Division by Epistemic Oppression, Reparation through Restorative Pedagogies

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Overview of the Session
The 2026 theme of the Comparative and International Education Society conference suggests that education and society are at a point of division. The same could be said for the current status of higher education. Although contemporary commentators blame some of these divisions on political differences or so-called “activist” culture in higher education, we argue that divisions have been driven into higher education through the pedagogies and practices that are informed by unquestioned norms in the academy.
Our session focuses on the omnipresent epistemic oppression in comparative higher education contexts today. We examine this oppression through the lens of students and instructors, questioning and interrogating what happens in the classroom, on doctoral journeys, and in the everyday interactions of students. We trace the epistemic oppression, which is often thrust upon students who have marginalized identities in the academy, to the colonial, patriarchal, and whiteness-informed functions of higher education.
Theoretically, we explain this through Wynter’s (1984, 2003) concept of Man, which we argue is the embodiment of the dominant epistemology found in a divided higher education space today. As five international students navigating higher education during intense political times, we exemplify epistemic oppression by sharing our lived experiences and observations of distinctive epistemic processes, both as students and instructors. We confront Wynter’s concept of Man, a Eurocentric humanism, and challenge its monopoly and assumed singular epistemology for higher education, past and present.
We reiterate that the contemporary global version of Man by definition is “the hegemony of the non-landed, capital-owning (white) bourgeoisie” (Wynter 2003, p. 321), who inhabit heteronormative-cisgender-able bodies (Chen, 2012; Truman, 2019). Man operates only in the colonizers’ languages (Europeans) and their colonialities of canon and bureaucracy. Mignolo reminded us that to make a realization of Man’s oppression, we may encounter the barrier of “study(ing) a narrativization that has been produced with the very instruments (or categories) that we study with” (2015, p. 107). Scholars have been advocating for an approach of otherwise that encourages diverse epistemologies and epistemic solidarity for all. Additionally, in many of our stories, we delve deeper into the concept of gender as it has been understudied in the scholarship of epistemology. We argue that there have been narrow and inadequate representations of gender in epistemic dialogues. Gender is a content space where epistemic oppression can be analyzed. Meanwhile, gender can also be a pedagogical lens through which scholars disrupt and intervene. Our stories acknowledge that a gender minority is everyone who falls out of Man’s imagination for privileges and power.
Structure of the Session
This session seeks counter-narratives to the epistemic oppression in the global higher education era brought about by the narrowly defined way of knowing of Man. We present four approaches to taking on the oppressive influence of Man and reimagining new futures for higher education through linguistically inclusive, feminist-informed, identity-affirming, and queer pedagogical concepts. Our papers start with the standpoint epistemologies of five graduate students who have each encountered epistemic oppression in unique but cross-cutting ways.
Paper 1 focuses on various forms of epistemic injustices (testimonial, hermeneutical, and contributory), examining the microcosm of classroom space and how international students are considered contributors to knowledge/economy but agentless. It highlights the complexities of English conversation-focused classes for multilingual students. Furthermore, the paper also presents the reality in which racism appears in subtle and concrete ways in higher education classrooms.
Paper 2 is a Foucauldian analysis of higher education in post-genocide Cambodia. Recovering from years of erased knowledge during its genocide, Cambodia’s higher education system focused on neoliberal narratives like “progress” while systematically erasing knowledge and contributions of scholars with marginalized identities, such as queer scholars, in this process. This paper investigates the archeologies of knowledge in Cambodia today, along with the navigation of “queerness” in its present-day system.
Paper 3 draws upon Yosso’s community cultural wealth theory to challenge the deficit framing of motherhood in doctoral study. This autoethnographic paper investigates how motherhood is often framed as a distractor from doctoral progress rather than an affirming element of a student’s identity that can both inform and uplift new research directions.
Paper 4 reports on an autoethnographic study from a graduate instructor who sought to disrupt epistemic violence in relation to gender. The paper explores the nuanced power in the epistemic violence of gender by intersecting three major theoretical bodies. Meanwhile, it seeks gender’s sociogenic role, where other oppressions can be delved deeper into at their intersections with gender. Through a focus on both gendered interactions and exposing gender-based violence in and beyond the classroom, this study exemplifies reporting on how the day-to-day practice of challenging epistemic oppression may inform broader practice in higher education.
Finally, we will also invite our discussant to share his observations in his specific context in higher education while providing comments and suggestions to each of the studies above.
Scholarly Significance
The scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education often focuses on shallow or normative understandings of what is considered “effective,” yet it less often takes a reflective and critical approach to confronting unseen or explicit epistemic oppressions. This panel investigates such oppression and the divisions that it reinforces and presents new reflections and possibilities for higher education. Each paper considers how to engage the elements of epistemic oppression that Wynter conceptualized through the study of Man decades ago, and each offers specific alternatives and reparative ways of knowing that emerged through the practice of undoing epistemic oppression.

Sub Unit

• Higher Education SIG

Chair

• Vongrathayuth Hingphith, University of Minnesota

Individual Presentations

• Epistemic Injustice for International Students in the US Higher Education - Qianzi Cong, University of Minnesota

• Mama Ph.D. Across Borders - Ainur Jumagaliyeva, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Reflections on the Epistemic Violence of Gender in US Undergraduate Classrooms - Yilin Wei, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

Discussant

• Christopher Johnstone, University of Minnesota