Knowing your past: Trauma, stress, and mnemonic epistemic injustice

Puddifoot, Katherine; Sandelind, Clara

Abstract

There is strong psychological evidence suggesting that social and institutional structures can cause people to experience trauma and stress that leads to memory distortion and disorganisation. We argue that these outcomes can constitute a mnemonic form of epistemic injustice. In the case of mnemonic epistemic injustice, a person is denied access to knowledge about their personal past, which can severely undermine their epistemic agency, capacity for autonomy, and general well-being. Further, we show how this initial mnemonic epistemic injustice can be compounded when a person is required to provide testimony about their need for support if core details of their testimony are accurate but are dismissed as lacking credibility because of memory errors. This compounding injustice can be due to the hearer’s prejudiced response to the falsities contained in the testimony. Alternatively, the hearer may respond reasonably to these falsities, assuming that the falsities reflect a more general unreliability, because they lack appropriate training. In the latter case, the compounding epistemic injustice finds its source in an institutional failing. We illustrate our argument by discussing the case of asylum-seekers in the UK. The asylum system foreseeably and avoidably exposes asylum-seekers to a heightened risk of trauma and stress induced memory distortions and disorganisations. It further compounds this mnemonic epistemic injustice when asylum-seekers are asked to provide testimony to evidence their need of protection. They are often deemed to lack credibility due to memory related falsities contained in their testimony. In this way, different features of social and institutional structures can conspire to make it especially difficult for marginalised individuals to be believed.

Citation

Puddifoot, K., & Sandelind, C. (2024). Knowing your past: Trauma, stress, and mnemonic epistemic injustice. Journal of Social Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12557

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 8, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Jan 30, 2024
• Publication Date: Jan 30, 2024
• Deposit Date: Jan 16, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 2, 2024
• Journal: Journal of Social Philosophy
• Print ISSN: 0047-2786
• Electronic ISSN: 1467-9833
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12557
• Keywords: memory, asylum, mental health, epistemic injustice
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2147783