Climate Change Knowledge and Epistemic Injustice in a Postcolonial Context
摘要
Climate change knowledge is mainly created within and disseminated from a Western scientific paradigm, using internationally dominant language(s) (primarily English) and subject jargon. With the predominantly unidirectional flow of such knowledge from the Global North, limited attention is paid to context-specific climate change knowledge created in the Global South and to whether and how such knowledge is to be disseminated. This chapter is the first to argue that this lack of recognition with respect to thought about climate change in some of the developing countries in the Global South consists of epistemic injustice—roughly, unjust treatment relating to issues pertaining to knowledge production and dissemination. In particular, it argues that two types of epistemic injustice regarding climate change knowledge, viz., hermeneutical and contributory injustice, are prevalent in the postcolonial context of a developing country like South Africa. To correct this epistemic injustice, the chapter proposes concrete ways of decolonising climate change knowledge that would involve substantial shifts in the way climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies and policies are created and communicated.