Recognising and addressing wealth privilege in policymaking through an analysis of epistemic practice and agency

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2116471
AutoresSarah Kerr (0000-0002-4199-3913, University College London, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen54
Número3
Páginas1-17
Fecha de publicación2025-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Social Policy (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0047-2794 • E-ISSN: 1469-7823
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0047279423000363
OpenAlexW4385357676
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas33

The author makes the case that wealth inequality ramifies in the communicative practices of policymaking in ways which produce specific forms of epistemic injustice. Relative epistemic authority between richer and poorer knowers is established by limiting some speakers to being sources of information, and elevating others to the epistemically more sophisticated role of inquirer. In its systemic form, this differentiation has the effect of re-producing and maintaining 'tracker prejudices' (Fricker, 2007) and 'tracker privileges' (Medina, 2011) which then ramify in relational and distributive inequality (Fricker, 2016). The article suggests that in a context in which the inclusion of 'lived experience' has come to be seen as an intrinsic good in policy discourse (Smith-Merry, 2020), the lived experience we need to amplify isn't that of the poor, it is that of the rich. Only in centring rich voices in social policymaking can we reveal and challenge the operation of wealth privilege and advance reparatory forms of epistemic practice.1

Agency (philosophy) · Context (archaeology) · Epistemology · Inequality · Injustice · Limiting · Mainstream · Political science · Privilege (computing) · Social science · Sociology · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Philosophy