This paper considers the importance of epistemic recognition in relation to processes of reconciliation and reparation. Although recognition is often mentioned in the literature on reparation and reconciliation, it is rarely fully articulated or normatively clarified. More notably, there is a significant gap in the literature about epistemic forms of recognition as a means of redressing certain epistemic harms. This paper expands beyond current literature on epistemic harm understood in terms of epistemic quieting or smothering. Instead, it draws on an account of epistemic recognition in considering the kinds of harm done to marginalized groups of an epistemic kind. The claim advanced is that epistemic recognition and epistemic reparations are central in attending to the restitution of marginalized groups in contexts characterised by harm, invisibilization and exclusion in contexts of colonization. Such reparations point to the importance of expansive epistemic and contributory knowledge practices as forms of shared world-building that are not merely symbolic but potentially lead to more substantive change.

Danielle Petherbridge is Associate Professor in Philosophy at University College Dublin and Director of the UCD Centre for Ethics in Public Life. She specialises in European Philosophy, with a specific focus on social philosophy and phenomenology. She also works on applied research projects in medical humanities and is a senior staff member on the ERC funded project Gender, Conflict and Coercive Control: A Feminist Phenomenological Expansion of Conflict-related Harm with PI Professor Aisling Swaine.