Kristie Dotson | University of Michigan (original) (raw)
Papers by Kristie Dotson
Verfiche, 2021
Metaphilosophy, when done well, transforms philosophy into projects. It unveils philosophical bel... more Metaphilosophy, when done well, transforms philosophy into projects. It unveils philosophical beliefs and assumptions, translates beliefs into motivations and reasons. It can be frighteningly revealing. I prefer it to philosophy. In this paper, I primarily outline an approach to metaphilosophy, offering a metaphilosophical account that tracks a story (and its echoes) about awakened speculation that I consider broadly philosophical. Here, I recount a couple of experiences, in Black feminist fashion, to explore a root of my philosophical impulses. I narrate my turn to 'do philosophy' and 'forward philosophies' as a signature result of impactful experiences whose stories make sense of an open-ended wonder and a haunting drive in me. Metaphilosophy, on my account, is an activity that 1) treats our philosophical orientations and accounts like projects by storying their catalysts, extensions, and dimensions, and 2) puts those projects in perspective to illuminate how life and living exceed theory. Though this latter aspect of metaphilosophy is rarely acknowledged, it does not need intention to function.
Philosophical Topics
This paper is an effort toward conceptual transparency around toxic inclusivity in academic femin... more This paper is an effort toward conceptual transparency around toxic inclusivity in academic feminism and the kinds of care it lacks toward, what amounts to, bad knowledge production practices. In this paper, we claim that some of the forms of reductive inclusion that ought to be avoided are epistemologically unsound practices that propagate disempowering, false, and/or distortive messages about targets of inclusion. We take reductive inclusion to be inclusion that treats the targets of inclusion as plot devices and/or as means to a narrative end. These practices should be avoided in order to work toward a range of coalitional possibilities between differently situated populations with social justice aims. Moreover, we are concerned with making clear that toxic inclusion is a type of bad scholarship. The reductive inclusions to avoid articulated in this paper are (1) interpolation and (2) ossification. Interpolation involves executing “inclusion” with formal, instead of substantive, ...
Philosophical Topics
This paper is an effort toward conceptual transparency around toxic inclusivity in academic femin... more This paper is an effort toward conceptual transparency around toxic inclusivity in academic feminism and the kinds of care it lacks toward, what amounts to, bad knowledge production practices. In this paper, we claim that some of the forms of reductive inclusion that ought to be avoided are epistemologically unsound practices that propagate disempowering, false, and/or distortive messages about targets of inclusion. We take reductive inclusion to be inclusion that treats the targets of inclusion as plot devices and/or as means to a narrative end. These practices should be avoided in order to work toward a range of coalitional possibilities between differently situated populations with social justice aims. Moreover, we are concerned with making clear that toxic inclusion is a type of bad scholarship. The reductive inclusions to avoid articulated in this paper are (1) interpolation and (2) ossification. Interpolation involves executing “inclusion” with formal, instead of substantive, ...
Journal of Diversity in Higher Education
Journal of Social Philosophy
Recherches féministes
L’oppression épistémique désigne une exclusion épistémique persistante qui empêche ou limite la c... more L’oppression épistémique désigne une exclusion épistémique persistante qui empêche ou limite la contribution d’une personne à la production des savoirs. On hésite à parler d’« oppression épistémique », et cela tient peut-être à la prémisse voulant que les formes épistémiques de l’oppression se ramènent en général à ses formes politiques et sociales. L’auteure convient que de nombreuses formes d’exclusion qui compromettent la capacité d’une personne à contribuer à la production des savoirs peuvent être ramenées à des formes d’oppression politique et sociale, mais il existe néanmoins des formes distinctes et irréductibles d’oppression épistémique. Elle soutient ainsi que la différence fondamentale entre les formes réductibles et irréductibles d’oppression épistémique réside dans le type de résistance à laquelle on fait face dans chaque cas, c’est-à-dire le pouvoir épistémique ou les caractéristiques des systèmes épistémologiques. La distinction entre les formes réductibles et irréduct...
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples
Journal of Vocational Behavior
Hypatia
This piece contextualizes a discussion by liminal feminists on the identifiers ‘women of color’ a... more This piece contextualizes a discussion by liminal feminists on the identifiers ‘women of color’ and ‘Third World women’ that emerged from some uncomfortable and constructive conversations at the 2015 FEAST conference.
In attempting to create a US Black feminist philosophy, I have uncovered three lessons in US Blac... more In attempting to create a US Black feminist philosophy, I have uncovered three lessons in US Black women’s social theory. They are the following: 1) oppression is a multistable, social phenomenon; 2) many US Black women identify occupying a negative, socio-epistemic space as part of their experience of oppression; and 3) addressing oppression for many Black women will require grappling with politics of social spatiality. These insights are by no means new. However, the fact that these tropes can be identified in almost 200 years of Black women's social theory in the US is far more distinctive than many allow.
Contemporary Political Theory, 2021
Epistemologies have power. They have the power not only to transform worlds, but to create them. ... more Epistemologies have power. They have the power not only to transform worlds, but to create them. And the worlds that they create can be better or worse. For many people, the worlds they create are predictably and reliably deadly. Epistemologies can turn sacred land into ‘resources’ to be bought, sold, exploited, and exhausted. They can turn people into ‘labor’ in much the same way. They can not only disappear acts of violence but render them unnamable and unrecognizable within their conceptual architectures. Settler systems of epistemic and conceptual resources and the relations among them are constructed to preclude certain forms of knowledge. This is not an accident; it is a central goal of colonial violence. Colonization and land dispossession would not be possible without the violent disruption of Indigenous knowledge systems and ongoing organized attempts to disrupt their survival. Violently disrupting the relationships of people to land is as much an epistemic project as it is a material one, and these two projects are inherently linked. The task of theorizing epistemic oppression is not only about epistemic oppression. Epistemic oppression is a story that gives language to a phenomenon in order to get past it, to carry on with the maintaining and reviving the forms of Indigenous and diasporic knowledge that colonialism has worked tirelessly to corrupt and silence.
Applied Epistemology, Oxford University Press, 2021
In this chapter, we probe the transformative potential of framework approaches to social justice.... more In this chapter, we probe the transformative potential of framework approaches to social justice. We challenge the idea that framework shifts at different levels equate changes in the social arrangements they aim to reconceptualize. Ultimately, we claim that framework approaches to social transformation have two limitations that include: 1) failing to lead to the epistemological ingenuity they often promise and, even where such ingenuity might be achieved, 2) leaving untouched the actual social arrangements that facilitate the circumstances under analysis. This chapter will proceed in three parts. First, we explain what we mean by a framework approach to social transformation. Second, we discuss a framework approach to social justice by looking into framework approaches to understanding “political prisoners” and its potential aims and aspirations. Third, we conclude by responding to a potential objection for this framework analysis assessing the “work” of our own framework analysis.
Verfiche, 2021
Metaphilosophy, when done well, transforms philosophy into projects. It unveils philosophical bel... more Metaphilosophy, when done well, transforms philosophy into projects. It unveils philosophical beliefs and assumptions, translates beliefs into motivations and reasons. It can be frighteningly revealing. I prefer it to philosophy. In this paper, I primarily outline an approach to metaphilosophy, offering a metaphilosophical account that tracks a story (and its echoes) about awakened speculation that I consider broadly philosophical. Here, I recount a couple of experiences, in Black feminist fashion, to explore a root of my philosophical impulses. I narrate my turn to 'do philosophy' and 'forward philosophies' as a signature result of impactful experiences whose stories make sense of an open-ended wonder and a haunting drive in me. Metaphilosophy, on my account, is an activity that 1) treats our philosophical orientations and accounts like projects by storying their catalysts, extensions, and dimensions, and 2) puts those projects in perspective to illuminate how life and living exceed theory. Though this latter aspect of metaphilosophy is rarely acknowledged, it does not need intention to function.
Philosophical Topics
This paper is an effort toward conceptual transparency around toxic inclusivity in academic femin... more This paper is an effort toward conceptual transparency around toxic inclusivity in academic feminism and the kinds of care it lacks toward, what amounts to, bad knowledge production practices. In this paper, we claim that some of the forms of reductive inclusion that ought to be avoided are epistemologically unsound practices that propagate disempowering, false, and/or distortive messages about targets of inclusion. We take reductive inclusion to be inclusion that treats the targets of inclusion as plot devices and/or as means to a narrative end. These practices should be avoided in order to work toward a range of coalitional possibilities between differently situated populations with social justice aims. Moreover, we are concerned with making clear that toxic inclusion is a type of bad scholarship. The reductive inclusions to avoid articulated in this paper are (1) interpolation and (2) ossification. Interpolation involves executing “inclusion” with formal, instead of substantive, ...
Philosophical Topics
This paper is an effort toward conceptual transparency around toxic inclusivity in academic femin... more This paper is an effort toward conceptual transparency around toxic inclusivity in academic feminism and the kinds of care it lacks toward, what amounts to, bad knowledge production practices. In this paper, we claim that some of the forms of reductive inclusion that ought to be avoided are epistemologically unsound practices that propagate disempowering, false, and/or distortive messages about targets of inclusion. We take reductive inclusion to be inclusion that treats the targets of inclusion as plot devices and/or as means to a narrative end. These practices should be avoided in order to work toward a range of coalitional possibilities between differently situated populations with social justice aims. Moreover, we are concerned with making clear that toxic inclusion is a type of bad scholarship. The reductive inclusions to avoid articulated in this paper are (1) interpolation and (2) ossification. Interpolation involves executing “inclusion” with formal, instead of substantive, ...
Journal of Diversity in Higher Education
Journal of Social Philosophy
Recherches féministes
L’oppression épistémique désigne une exclusion épistémique persistante qui empêche ou limite la c... more L’oppression épistémique désigne une exclusion épistémique persistante qui empêche ou limite la contribution d’une personne à la production des savoirs. On hésite à parler d’« oppression épistémique », et cela tient peut-être à la prémisse voulant que les formes épistémiques de l’oppression se ramènent en général à ses formes politiques et sociales. L’auteure convient que de nombreuses formes d’exclusion qui compromettent la capacité d’une personne à contribuer à la production des savoirs peuvent être ramenées à des formes d’oppression politique et sociale, mais il existe néanmoins des formes distinctes et irréductibles d’oppression épistémique. Elle soutient ainsi que la différence fondamentale entre les formes réductibles et irréductibles d’oppression épistémique réside dans le type de résistance à laquelle on fait face dans chaque cas, c’est-à-dire le pouvoir épistémique ou les caractéristiques des systèmes épistémologiques. La distinction entre les formes réductibles et irréduct...
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples
Journal of Vocational Behavior
Hypatia
This piece contextualizes a discussion by liminal feminists on the identifiers ‘women of color’ a... more This piece contextualizes a discussion by liminal feminists on the identifiers ‘women of color’ and ‘Third World women’ that emerged from some uncomfortable and constructive conversations at the 2015 FEAST conference.
In attempting to create a US Black feminist philosophy, I have uncovered three lessons in US Blac... more In attempting to create a US Black feminist philosophy, I have uncovered three lessons in US Black women’s social theory. They are the following: 1) oppression is a multistable, social phenomenon; 2) many US Black women identify occupying a negative, socio-epistemic space as part of their experience of oppression; and 3) addressing oppression for many Black women will require grappling with politics of social spatiality. These insights are by no means new. However, the fact that these tropes can be identified in almost 200 years of Black women's social theory in the US is far more distinctive than many allow.
Contemporary Political Theory, 2021
Epistemologies have power. They have the power not only to transform worlds, but to create them. ... more Epistemologies have power. They have the power not only to transform worlds, but to create them. And the worlds that they create can be better or worse. For many people, the worlds they create are predictably and reliably deadly. Epistemologies can turn sacred land into ‘resources’ to be bought, sold, exploited, and exhausted. They can turn people into ‘labor’ in much the same way. They can not only disappear acts of violence but render them unnamable and unrecognizable within their conceptual architectures. Settler systems of epistemic and conceptual resources and the relations among them are constructed to preclude certain forms of knowledge. This is not an accident; it is a central goal of colonial violence. Colonization and land dispossession would not be possible without the violent disruption of Indigenous knowledge systems and ongoing organized attempts to disrupt their survival. Violently disrupting the relationships of people to land is as much an epistemic project as it is a material one, and these two projects are inherently linked. The task of theorizing epistemic oppression is not only about epistemic oppression. Epistemic oppression is a story that gives language to a phenomenon in order to get past it, to carry on with the maintaining and reviving the forms of Indigenous and diasporic knowledge that colonialism has worked tirelessly to corrupt and silence.
Applied Epistemology, Oxford University Press, 2021
In this chapter, we probe the transformative potential of framework approaches to social justice.... more In this chapter, we probe the transformative potential of framework approaches to social justice. We challenge the idea that framework shifts at different levels equate changes in the social arrangements they aim to reconceptualize. Ultimately, we claim that framework approaches to social transformation have two limitations that include: 1) failing to lead to the epistemological ingenuity they often promise and, even where such ingenuity might be achieved, 2) leaving untouched the actual social arrangements that facilitate the circumstances under analysis. This chapter will proceed in three parts. First, we explain what we mean by a framework approach to social transformation. Second, we discuss a framework approach to social justice by looking into framework approaches to understanding “political prisoners” and its potential aims and aspirations. Third, we conclude by responding to a potential objection for this framework analysis assessing the “work” of our own framework analysis.