Summary
Violence at the site of knowledge production, in women of color feminists’ term as used in Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, that renders Palestinians unreliable narrators of their own histories and both structures and necessitates solidarity tourism (Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, PDF p.74).
Details
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“What Palestinians confront is a question of epistemology. Violence at the site of knowledge production, what women of color feminists have long called epistemic violence, renders Palestinians unreliable narrators of their own histories” (PDF p.74).
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It is the mechanism behind the Colonial Calculus of Veracity: colonial knowledge production has elevated Israeli narratives as “truth” and relegated Palestinian narratives to “bias”, so guides must perform their suffering to demonstrate veracity (PDF p.74).
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Chapter 2 carries the same analysis into narration and branding: Baha Hilo describes the effort put into discrediting Palestinian realities and making sure Palestinian voices have no credibility (PDF p.83).
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Kelly’s Introduction note 8 records the term’s coining: Gayatri Spivak coined “epistemic violence” in “Can the Subaltern Speak?” to index violence at the site of knowledge production, particularly in reference to the colonial logics that circulate in the knowledge white feminists in the Global North produce about women in the Global South (Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, PDF p.271). Chapter 7’s close returns to Spivak’s 1988 outline as the structuring condition of the guide-tourist relationship (PDF p.260).
Related pages
Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, Colonial Calculus of Veracity, Witnessing, Solidarity Tourism