The question of what constitutes valid knowledge has remained a central concern in philosophy, particularly in the tension between Western epistemology and indigenous systems of knowing. Within Igbo thought, Odeshi represents an indigenous security practice through which knowledge of protection, vulnerability, and survival is generated and sustained. The problem addressed by this study is the persistent marginalization of Odeshi as superstition or irrational belief due to the dominance of Western scientific and epistemological standards that fail to account for indigenous modes of knowledge validation. Adopting a philosophical and analytical method grounded in Igbo epistemology, this study examines Odeshi through the lenses of experiential knowledge, communal testimony, embodied practice, and the performative power of nommo. The method involves a critical analysis of Igbo concepts of knowledge, force interaction, pragmatic rationality, and epistemic authority as articulated within indigenous philosophical discourse. The findings reveal that Odeshi functions as a coherent system of indigenous security knowledge whose validity is established through lived experience, communal regulation, and practical effectiveness rather than laboratory experimentation. The study further finds that Odeshi challenges scientific reductionism by demonstrating an alternative rationality oriented toward survival and communal well-being. The study concludes that recognizing Odeshi as a legitimate epistemic framework promotes epistemic justice and pluralism, and it recommends the inclusion of indigenous Igbo knowledge systems as meaningful contributors to global philosophical inquiry.

In the era of information overload and the fragmentation of the media space, the concepts of truth and trust are in the throes of a revolutionary change. ‘Post-truth’, 2016 Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year, means “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief” (Oxford Languages, 2016). As a result of this, a crisis of epistemic authority is occurring, and many sources of truth are coming under challenge. The processes of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation have become commonplace in the digital age and changed the way people perceive the world, obtain and process information, and trust in the institutions. The objective of this paper is to explore the paradoxical relationship between truth and trust in an age of information abundance, where people have access to an ever-growing supply of information, but the actual knowledge is fragmentary. By combining the philosophical, psychological, technological, sociological, and political approaches to the post-truth concept, the paper will aim to provide a better understanding of the phenomenon as well as of its causes and consequences for the concept of truth and loss of trust in traditional institutions. It will also try to determine the best possible way to regain some amount of integrity of information in the current state of the world.

This paper compares the status and qualities of different forms of expertise and distinguishes them from non-knowledge. It contrasts professional and scientific expertise with a less institutionalised and credentialed but increasingly prominent form: practical, experience-based “lay” or “citizen” expertise. Drawing on social studies of knowledge, expertise, science and the professions, the paper asks when expertise claims are reliable and how the value of experience-based claims can be assessed. Expertise is conceptualized pragmatically as specialized knowledge that provides orientation to others. While different forms of expertise may be provided by different actors, conveyed through different means and relevant in different contexts, they respond to shared validity standards: authoritative claims must be non-ubiquitous, problem-relevant, and advanced by trustworthy, impartial speakers with specialized capabilities. However, these standards must be translated into context- and knowledge-specific indicators. Assessing experience-based expertise is particularly challenging because conventional markers of epistemic authority are absent. The paper discusses two responses that build on professionalising, processing and certifying lay expertise, thereby partially transforming its character.

In recent decades, knowledge about the brain has transformed radically, enabling neuroscience to venture into domains traditionally reserved for the humanities and social sciences. This expansion has prompted critiques regarding the potential implications and consequences of neuroscience’s engagement with domains such as education, law, politics, and the self. Building on these concerns, this study seeks to foster a dialogue between two onto-epistemological perspectives: (1) the epistemological history of the making of scientific objects and objectivity ideals and (2) decolonial and postcolonial reflections on knowledge and its history. The former illuminates the ontology of the brain as an object conceived as ahistorical, serving as a condition of possibility for neuroscience. This configuration facilitates flourishing objectivity. The latter reveals how these elements function as power technologies, thus presenting modern science and its objects as universal, valid, and inevitable. The brain serves as a case study for a dialogue that reveals how the construction of scientific objects coincides with subject concealment. Specifically, modern subjectivity is hidden behind these objects, whereas subjects external to modernity are excluded from scientific endeavors. The genesis of objectivity unfolds alongside European imperial expansion, anchoring the modern brain’s epistemic authority within the historical processes that have enabled its universalization.

Abstract What does the rise of generative Artificial Intelligence and meme-driven political communication mean for public diplomacy and strategic narratives? Using Donald Trump’s AI-generated “King Trump” fighter jet video (posted during the 2025 “No Kings” protests) as a jumping off point, we explore how AI slop and “shitposting” destabilize the communicative foundations of public diplomacy and international order. By building on Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle’s foundational framework of strategic narratives, we argue that the proliferation of AI-generated content transforms global media ecologies, erodes epistemic authority, and amplifies performative, right wing populism. We theorise this phenomenon as the resonant slop machine: a global political-socio-cultural-economic-technological assemblage that fuses generative AI, meme culture, and affective politics to produce incoherent yet resonant narratives that shape public diplomacy. By situating Trump’s digital theatrics within broader trends of diplomatic trolling and post-truth politics we highlight the implications for scholars and practitioners seeking to salvage meaningful public diplomacy in a fractured, enshittified information environment.

ABSTRACT This article examines how journalists define news literacy, a concept typically framed as an audience skill set. I analyze 204 open-ended responses from U.S. journalists using discourse analysis grounded in metajournalistic discourse and organized with the 5Cs of context, creation, content, circulation, and consumption. Four patterns recur: defending professional boundaries, reasserting epistemic authority, constructing civic identity, and performing epistemic maintenance. These uses position news literacy as professional meaning-making as much as pedagogy, enacted through boundary work across participants, practices, and professionalism. The analysis also surfaces silences about access, affect, platform power, and journalism’s own complicity. Building on these findings, I propose an extension to prevailing definitions. News literacy should retain audience competencies while adding a practice-facing component for journalists: deliberate reflection on method and constraint (creation and context), clear communication of sourcing, evidence, and genre distinctions (content), attention to how stories travel and become visible (circulation), and cultivation of habits that sustain care for truth under strain (consumption). This reframing treats news literacy as a relational and ethical framework that links what publics are asked to do with what journalists do and show, offering a more reflexive, inclusive, and structurally aware model of practice.

ABSTRACT Eyewitnessing is a foundational practice in journalism and plays a central role in establishing journalism’s claim to truth and maintaining its societal legitimacy (Pantti 2019). Yet, it is increasingly contested because it depends on journalists’ mediating subjectivity and because non-professional actors can now distribute their witnessing accounts directly, thus taking away journalism’s monopoly on witnessing. We analyse how journalists navigate these tensions as they establish their epistemic authority as witnesses in personal journalism, i.e., journalism in which journalists write explicitly from a first-person perspective. Our computational analysis of personal journalism through the lens of “ethos”, the discursive self-presentation of journalists, demonstrates that eyewitnessing is the most common practice in journalists’ ethos constructions in personal journalism. Our textual analysis of confessional columns shows four distinct modes of eyewitnessing that journalists employ to construct epistemic authority: situated, failed, long-term and reflective eyewitnessing. These strategies allow journalists to present themselves simultaneously as relatable participants and as credible witnesses. These findings illustrate how confessional columns partially integrate epistemic frameworks that value situated knowledge and lived experience, while preserving eyewitnessing’s core function to produce reliable knowledge. To conclude, we argue that this shift raises critical questions about who is included in journalism as an eyewitness.

In this case study, I focus on two previously underresearched groups in the history of police interrogation: officers of the Female Criminal Police, established around 1926, and schoolteachers who, beginning in 1924, collaborated with the Leipzig Criminal Office as so-called criminal aides (Kriminalhelfer). Both the Female Criminal Police and the criminal aides of the Leipzig Criminal Office claimed a distinct niche within the domain of interrogation practices. They publicly asserted a superior aptitude for questioning children and adolescents, particularly in cases involving the sexual abuse of minors (then classified as Sittlichkeitsdelikte, that is,"moral offenses") under §176 of the Imperial Penal Code. The article situates these two groups within a broader discourse about interrogation methods that emerged around 1900, a debate increasingly shaped by new psychological approaches-above all, by the emerging field of the psychology of testimony (Aussagepsychologie). The question of which epistemic persona could most competently interrogate minors reflected, on one level, professional interests-the pursuit of new occupational opportunities for women and for teachers-and, on another, the contested epistemic authority and social recognition tied to particular forms of subjectivity. In the longer run, female police officers succeeded in establishing their legitimacy because they offered a model that could be integrated into existing police structures: a model of psychologically trained, empathetic officers responsible for cases involving children and young people. Teachers, by contrast, were unable to articulate a comparable epistemic or administrative framework, and their involvement in interrogation practices remained highly localized and short-lived.

Abstract Medical distrust is often the result of social injustices, discrimination, systemic racism, and the repeated experience of epistemic injustices. Signaling medical trustworthiness in this context requires not only demonstrating competence and caring but grappling with the source of distrust rooted in experience. While we should be wary of framing every unmediatable conflict as an issue of distrust, which may simplify a complex human experience to an identity-based response, we argue that a community-engaged intersectional approach to mediation can address conflicts rooted in distrust and is fundamentally aligned with Nancy Dubler's legacy of addressing power differentials. We present a case where traditional tools of mediation-including addressing informational and emotional gaps-were insufficient at reaching a "principled resolution." In this case, the distance between the family member's and the medical team's understanding of the facts was so profound that it could not be overcome. Far from being irrational or unreasonable, this outcome was a direct response to the perpetual unequal access to epistemic authority experienced by this Black family. Mediators often belong to social groups with more power, and this bias can impact mediation practices, communication norms, and assumptions about conflict. Inclusive mediation models rooted in conflict theory can build on Nancy Dubler's classical work. We argue that bioethicists must engage in risky conversations with local communities to "collaboratively imagine what a more trustworthy system might look like." We describe the inclusive mediation model and how it expands on Nancy Dubler's foundational work and honors her tremendous legacy.

Justifying the epistemic authority of science in liberal democracy

ABSTRACT Informed by the theoretical concepts of ‘epistemic authority’ and ‘enoughness’, this study explores how international students in a Chinese EMI programme perceive their teachers’ English proficiency. Drawing on ethnographic data from classroom observations and interviews with a cohort of international students, the study analyzes how Chinese teachers’ English accents, lexical choices, pronunciation errors, and pragmatic infelicities become sites of humour and ideological negotiation. Findings reveal three themes: (i) humour and laughter serve as negotiations of epistemic authority, enabling international students to comment on and contest teachers’ linguistic performances; (ii) pronunciation and lexical choices act as markers of enoughness, shaping perceptions of legitimacy and communicative adequacy in EMI classrooms; and (iii) teachers reclaim epistemic authority through pedagogical practice, using adaptive strategies such as clarification, scaffolding, and individualised support to restore legitimacy and ensure comprehension. We argue that international students’ language ideologies both reinforce and challenge existing hierarchies of epistemic authority, and we call for a more nuanced understanding of competence in EMI contexts that moves beyond deficit framings. Pedagogical implications include supporting EMI teachers’ adaptive practices for reclaiming authority while engaging international students in reflexive dialogue about English variation, communicative enoughness, and epistemic justice in higher education.

This essay “sits with” Arab feminist knowledge production mechanisms and processes, tracing its currents as they move through and against structures of power. It takes up Gramsci’s “war of position” as an invitation to consider how grassroots feminists in the Arab region inhabit the role of organic intellectuals, producing knowledge in ways that refuse containment. This knowledge does not sit comfortably within institutions, even as it is co-opted by NGOs and academia, translated into frameworks that often betray its intent. By exploring new ways of identifying “organic knowledge production” in oral histories, in the labour of translation, and in protest archives, this essay follows the ways in which feminist knowledge undoes dominant narratives, whether those imposed by the state or those tethered to Western epistemic authority. It insists on the force of feminist thought as praxis, as a movement that not only names injustice but acts upon it. Gramsci’s notions of organicity and the war of position find new life in these feminist struggles as tools sharpened by multi-directional organizing experiences. In centreing these modes of knowledge production, the essay unsettles the narrow grammars of civil society, which too often reduce feminist work to NGO-led initiatives, severed from the communities that sustain them. Instead, it returns knowledge to its rightful custodians, to those who shape its meanings in relation to struggle.

As AI systems increasingly structure educational processes, they shape not only what is learned, but also how epistemic authority is distributed and whose knowledge is recognized. This article explores the normative and technopolitical implications of this development by examining two prominent paradigms in AI ethics: Ethical AI and Responsible AI. Although often treated as synonymous, these frameworks reflect distinct tensions between formal universalism and contextual responsiveness, between rule-based evaluation and governance-oriented design. Drawing on deontology, utilitarianism, responsibility ethics, contract theory, and the capability approach, the article analyzes the frictions that emerge when these frameworks are applied to algorithmically mediated education. The argument situates these tensions within broader philosophical debates on technological mediation, normative infrastructures, and the ethics of sociotechnical design. Through empirical examples such as algorithmic grading and AI-mediated admissions, the article shows how predictive systems embed values into optimization routines, thereby reshaping educational space and interpretive agency. In response, it develops the concept of situated ethics, emphasizing epistemic justice, learner autonomy, and democratic judgment as central criteria for evaluating educational AI. To clarify what is at stake, the article distinguishes adaptive learning optimization from education as a process of subject formation and democratic teaching objectives. Rather than viewing AI as an external tool, the article conceptualizes it as a co-constitutive actor within pedagogical practice. Ethical reflection must therefore be integrated into design, implementation, and institutional contexts from the outset. Accordingly, the article offers (1) a conceptual map of ethical paradigms, (2) a criteria-based evaluative lens, and (3) a practice-oriented diagnostic framework to guide situated ethics in educational AI. The paper ultimately argues for an approach that attends to the relational, political, and epistemic dimensions of AI systems in education.

This study examined the gendered dimensions of agricultural labor by foregrounding the lived experiences of women farmers in the Caraga Region of the Philippines. Framed by Feminist theory and situated within an interpretive qualitative paradigm, the inquiry employed in-depth interviews with (n=8) participants to capture situated knowledge as epistemic authority. Data were analyzed through Creswell and Poth’s Data Analysis Spiral, with iterative movement between coding, categorization, and thematic construction. The findings were consolidated under the concept of Rural Feminism, a localized framework of empowerment grounded in agricultural labor, cultural traditions, and spirituality. Five subthemes were identified: (1) women’s strategies for managing and sustaining farms, (2) the role of Christianity and spirituality in resilience, (3) the persistence of traditional gender norms, (4) experiences of exclusion and inequality, and (5) aspirations for equitable futures in agriculture. Results showed that while women faced limited recognition and structural inequalities, they asserted agency, influenced production decisions, and sustained rural communities. The study argued that women’s contributions constituted leadership and authority in farming rather than auxiliary labor. The findings supported the integration of spirituality into the framework of Cultural Rural Feminism and its implications highlight the necessity of gender-sensitive agricultural policies, education, and support structures that recognize women as central to the sustainability and transformation of Philippine agriculture.

Abstract This paper examines the paradoxical decline in engagement with philosophy of science among engineers precisely when machine learning (ML) systems are increasingly performing complex epistemological functions in engineering practice. We identify how philosophical naivety , characterized by the uncritical adoption of reductive frameworks regarding consciousness, intelligence, and ethics, creates tangible organizational and technical liabilities. We then demonstrate how conceptual limitations in engineers’ philosophical foundations lead to three primary flaws: 1) ontological misclassification of system capabilities, 2) ethical blind spots in ML system design and application, and 3) inadequate epistemological approaches and hidden philosophical commitments for interpreting model outputs. Thus, we argue that renewed engagement with the philosophy of science is not merely academic but necessary for engineers to maintain epistemic authority and responsibility in an era where engineering judgment is increasingly delegated to or mediated by ML systems. In response, we propose a technical-philosophical framework integrating perspectives from philosophy of mind, ethics, epistemology, and engineering to address these shortcomings systematically.

ABSTRACT This interview explores the gendered dynamics of authorship and translation through Erendiz Atasü’s The Other Side of the Mountain (2000), a seminal work in which Atasü occupies the dual roles of author and co-translator. Drawing on feminist translation studies and an interview with Atasü, the analysis challenges hierarchical binaries relegate translation to a derivative, secondary status. Atasü’s collaborative approach reframes translation as an act of creative authorship – a dynamic process of reinterpretation, discursive negotiation, and agency. By destabilizing the ontological divide between original and translation, her collaborative practice offers an egalitarian paradigm that not only subverts masculinist literary conventions but also reasserts women’s epistemic authority within transnational literary production.

The accelerating integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education has generated unprecedented opportunities for personalized learning, data-driven decision-making, and global connectivity. However, in culturally diverse contexts such as Fiji and the wider Pacific, these technological transformations also pose profound ethical and cultural challenges. This paper critically examines how AI can be integrated into Fijian classrooms in ways that support rather than diminish indigenous knowledge systems, cultural identity, and collective well-being. Drawing on culturally responsive pedagogy, indigenous epistemology, and human-centred design theory, the paper proposes a Culturally Responsive AI Integration Framework (CRAIF) for Fijian and Pacific education systems. The framework emphasizes human agency, relational learning, and indigenous values such as vanua (community and environment), talanoa (dialogue and empathy), and veiwekani (relational interconnectedness). It argues that educational technology must be guided not only by efficiency and innovation but also by cultural ethics, inclusivity, and social responsibility (Thaman, 2019; Nabobo-Baba, 2020). Through critical synthesis of global and regional literature, policy analysis, and emerging studies on the Fifth Industrial Revolution (5IR), the paper explores how Fijian educators and policymakers can navigate the tension between technological modernization and cultural preservation (Schwab & Zahidi, 2023). The study highlights that uncritical adoption of AI risks deepening digital colonialism, marginalizing indigenous knowledge, and weakening local epistemic authority (UNESCO, 2023; Watanabe, Nakamura, & Kato, 2022). In response, it advocates for AI policies and educational designs that position technology as a partner in cultural transmission, not a substitute for human relationships and traditional wisdom. The paper concludes that safeguarding human agency in the age of AI requires re-centring education around cultural resilience, ethical innovation, and indigenous worldviews, ensuring that Pacific societies thrive in the digital era while preserving their spiritual and cultural foundations.

The article examines the World Health Organization’s (WHO) discourse on artificial intelligence (AI) in their foresight exercises, doing so by drawing on the analytical framework of strong and weak AI narratives. The analysis finds that strong AI narratives (those which depict AI as human-like or even super-intelligent, emphasising existential risks and transformative power) are rarely found. In contrast, the exercises produce a broad range of weak AI narratives (those that emphasise the technical limitations, ethical concerns, and practical governance of specific AI applications in healthcare). The findings reveal how certain AI technologies are foregrounded by WHO, how these are framed as in isolation from other emerging technologies, how this isolation is strategically blurred, and the role of expert participation in legitimising WHO’s policy on AI. Situated within WHO’s broader policy discourse on AI, the paper draws out how the foresight exercises strategically construct and validate particular trajectories aligned with WHO’s existing priorities. Through selective narrative framing, expert input, and methodological design, WHO reinforces its epistemic authority by guiding the discourse on AI in global health toward context-sensitive and manageable use cases of the technology. Ultimately, these foresight exercises serve as a site of contestation, where competing visions of AI in global health are negotiated, and WHO’s influence over future governance in the area is actively shaped.

ABSTRACT This article examines how the securitization of food production in the European Union (EU) reinforces patriarchal authority and epistemic exclusion. Building on feminist security studies, it analyzes how discourses of ‘food security’ elevate masculinized figures of authority – farmers cast as protectors and providers – while marginalizing alternative knowledges of care, sustainability, and global justice. The study applies frame analysis to debates following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, focusing on two key controversies: proposals to reduce pesticide use under the Farm to Fork strategy and the Nature Restoration Law. The empirical material consists of statements, press releases, and media interventions by Copa-Cogeca, the Federation of Swedish Farmers, and allied politicians in the European Parliament. Agricultural lobby groups framed these initiatives as threats to Europe’s survival, invoking militarized imagery and claiming epistemic authority to ‘shoot down’ environmental regulation in the name of national defence. The paper contributes to feminist debates on epistemic justice by demonstrating how securitization both depoliticizes contested issues and sustains patriarchal and Eurocentric authority over what counts as credible knowledge in food politics.

ABSTRACT This study examines how U.S. sports journalists perceive and articulate their professional roles amid the emerging discourse and experimental integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in newsroom practices. Drawing on role theory and the concept of boundary work, the study analyzes in-depth interviews with 43 sports journalists employed across print, broadcast, and digital platforms. While industry narratives frame AI as a means of increasing newsroom efficiency, participants expressed deep skepticism about its use in sports reporting, particularly when automation encroaches on interpretive, relational, and ethical dimensions of journalistic labor. Journalists emphasized the distinctiveness of human-authored storytelling, audience trust, and narrative judgment—qualities they argue are incompatible with algorithmic production. The findings reveal that sports journalists are not passively responding to technological change; rather, they are actively reaffirming their epistemic authority and drawing professional boundaries to defend against the deskilling and depersonalization of their work. This research contributes to growing scholarship on AI and journalism by offering a grounded analysis of how journalists in a historically marginalized beat navigate automation and assert their relevance in a shifting media environment.