Epistemic Reparations

FAIN: FEL-288433-23

Jennifer Lackey
Northwestern University (Evanston, IL 60208-0001)

Research and writing leading to a book on the rights of victims to epistemic justice by being known and heard by the parties who wronged them.

This project will provide the first discussion and application of what I call epistemic reparations, which are intentionally reparative actions in the form of epistemic goods given to those epistemically wronged by parties who acknowledge these wrongs and whose reparative actions are intended to redress them. Drawing on and crucially expanding a framework provided by the United Nations of the “right to know,” this project shows that victims of gross violations and injustices also have the right to be known—to be givers of knowledge to others about their own experiences. This project will result in (1) a single-authored book that develops the framework of epistemic reparations, and (2) the creation of a website that provides epistemic reparations by publishing first-person accounts from victims of gross violations, focusing largely on injustices in the criminal legal system.