Stories shape how we understand and live in the world-but many communities and individuals have been denied their stories through erasure, distortion, and vilification. This book asks: if people are unknown in deep, unjust ways because their stories were stolen, don't they have the right to be known? Building on the UN's "right to know," it argues for a counterpart: the right to be known. Framed as a matter of epistemic reparations, this right highlights our collective responsibility to redress historical and ongoing wrongs by restoring voice, visibility, and recognition to those pushed to the margins of the unknown.
Stories shape not only how we understand the world-but also how we live in it. The way a narrative sketches the contours of a person's character or presents the unfolding of events can have monumental consequences for those it represents. Yet across historical periods and global spaces, entire peoples, cultures, and communities, as well as the individuals within them, have been robbed of their stories through erasure, vilification, and distortion.
At the heart of this book lies the question: if people are unknown in deep and unjust ways because their stories have been stolen, don't they have the right to be known? Drawing on a framework from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights-which affirms the “right to know” for victims of gross violations or injustices-this book makes a novel and urgent case for its counterpart: the right to be known. Both rights, it is argued, can be understood within a framework of epistemic reparations. The ultimate goal is to illuminate not only the normative demands these reparations generate, but also some of the concrete steps that can be taken to fulfill them, so that each of us might get to work right now in the process of addressing the epistemic wrongs faced by those relegated to the margins of the unknown.
Lisainfo e-raamatute kohta