Participatory action research: towards (non-ideal) epistemic justice in a university in South Africa

ABSTRACT

The paper explores the possibilities for promoting epistemic justice in a South African university setting through a participatory action-based photovoice research project in which university researchers worked alongside undergraduate students with no prior experience of doing research. The student voices are employed to understand how learning as capability development and agency expansion can advance epistemic justice in a university setting of hierarchical relationships that make participatory action research challenging. The paper considers how, in this project, spaces of epistemic democracy intersected with the expansion of multidimensional functionings, resulting in more epistemic justice for the student-researchers. The paper considers the possibilities for change through a participatory project toward promoting epistemic justice at the individual level. It also explores some criticisms of the limits of such individual development in the face of structural challenges.     

In beauty we trust: Children prefer information from more attractive informants

Preschool children were presented with slides on a computer screen showing a novel object, together with two informants, one with an attractive and one with a less attractive face. Children were asked which informant they would like to ask about the name of the novel object. After hearing the informants provide conflicting names, they were asked who they thought was correct. Children were more likely to endorse names provided by the person with the more attractive face, a bias that cannot be justified on epistemic grounds. The implications of this finding are discussed.