Kristie Dotson
Biographic Data
| ID | 124923 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kristie Dotson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kristie |
| FAMILY NAME | Dotson |
| SIGNATURE | DOTSON K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Michigan State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8055-8228 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 438 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
How Is This Paper Philosophy?
This paper answers a call made by Anita Allen to genuinely assess whether the field of philosophy has the capacity to sustain the work of diverse people. By identifying a pervasive culture of justification within professional philosophy, I gesture to the ways professional philosophy is not an attractive working environment for many diverse practioners. As a result of the downsides of the culture of justification that pervades professional philoso…
Exploring disparities in research through the lens of epistemic exclusion
Epistemic exclusion is a form of scholarly devaluation based on disciplinary and identity‐based biases within systems of evaluation. In two studies, we draw upon the theory of epistemic exclusion to explore potential biases shaping journal review and publication processes in Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy ( ASAP ). In Study 1, we coded 1293 manuscripts submitted to ASAP between 2016 and 2021 to determine if there were disparities in …
Initial development and validation of the Faculty Epistemic Exclusion Scale
Epistemic exclusion
Despite institutional efforts, growth in the number of faculty of color has largely plateaued, limiting research innovation and other benefits of diversity. In this article, we seek to understand structural barriers to faculty equity by (a) detailing a theory of epistemic exclusion within academia and (b) applying the theory of epistemic exclusion to the specific context of faculty departmental reviews of scholarly research (e.g., annual review, …
Epistemic oppression, resistance, and resurgence
Epistemic exclusion
Scrutinized but not recognized
Conceptualiser l’oppression épistémique1
L’oppression épistémique désigne une exclusion épistémique persistante qui empêche ou limite la contribution d’une personne à la production des savoirs. On hésite à parler d’« oppression épistémique », et cela tient peut-être à la prémisse voulant que les formes épistémiques de l’oppression se ramènent en général à ses formes politiques et sociales. L’auteure convient que de nombreuses formes d’exclusion qui compromettent la capacité d’une person…
On intellectual diversity and differences that may not make a difference
Calls for diversity in higher education have been ongoing for, at least, a century. Today, the diversity movement in higher education is in danger of being co-opted in the US by a move to make ‘intellectual diversity,’ i.e. the diversity of political opinion, on par with the cultural and historical diversity that one finds within differently racialized populations. Intellectual diversity is thought to track different modes of thinking between con…
Distinguishing Knowledge Possession and Knowledge Attribution
On the way to decolonization in a settler colony
In this paper, I explain Black feminist identity politics as a practice that is 'on the way' to settler decolonization in a US context for the fact that it makes demands that we attend to our "originating" stories and, in doing so, 1) generate potential for difficult coalitions for decolonization in settler colonial USA and 2) promoting a range of refusals (Simpson 2014) that aid in resisting the completion of settler colonialism in North America…
Contested Terrains of Women of Color and Third World Women
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Between Rocks and Hard Places
(Addressed to all readers)1As a Black feminist professional philosopher, I am charged with many responsibilities. Premier among them is the entrenchment of Black feminist thought in today's academy
Word to the Wise
It is not uncommon to ask a race and gender‐based question of a philosopher of race, only to hear ‘I do race, not gender’. To the ears of many Black feminists, this sounds, to be frank, utterly foolish. Here, I identify three metaphilosophical assumptions, i.e. the disaggregation, fundamentality and transcendental assumptions, that aid in underwriting the ability to use the statement, ‘I do race, not gender’, as a means for avoiding gender‐based …
Inheriting Patricia Hill Collins'sBlack Feministepistemology
In this paper, I begin to construct an inheritance map for the epistemological insights in Patricia Hill Collins's book Black Feminist Thought. An inheritance map attempts to take stock of what one has been given in a particular project and what one inherits as work yet to do. Here I outline that Black Feminist Thought demonstrates that knowledge has no proper subject, while leaving a project to imagine black feminist epistemology outside of ascr…
Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression
Epistemic oppression refers to persistent epistemic exclusion that hinders one’s contribution to knowledge production. The tendency to shy away from using the term “epistemic oppression” may follow from an assumption that epistemic forms of oppression are generally reducible to social and political forms of oppression. While I agree that many exclusions that compromise one’s ability to contribute to the production of knowledge can be reducible to…
Thinking Familiar with the Interstitial”
It's not that we haven't always been here, since there was a here. It is that the letters of our names have been scrambled when they were not totally erased, and our fingertips upon the handles of history have been called the random brushings of birds. (Lorde 1990, ix) Because... [racialized peoples'] dehumanization has not been successful, conceiving of self and others and their exercise of themselves both against dehumanization and toward liber…
Curious Disappearances
In this paper, we analyze the recent public scandal involving Nafissatou Diallo and Dominique Strauss‐Kahn to offer an account of the role affectability imbalances play in process‐based invisibility. Process‐based invisibilities, in this paper, refer to predictable narrative gaps within public narratives that can be aptly described as disappearances. We demonstrate that compromised, complex social identities, maladjusted webs of reciprocity, and …
Radical Love
A Cautionary Tale
A Cautionary Tale:On Limiting Epistemic Oppression Kristie Dotson (bio) I cannot recall the words of my first poembut I remember a promiseI made my pennever to leave itlyingin somebody else's blood. Audre Lorde, "To the Poet Who Happens to Be Black and the Black Poet Who Happens to Be a Woman"1 Introduction In this paper, first and foremost, I aim to issue a caution. Specifically, I caution that when addressing and identifying forms of epistemic …
Moi, féministe noire
In this paper, I offer a partial picture of my conceptual location as a US black feminist, professional philosopher and, by doing so, illustrate one of the ways Africana philosophy is being shaped and engaged. I offer a portrait of my conceptual location by identifying a value shared by some ‘anti-theory’ black feminists and some Africana professional philosophers in the US that ultimately recommends a consistent engagement in black feminist/phil…
"Agreeing to Disagree, Perhaps? A Commentary on Naomi Zack, "The Ethics and Mores of Race
A Cautionary Tale
Black Feminist Me
In this paper, I offer a partial picture of my conceptual location as a US black feminist, professional philosopher and, by doing so, illustrate one of the ways Africana philosophy is being shaped and engaged. I offer a portrait of my conceptual location by identifying a value shared by some 'anti-theory' black feminists and some Africana professional philosophers in the US that ultimately recommends a consistent engagement in black feminist/phil…
Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing
Too often, identifying practices of silencing is a seemingly impossible exercise. Here I claim that attempting to give a conceptual reading of the epistemic violence present when silencing occurs can help distinguish the different ways members of oppressed groups are silenced with respect to testimony. I offer an account of epistemic violence as the failure, owing to pernicious ignorance, of hearers to meet the vulnerabilities of speakers in ling…
Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing
Too often, identifying practices of silencing is a seemingly impossible exercise. Here I claim that attempting to give a conceptual reading of the epistemic violence present when silencing occurs can help distinguish the different ways members of oppressed groups are silenced with respect to testimony. I offer an account of epistemic violence as the failure, owing to pernicious ignorance, of hearers to meet the vulnerabilities of speakers in ling…
Epistemic exclusion
A Cautionary Tale
Epistemic oppression, resistance, and resurgence
Inheriting Patricia Hill Collins'sBlack Feministepistemology
In this paper, I begin to construct an inheritance map for the epistemological insights in Patricia Hill Collins's book Black Feminist Thought. An inheritance map attempts to take stock of what one has been given in a particular project and what one inherits as work yet to do. Here I outline that Black Feminist Thought demonstrates that knowledge has no proper subject, while leaving a project to imagine black feminist epistemology outside of ascr…
Concrete Flowers
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
On the way to decolonization in a settler colony
In this paper, I explain Black feminist identity politics as a practice that is 'on the way' to settler decolonization in a US context for the fact that it makes demands that we attend to our "originating" stories and, in doing so, 1) generate potential for difficult coalitions for decolonization in settler colonial USA and 2) promoting a range of refusals (Simpson 2014) that aid in resisting the completion of settler colonialism in North America…
Epistemic exclusion
Despite institutional efforts, growth in the number of faculty of color has largely plateaued, limiting research innovation and other benefits of diversity. In this article, we seek to understand structural barriers to faculty equity by (a) detailing a theory of epistemic exclusion within academia and (b) applying the theory of epistemic exclusion to the specific context of faculty departmental reviews of scholarly research (e.g., annual review, …
Distinguishing Knowledge Possession and Knowledge Attribution
Curious Disappearances
In this paper, we analyze the recent public scandal involving Nafissatou Diallo and Dominique Strauss‐Kahn to offer an account of the role affectability imbalances play in process‐based invisibility. Process‐based invisibilities, in this paper, refer to predictable narrative gaps within public narratives that can be aptly described as disappearances. We demonstrate that compromised, complex social identities, maladjusted webs of reciprocity, and …
Thinking Familiar with the Interstitial”
It's not that we haven't always been here, since there was a here. It is that the letters of our names have been scrambled when they were not totally erased, and our fingertips upon the handles of history have been called the random brushings of birds. (Lorde 1990, ix) Because... [racialized peoples'] dehumanization has not been successful, conceiving of self and others and their exercise of themselves both against dehumanization and toward liber…
Black Feminist Me
In this paper, I offer a partial picture of my conceptual location as a US black feminist, professional philosopher and, by doing so, illustrate one of the ways Africana philosophy is being shaped and engaged. I offer a portrait of my conceptual location by identifying a value shared by some 'anti-theory' black feminists and some Africana professional philosophers in the US that ultimately recommends a consistent engagement in black feminist/phil…
Initial development and validation of the Faculty Epistemic Exclusion Scale
Contested Terrains of Women of Color and Third World Women
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Between Rocks and Hard Places
(Addressed to all readers)1As a Black feminist professional philosopher, I am charged with many responsibilities. Premier among them is the entrenchment of Black feminist thought in today's academy
Radical Love
Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing
Too often, identifying practices of silencing is a seemingly impossible exercise. Here I claim that attempting to give a conceptual reading of the epistemic violence present when silencing occurs can help distinguish the different ways members of oppressed groups are silenced with respect to testimony. I offer an account of epistemic violence as the failure, owing to pernicious ignorance, of hearers to meet the vulnerabilities of speakers in ling…
Concrete Flowers
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
A Cautionary Tale
A Cautionary Tale:On Limiting Epistemic Oppression Kristie Dotson (bio) I cannot recall the words of my first poembut I remember a promiseI made my pennever to leave itlyingin somebody else's blood. Audre Lorde, "To the Poet Who Happens to Be Black and the Black Poet Who Happens to Be a Woman"1 Introduction In this paper, first and foremost, I aim to issue a caution. Specifically, I caution that when addressing and identifying forms of epistemic …
Moi, féministe noire
In this paper, I offer a partial picture of my conceptual location as a US black feminist, professional philosopher and, by doing so, illustrate one of the ways Africana philosophy is being shaped and engaged. I offer a portrait of my conceptual location by identifying a value shared by some ‘anti-theory’ black feminists and some Africana professional philosophers in the US that ultimately recommends a consistent engagement in black feminist/phil…
"Agreeing to Disagree, Perhaps? A Commentary on Naomi Zack, "The Ethics and Mores of Race
A Cautionary Tale
Black Feminist Me
In this paper, I offer a partial picture of my conceptual location as a US black feminist, professional philosopher and, by doing so, illustrate one of the ways Africana philosophy is being shaped and engaged. I offer a portrait of my conceptual location by identifying a value shared by some 'anti-theory' black feminists and some Africana professional philosophers in the US that ultimately recommends a consistent engagement in black feminist/phil…
Radical Love
Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression
Epistemic oppression refers to persistent epistemic exclusion that hinders one’s contribution to knowledge production. The tendency to shy away from using the term “epistemic oppression” may follow from an assumption that epistemic forms of oppression are generally reducible to social and political forms of oppression. While I agree that many exclusions that compromise one’s ability to contribute to the production of knowledge can be reducible to…
Thinking Familiar with the Interstitial”
It's not that we haven't always been here, since there was a here. It is that the letters of our names have been scrambled when they were not totally erased, and our fingertips upon the handles of history have been called the random brushings of birds. (Lorde 1990, ix) Because... [racialized peoples'] dehumanization has not been successful, conceiving of self and others and their exercise of themselves both against dehumanization and toward liber…
Curious Disappearances
In this paper, we analyze the recent public scandal involving Nafissatou Diallo and Dominique Strauss‐Kahn to offer an account of the role affectability imbalances play in process‐based invisibility. Process‐based invisibilities, in this paper, refer to predictable narrative gaps within public narratives that can be aptly described as disappearances. We demonstrate that compromised, complex social identities, maladjusted webs of reciprocity, and …
Inheriting Patricia Hill Collins'sBlack Feministepistemology
In this paper, I begin to construct an inheritance map for the epistemological insights in Patricia Hill Collins's book Black Feminist Thought. An inheritance map attempts to take stock of what one has been given in a particular project and what one inherits as work yet to do. Here I outline that Black Feminist Thought demonstrates that knowledge has no proper subject, while leaving a project to imagine black feminist epistemology outside of ascr…
Between Rocks and Hard Places
(Addressed to all readers)1As a Black feminist professional philosopher, I am charged with many responsibilities. Premier among them is the entrenchment of Black feminist thought in today's academy
Word to the Wise
It is not uncommon to ask a race and gender‐based question of a philosopher of race, only to hear ‘I do race, not gender’. To the ears of many Black feminists, this sounds, to be frank, utterly foolish. Here, I identify three metaphilosophical assumptions, i.e. the disaggregation, fundamentality and transcendental assumptions, that aid in underwriting the ability to use the statement, ‘I do race, not gender’, as a means for avoiding gender‐based …
Contested Terrains of Women of Color and Third World Women
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
On intellectual diversity and differences that may not make a difference
Calls for diversity in higher education have been ongoing for, at least, a century. Today, the diversity movement in higher education is in danger of being co-opted in the US by a move to make ‘intellectual diversity,’ i.e. the diversity of political opinion, on par with the cultural and historical diversity that one finds within differently racialized populations. Intellectual diversity is thought to track different modes of thinking between con…
Distinguishing Knowledge Possession and Knowledge Attribution
On the way to decolonization in a settler colony
In this paper, I explain Black feminist identity politics as a practice that is 'on the way' to settler decolonization in a US context for the fact that it makes demands that we attend to our "originating" stories and, in doing so, 1) generate potential for difficult coalitions for decolonization in settler colonial USA and 2) promoting a range of refusals (Simpson 2014) that aid in resisting the completion of settler colonialism in North America…
Scrutinized but not recognized
Conceptualiser l’oppression épistémique1
L’oppression épistémique désigne une exclusion épistémique persistante qui empêche ou limite la contribution d’une personne à la production des savoirs. On hésite à parler d’« oppression épistémique », et cela tient peut-être à la prémisse voulant que les formes épistémiques de l’oppression se ramènent en général à ses formes politiques et sociales. L’auteure convient que de nombreuses formes d’exclusion qui compromettent la capacité d’une person…
Epistemic exclusion
Epistemic oppression, resistance, and resurgence
Epistemic exclusion
Despite institutional efforts, growth in the number of faculty of color has largely plateaued, limiting research innovation and other benefits of diversity. In this article, we seek to understand structural barriers to faculty equity by (a) detailing a theory of epistemic exclusion within academia and (b) applying the theory of epistemic exclusion to the specific context of faculty departmental reviews of scholarly research (e.g., annual review, …
Exploring disparities in research through the lens of epistemic exclusion
Epistemic exclusion is a form of scholarly devaluation based on disciplinary and identity‐based biases within systems of evaluation. In two studies, we draw upon the theory of epistemic exclusion to explore potential biases shaping journal review and publication processes in Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy ( ASAP ). In Study 1, we coded 1293 manuscripts submitted to ASAP between 2016 and 2021 to determine if there were disparities in …
Initial development and validation of the Faculty Epistemic Exclusion Scale
Sociology (22 works) · Philosophy (21 works) · Epistemology (17 works) · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Law (10 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Critical Race Theory in Education (8 works) · Gender Studies (8 works)