Epistemic injustice: women poppy cultivators in the opium production discourse of Afghanistan

This article demonstrates how the prolonged absence and prejudicial treatment of women in discourse led to their loss of a conceptual framework and inability to articulate their experience to themselves and others. This study analyses the discourse of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, focusing on international and national documentation of poppy cultivation between the Taliban’s fall in 2001 and their return to power in 2021. Applying a feminist epistemology and critical discourse analysis, this study conducts a textual analysis of the Annual Opium Survey Reports produced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes, the only formal institution presenting research-based reports on this subject. The study offers three interlinked findings. First, for 18 years, the epistemic erasure of women poppy cultivators from the national poppy cultivation narrative masculinised the poppy farming occupation and opium poppy-growing families. Second, for two years, the experiences of women opium poppy cultivators were prejudicially deflated, leading to the stereotypical genderisation of the farming occupation and opium-producing families. Third, these two factors – the epistemic erasure of women opium poppy cultivators and the deflation of their experiences – contributed to these women’s epistemic inability to self-identify as farmers, articulate their labour as farming, and claim economic contribution.