An examination of the defensive self-censorship forced upon speakers by hostile epistemic environments. 4 mins read.
A domestic violence survivor from an immigrant community considers seeking help from mainstream social services. However, she realizes that explaining the nuances of her situation to an outsider who holds xenophobic stereotypes might lead to her entire community being pathologized or targeted. To prevent this distortion, she chooses to remain silent. She has smothered her own testimony.
Coined by philosopher Kristie Dotson, testimonial smothering is a defensive response to epistemic violence. Epistemic violence occurs when an audience refuses to meet a speaker with basic testimonial competence. When marginalized speakers recognize that their audience lacks the capacity or willingness to understand their testimony without warping it through a lens of prejudice, they are forced to engage in a calculated self-silencing.
Smothering is not a free choice; it is a forced retreat. The speaker decides that the risk of being misunderstood is far more dangerous than the burden of remaining silent.
Testimonial smothering is particularly insidious because it mimics voluntary silence. To the undiscerning observer, the speaker simply has nothing to say. In reality, the speaker's agency has been severely compromised. They are forced to carry the burden of their knowledge alone, locked out of the shared epistemic community by the willful ignorance of the dominant culture.
Referenced Works & Texts
- Kristie Dotson, Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing, Hypatia, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2011). Defining the concepts of testimonial quietism and testimonial smothering.
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