Structural discrimination through ignorance: epistemic injustice, (social) norms, and disability

This paper investigates the relationship between discrimination, epistemic injustice, and social structures as it pertains to the marginalization of disabled people. Doing so, we argue for a new understanding of structural discrimination. While discrimination is often viewed as an agent-centered or rule-based phenomenon, we argue that a broader socio-structural lens is crucial for understanding how it emerges and persists over time. Drawing on the Human Variation Model (HVM) of disability, we analyze three subtypes of epistemic injustice—testimonial injustice, hermeneutical injustice, and non-disabled ignorance—and demonstrate their critical role in perpetuating structural discrimination. Our analysis addresses three gaps in the literature: (1) it clarifies the relationship between epistemic injustice and (structural) discrimination; (2) it highlights how epistemic injustices contribute to discrimination against disabled people; and (3) it allows us to have a better grasp of what structural discrimination is and how it differs from its direct and indirect counterparts.