Racism and Epistemologies of Ignorance: Framing the French Case

The paper aims to apply the epistemologies of ignorance framework to racial issues outside the Anglo-American world, the region where it is has been developed and which has been its almost exclusive focus. Centering on the French context, which is often considered as a unique or particularly acute e...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Bessone, Magali (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: [2020]
In: Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2020, Volume: 23, Issue: 5, Pages: 815-829
IxTheo Classification:KBG France
NCD Political ethics
VB Hermeneutics; Philosophy
ZC Politics in general
Further subjects:B Epistemic injustice
B Race
B France
B Racism
B Republican colorblindness
B Critical anti-racism
B Epistemology of ignorance
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Description
Summary:The paper aims to apply the epistemologies of ignorance framework to racial issues outside the Anglo-American world, the region where it is has been developed and which has been its almost exclusive focus. Centering on the French context, which is often considered as a unique or particularly acute example of the tension between a republican intellectual tradition of colorblindness, and a lived reality of racial discrimination, the paper identifies two renewed and opposed anti-racist positions in France: a publicly dominant, republican colorblind race-eliminativist position on the one hand, and a critical approach on the other hand. The latter puts the emphasis on the significance of racial concepts as decisive epistemic tools, used to identify specific racial inequalities that tend to remain invisible, even taboo, in the dominant French public discourse. This paper analyzes French republican colorblind race-eliminativism as a distinctive form of epistemology of ignorance that enacts epistemic injustice, and argues that critical anti-racism is a form of epistemology of resistance, aiming at epistemically empowering racialized agents.
ISSN:1572-8447
Contains:Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10677-020-10112-0