Plenary Roundtable - Moving Beyond White Ignorance to Epistemic Justice

Abstract

How can we build an epistemically just feminist research community and how can we challenge white innocence when engaging with public debates so strongly marked by it? The contributions of this Round Table discuss mechanisms and technologies of white ignorance in both mainstream and feminist political research in Europe; and the practices required to transcend its dominance in our institutions and in public debates. Mukalazi and Süleymanoğlu discuss how white ignorance shapes research agendas, methodologies and findings within their sub-disciplines and the methodological practices required, and findings which are yielded when white ignorance, coloniality and its operation is problematised. Savic and Bourabain discuss technologies of white ignorance in the public sphere focusing on the digital realm and higher education. How is ignorance of racial discrimination maintained in European HE institutions and how is this resisted by racialized scholars? How is white ignorance produced in the digital public sphere? What effect do these dynamics have on the collective European self-image and the knowledge and history we can access and share? Our final two contributors Verloo and Bracke discuss the collective reflexivity required to transcend white ignorance in the canon of gender studies; and in our interactions with policy makers, where we likely find ourselves engaging with predefined agendas shaped by the very ignorance and innocence we wish to challenge. Chair: Sophie Withaeckx Sophie Withaeckx is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Maastricht University. Her publications include ‘Intersectionality as an Ethical Commitment’ in the Research Handbook on Intersectionality and the edited volume (in Dutch) 'Beyond transnational adoption. A critical and multi-vocal dialogue' Withaeckxs's current research broadly explores how normative concepts of ‘the human’ inform institutional spaces and practices. This includes examination of discourses and practices of diversity and decolonisation in higher education and how taken-for-granted notions of humanness and ‘the family’ underlie ethics and practice in transnational adoption. Contributors: Miriam Mona Mukalazi is a feminist security scholar. Currently, she works as a Max Weber Post-Doc Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute. Her research focusses on Eurocentrisms in feminist foreign and security policies. Recently Miriam published the article "The African Union's Silencing the Guns: stereotyping and owning gender roles" as well a study called "Security Radar 2023: Spotlight on the gender knowledge gap in security policies." Contribution title: White Ignorance in Women Peace and Security Studies Dr Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürümis is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bahçeşehir University, Turkey. She is also Jean Monnet Chair on Feminist Epistemic Justice in the EU and Beyond (FEJUST), funded by European Commission (2022-2025) and is currently editing a Special Issue on Decolonial Feminist Epistemic Justice, for publication in Feminist Review. Süleymanoğlu’s feminist research focuses on the study of Europeanisation, EU foreign policy and Turkish foreign policy, as well as gender and diplomacy. Her publications have appeared in journals such as Political Studies Review and Language and Politics. Contribution title: Seeking Feminist Decolonial Epistemic Justice in EU Studies Jelena Savić is a Ph.D. candidate at the Uppsala University Centre for Gender Research, and an activist. Her thesis draws on concepts of race and whiteness in Europe and focuses on digital inequality from a Critical Romany Perspective. Recently, Savić initiated the "Black Sheep Academy", an open platform for critical approaches to Roma-related theory and politics. She also co-authored a program "Racism without Race: Institutions of Culture and Heritage" in cooperation with the Centre for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade and Ana Sladojevic, an independent curator. Recent publications include a chapter titled "Heroines of Ours: Between Magnificence and Maleficence" published in "The Romani Women's Movement: Struggles and Debates in Central and Eastern Europe", edited by Angela Kocze, Violeta Zentai, Jelena Jovanovic, and Eniko Vincze. Contribution title: Gadjo Ignorance: Mechanisms and Consequences Dounia Bourabain is assistant professor of sociology at the School of Social Sciences at Hasselt University. Her work centres on sexism and racism in academia investigating the struggles and resistance of minoritized academics in the European context. She has published in Gender, Work and Organization; the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; the DuBois Review; and Race, Ethnicity and Education among others. She is part of the editorial team of the race and ethnicity section of Sociology Compass and the Dutch Journal of Gender Studies. She has previously received the Emma Goldman Snowball Award 2023 for her contribution and engagement to feminist and inequality issues in Europe. Contribution title: Anti Racism vs Technologies of Ignorance in Academia Mieke Verloo is Professor of Comparative Politics and Inequality Issues at Radboud University, and Permanent Fellow at the IWM, Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. Her recent research has focused on the politics of knowledge, particularly in relation to opposition to gender equality, as well as Trans* politics. She was the winner of the 2015 ECPG Gender and Politics Career Achievement Award and was scientific director of large research projects on gender equality policymaking in Europe , MAGEEQ and QUING. Contribution title: Revisiting racism and anti-racism in "Women's studies in the 90s” Sarah Bracke is Professor of Sociology of Gender and Sexuality at the University of Amsterdam. Bracke’s main research activities are situated at the intersection of gender and sexuality, religion and secularity, and culture and race, with a theoretical focus on questions of agency, subjectivity, and governmentality and a regional focus on Europe. She is the Principle Investigator of the research project EnGendering Europe's 'Muslim Question' funded by the NWO Talent scheme Vici grant (2018-2024) and a partner in the collaborate project ReVisualize: Muslim Women's Empowerment funded by Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission (2022-2025). Contribution title: The Framer Framed. On the Importance of the Gaze and the Frame