Fehr, Carla and Jones, Janet (2022) Culture, exploitation, and the epistemic approach to diversity. [Preprint]
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Abstract
A lack of diversity remains a significant problem in many STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) communities. According to the epistemic approach to addressing these diversity problems, it is in a community’s interest to improve diversity because doing so can enhance the rigor and creativity of its work. However, we draw on empirical and theoretical evidence illustrating that this approach can trade on the epistemic exploitation of diverse community members. Our concept of epistemic exploitation holds when there is a relationship between two parties in which one party accrues epistemic benefits from another party’s knowledge and epistemic location and, in doing so, harms the second party or sets back their interests. We demonstrate that the ironic outcome of this nominal application of the epistemic approach is that it undermines the epistemic benefits which it promises. Indeed, we show that epistemic exploitation undermines the relationships and interactions among community members that produce rigor and creativity. Our central argument is that for communities to reap the benefits of an epistemic approach to diversity, to implement a genuine epistemic approach, they need to develop cultures that ameliorate the harms faced by, and protect the interests of, their diverse community members.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | |||||||||
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| Keywords: | epistemic exploitation, epistemic diversity, diversity, business case for diversity, academia, scientific community, culture change, feminist epistemology, novelty tax | |||||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Computer Science General Issues > Ethical Issues General Issues > Feminist Approaches General Issues > Science and Society General Issues > Values In Science |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Carla Fehr | |||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 13 Jul 2022 12:49 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 13 Jul 2022 12:49 | |||||||||
| Item ID: | 20880 | |||||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Computer Science General Issues > Ethical Issues General Issues > Feminist Approaches General Issues > Science and Society General Issues > Values In Science |
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| Date: | 2022 | |||||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/20880 |
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