Agency, participation, and self-determination for indigenous peoples in Canada : foundational, structural, and epistemic injustices

In this paper, I discuss accounts of agency, participation, and self-determination by David Crocker and Stacy Kosko because they acknowledge that relationships of power can determine who gets to participate and when. Kosko usefully applies the concept of agency vulnerability to the case of the self-determination of indigenous peoples. I examine the specific context of Canada’s history as a settler nation, a history that reflects attempts to denigrate, dismiss and erase Indigenous laws, practices, languages, and traditions. I argue that this history displays epistemic injustice in that the dominant collective interpretative resources of non-Indigenous Canadians have allowed the dismissal of the collective interpretative resources of Canada’s Indigenous peoples. This gap in collective interpretative resources can explain that Canada’s constitution, institutions, laws, and structures reflect the dominant collective interpretative resources of a colonizing nation, ones that have delineated and restricted the agency, participation, and self-determination of Indigenous Canadians. One important outcome of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and of its National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls is bringing the rich history of Indigenous collective interpretative resources and the networks of relationships shaped by them to light. By discussing examples from these reports, I give substance to the argument that foundational and structural injustices in settler nations are at bottom epistemic injustices, ones that have implications for accounts of agency, participation, and self-determination.Dans cet article, je discute des concepts d'agencéité, de participation et d'autodétermination présentés chez David Crocker et Stacy Kosko, car ils reconnaissent que les relations de pouvoir peuvent déterminer qui peut participer et à quel moment. Kosko applique utilement le concept de vulnérabilité d’agencéité au cas de l'autodétermination des peuples autochtones. J’examine le contexte particulier de l’histoire du Canada en tant que nation colonisatrice, une histoire qui reflète les tentatives de dénigrement, de rejet et d’effacement des lois, pratiques, langues et traditions autochtones. Je soutiens que cette histoire montre une injustice épistémique en ce que les ressources interprétatives collectives dominantes des Canadiens non autochtones ont permis le rejet des ressources interprétatives collectives des peuples autochtones du Canada. Cette lacune dans les ressources interprétatives collectives peut expliquer que la constitution, les institutions, les lois et les structures du Canada reflètent les ressources interprétatives collectives dominantes d’un pays colonisateur, lesquelles ont défini et restreint l’agencéité, la participation et l’autodétermination des Canadiens autochtones. L’un des résultats importants de la Commission vérité et réconciliation du Canada et de son enquête nationale sur les femmes et les filles autochtones assassinées ou disparues est la mise en lumière de la riche histoire des ressources interprétatives collectives autochtones et des réseaux de relations qu’elles ont créés. En discutant des exemples de ces rapports, je donne corps à l’argument selon lequel les injustices fondamentales et structurelles dans les pays colonisateurs sont une injustice épistémique fondamentale, des conséquences qui ont une incidence sur les concepts d’agencéité, de participation et d’autodétermination

Feminist Relational Theory

Accounts of human beings as essentially social have had a long history in philosophy as reflected in the Ancient Greeks; in African and Asian philosophy; in Modern European thinkers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, David Hume, Adam Smith, and Karl Marx; in continental philosophy; in pragmatism; in Indigenous thought, and in contemporary communitarian theories. It can be said, then, that the language of relational theory has taken a variety of forms. That relational theory is broad and captures various threads in the history of philosophy is captured in the main title of this special issue, Relational Theory. That this special issue zeroes in on the distinctive features and contributions of feminist relational theory is captured in the subtitle, Feminist Approaches, Implications, and Applications, and explained in this introduction. This special issue of Journal of Global Ethics is devoted to exploring, extending, applying, and deepening relational insights emerging from today’s feminist relational theory

The Epistemological and the Moral/Political in Epistemic Responsibility: Beginnings and Reworkings in Lorraine Code’s Work

This is the first paper in the invited collection. Koggel starts with Code’s first book to record the key objections she raises against traditional and mainstream epistemological accounts. They are the sort of objections that will thread their way through all her work and be important to the development of feminist epistemology. I will then introduce, summarize, and discuss the work Code does on virtue ethics in Epistemic Responsibility and speculate on why she abandons this path in the rest of her work. Code uses virtue ethics and, specifically, virtues of the intellect, to frame an account of moral responsibility that I find interesting, promising, and still relevant to the contemporary revival of virtue ethics and to feminist epistemology more generally