This article offers critique of Pascoe and Stripling’s The Epistemology of Disaster and Social Change, which frames environmental disasters as a site of ethical and epistemic openness that enable social transformation. Although sympathetic to their justice-oriented framework, I argue that it implicitly relies on the continued epistemic labor of the most structurally marginalized. Drawing centrally on the work of Maria Lugones and Sara Ahmed, I argue that there is potentially catastrophic loses i…
Read moreThis article offers critique of Pascoe and Stripling’s The Epistemology of Disaster and Social Change, which frames environmental disasters as a site of ethical and epistemic openness that enable social transformation. Although sympathetic to their justice-oriented framework, I argue that it implicitly relies on the continued epistemic labor of the most structurally marginalized. Drawing centrally on the work of Maria Lugones and Sara Ahmed, I argue that there is potentially catastrophic loses in the wake of environmental crisis that justify refusing epistemic solidarity with more privileged members of society. I contend that the ambiguity about refusal highlights a potential for Pascoe and Stripling’s framework to unintentionally be epistemically exploitative.
