Acting Towards Epistemic Justice with Campesina/os in Northern Antioquia, Colombia

Ph.D. Exit Seminar in the Graduate Field of Development Studies

Abstract

Since first establishing contact in 2021, I have been working in close relation with Movimiento Ríos Vivos (MRV / Living Rivers Movement), a campesina/o movement in resistance to Hidroituango, the largest hydroelectric dam in Colombia, which has displaced them from their beloved Cauca River and destroyed their livelihoods. I present the case of MRV as one of epistemic injustice (Fricker 2007) and identify in our collaborative research instances of acting towards epistemic justice. In addition to its ethnographic examination into cañonera/o (people of the canyon) lives and ways of knowing, this work contributes to literature on participatory action research and presents implications for ways that we as scholars can actively contribute towards epistemic justice and work against academic extractivism.  

About the candidate

Carolina Osorio Gil (she/they) identifies as a formerly undocumented US Latina scholar born in Bogotá, Colombia. She completed a BA in Cognitive Psychology at Cornell and an earlier Master’s in Early Childhood Education Teaching & Curriculum at Columbia University Teachers College. These earlier studies, combined with a lifelong practice of theater and over a decade as a Latina community organizer in Ithaca NY prior to starting her PhD studies, have led her to develop a trans-disciplinary deeply relational approach to social science research with rural communities in Latin America.