Epistemic Harm: On Zemiology and Epistemic Injustice

Zemiology challenges narrow criminological frames in providing frameworks through which social harm can be understood beyond that which is criminalised. It has, though, been relatively inattentive to harms at the epistemic level. Engaging and developing Miranda Fricker’s scholarship, this conceptual/theoretical article produces a concept of epistemic harm, thereby promoting conceptual expansion and theoretical reformulation of zemiology. In turn, this feeds into criminological-zemiological debates regarding central categories for enquiry and their abilities to render social problems recognizable. The applicability of the conceptualization developed in this article is discussed in relation to examples drawing on race, gender, religion and disability. Through this, the substantive remit of zemiology is expanded: engagement with epistemic harm opens zemiology to a broader arena than it tends to consider currently. Zemiology is also conceptualized as an exercise in epistemic justice itself, which is bolstered through conscious engagement with theory on epistemic justice.