Reproduction of ignorance in normative political theory: an intersectional methodological critique

Abstract

Social ignorance is widely recognised in scholarly literatures as a substantive epistemic practice, stemming from dominant socioepistemic standpoints that cultivate systematic insensitivities to historical structures of oppression. The thesis mobilises these scholarly insights to illuminate the reproduction of social ignorance in certain strands of normative political theory.

Specifically, I argue that within these strands of normative political theory, their methodological practices, and the ontological and epistemological assumptions underpinning them, reproduce social ignorance. Although much normative political theorising proclaims a commitment to social justice, I show that these methodological practices make injustice difficult to perceive. I identify: i) a widespread methodological insensitivity to historical structures of oppression; ii) the deployment of theoretically reductive representations of sociopolitical reality; and iii) a lack of reflexivity, as indicative of the ontological and epistemological engines behind the reproduction of social ignorance. The thesis seeks to remedy the problem of social ignorance in normative political theory through a turn to intersectionality. I develop an understanding of intersectionality as a social justice-oriented paradigm for guiding reflections on knowledge cultivation, and for thinking through the possibilities of nurturing non-ignorant methodological practices. I distil a series of intersectional methodological injunctions that can transform normative theorising and orient it towards identifying and contesting social ignorance. Having identified the need for normative political theory to attend to the ethical and political implications of its methodological practices, I make the case for an intersectional, historically grounded, critical, and reflexive ethos to theorising. To animate these theoretical arguments, the thesis interrogates forms of social ignorance stemming from two distinct axes of sociopolitical power, racism and ableism. Drawing on a cross-section of critical literatures on race and disability respectively, I introduce different intersectional approaches to methodological practice that can enable the process of identifying and contesting social ignorance. I curate a preliminary range of conceptual tools and practices that illuminate intersectional paths to non-ignorant theorising, and show how these tools enable the identification of social ignorance in several major, influential works of normative political theory.