The possibility of addressing epistemic injustice through engaged research practice: reflections on a menstruation related critical health education project in South Africa

Abstract

Questions of epistemic injustice in relation to community engagement activities have rarely been interrogated. While it is often purported that when academics and community members are involved in the co-creation of knowledge through a mutually beneficial exchange of resources and expertise, all participants emerge as active stakeholders in the knowledge production process, little research has been done on how academics or community partners experience these processes from an epistemological perspective. Does the proposed process of repositioning research participants in community engagement praxis allows for a new power dynamic to emerge in research such that all parties genuinely share equal responsibility for determining the processes and outcomes of the knowledge production process? Do such activities allow for an epistemological shift away from traditional knowledge construction paradigms to ones in which the democratisation of knowledge is prioritised? Does such an epistemological shift in the knowledge construction paradigm extend beyond simply the knowledge construction process to interpersonal relationships between academics and community members who see themselves as co-protagonists in a shared project? In grappling with these questions I will draw on my own, personal experiences working in a menstruation related engaged research critical health education project in South Africa, to discuss the complexities of whether and how the amelioration of epistemic injustices are being served through community engagement activities.