsha Walia’s Undoing Border Imperialism hits a few similar notes in places but from a more practical, activist viewpoint, so if you understand things better with concrete examples then I’d recommend that. Medina also doesn’t seem to anticipate the ways in which these arguments could be (and are) appropriated both in service of liberalism (see the Democrat’s #Resistance) and in the service of the far-right, which seems a bit of an oversight. I will also say, no bones about it, this book is hard. Really hard.

I got some great stuff out of it and it’ll be informing a couple of upcoming videos, especially one episode in my epistemology series, but it’s not an entry-level text by any means. If you’d like to check it out you can get it here. Thank you to my fan Nkanyiso Khwane for sending it to me!