Presumed guilty until proven credible: epistemic injustice toward Venezuelan immigrants in Colombia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ef.349138Keywords:
epistemic injustice, immigration, Venezuelan, Colombia, epistemic oppressionAbstract
With few exceptions, philosophers working on immigration have not taken up the topic of epistemic injustice, primarily, I imagine, because immigration justice is often too narrowly conceived of as encompassing moral and political concerns rather than epistemic ones. But the more I think about the injustices immigrants endure on a daily basis, the more I take this to be a mistake; epistemic injustices must be seen as a central aspect of immigration injustice too. In what follows, I will demonstrate how this is the case. More specifically, after providing an overview of the nature of epistemic injustice, I will highlight some examples of it in the lives of displaced Venezuelan immigrants in Colombia. In doing so, I hope to show why discussions about immigration injustice must include identifying and confronting epistemic wrongs.
Downloads
References
Almost 2,000 Venezuelan refugees murdered in Colombia in five years, NGO says. (2021, June 24). France 24. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210624-almost-2-000- venezuelan-refugees-murdered-in-colombia-in-five-years-ngo-says
Arnson, C. (2019, July 26). The Venezuelan refugee crisis is not just a regional problem: Latin American neighbors are pulling more than their weight. Foreign Affairs. https://www. foreignaffairs.com/articles/venezuela/2019-07-26/venezuelan-refugee-crisis-not-just- regional-problem
Ayola, C. (2019, October 27). Mujeres Migrantes. El Heraldo. https://www.elheraldo.co/columnas- de-opinion/claudia-ayola/mujeres-migrantes-675683
Banchon, M. (2018, June 7). EU lawmakers issue call to take in Venezuelan migrants. DW.com. https:// www.dw.com/en/eu-lawmakers-issue-call-to-take-in-venezuelan-migrants/a-44556414
Barómetro de Xenofobia registró aumento de 731% en discursos de odio en Colombia. (2021, August 22). La Republica. https://www.larepublica.co/economia/barometro-de- xenofobia-registro-aumento-de-731-en-discursos-de-odio-en-colombia-3220818
Baddour, D. (2018, August 20). Ecuador shuts its border to Venezuelan refugees amid historical exodus. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ the_americas/ecuador-shuts-its-border-to-venezuelan-refugees-amid-historic- exodus/2018/08/20/28223fec-a48c-11e8-ad6f-080770dcddc2_story.html
Bahar, D. and Dooley, M. (2019, December 9). Venezuela refugee crisis to become the largest and most underfunded in modern history. Brookings Institute. https://www.brookings. edu/blog/up-front/2019/12/09/venezuela-refugee-crisis-to-become-the-largest-and- most-underfunded-in-modern-history
Collins, J. (2019, August 26). Venezuelans stranded as Ecuador imposes new visa rules. Al Jazeera News. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/venezuelans-stranded-ecuador- imposes-visa-rules-190826134509203.html
Collins, J. (2019, September 17). Why you don’t want to be a Venezuelan woman right now. The New Humanitarian. https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2019/09/17/Venezuela- femicide-maternal-mortality-rates-rising
Detienen a expolicía que habría violado a venezolana en Sabanalarga (Atlántico). (2017, September 29). El Pulzo. https://www.pulzo.com/nacion/captura-expolicia-habria- violado-venezolana-PP357490
Dotson, K. (2011). Tracking epistemic violence, tracking practices of silencing. Hypatia, 26(2), 236-257. Dotson, K. (2012). A cautionary tale: on limiting epistemic oppression. Frontiers: A Journal of
Women’s Studies, 33(1), 24-47. https://doi.org/10.5250/fronjwomestud.33.1.0024
Dotson, K. (2014). Conceptualizing epistemic oppression. Social Epistemology: A Journal of Knowledge, Culture, and Policy, 28(2), 115-138. https://doiorg.ezproxy.uniandes.edu. co/10.1080/02691728.2013.782585
Eckenweiler, L. (2019, June 12). Seeking asylum: epistemic injustice and humanitarian testimonies. Justice in Global Health Emergencies & Humanitarian Crises. https://www.ghe.law.ed.ac. uk/seeking-asylum-epistemic-injustice-and-humanitarian-testimonies/
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: power & the ethics of knowing. Oxford.
Granados, M.O. (2019, July 3). Double risk for LGBT+ venezuelan migrants crossing into Colombia.
Worldcrunch. https://worldcrunch.com/culture-society/double-risk-for-lgbt-venezuelan- migrants-crossing-into-colombia
Grattan, S. (2020, February 13). Venezuelan migrants face rising xenophobia in Latin America. The New Humanitarian. https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2020/02/13/ Venezuelan-migrants-xenophobia-Latin-America
Guarascio, F. (2019, June 24). Asylum applications in EU Rise as more venezuelans seek refugee.
Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-refugees/asylum-applications-in- eu-rise-as-more-venezuelans-seek-refuge-idUSKCN1TP0LQ
Guzmán, S and Ponce, J.C. (2020, November 10). Hate against venezuelans in Colombia is a ticking time bomb. The Global Americans. https://theglobalamericans.org/2020/11/ hate-against-venezuelans-in-colombia-is-a-ticking-time-
Hill Collins, P. (1999). Black feminist thought. Routledge.
Ibáñez, A.M., Rozo, S and Bahar, D. (2021, November). Empowering mogrants: impacts of a migrant’s amnesty on crime reports. World Bank Group. https://documents1.worldbank. org/curated/en/808711635942502374/pdf/Empowering-Migrants-Impacts-of-a-Migrant- s-Amnesty-on-Crime-Reports.pdf
Knight, B and Tribín-Uribe, A. (2020). Immigration and violent crime: evidence from the Colombia- Venezuela border. Borradores de Economía, 1121.
Kurmanaev, A. and González, J. (2019, August 5). Colombia offers citizenship to 24, 000 children of Venezuelan refugees. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/world/ americas/colombia-citizenship-venezuelans.html
Maldonando, C, Londoño, J and Ospina, F. (2019). Migrantes venezolonas en Colombia: barreras de acceso a la interrupción voluntaria del embarazo. La Mesa por la Vida y la Salud de las Mujeres. Bogotá, Colombia.
Moloney, A. (2019, August 8). Is South America closing its ‘open door’ on Venezuelans? Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-migration-analysis/is-south-america- closing-its-open-door-on-venezuelans-idUSKCN1UY27D
May, V. (2014). Speaking into the void: intersectionality critiques and epistemic backlash. Hypatia, 29(1), 94-112.
Medina, J. (2017). Varieties of hermeneutical injustice. In I. J. Kidd, J. Medina, and G. Pohlhaus, Jr. (Eds), The Routledge
Handbook of Epistemic Injustice (pp. 41-52). Routledge.
Memes Ran-Damn, Facebook. (2019, September 20,) https://www.facebook.com/ memesrandamn/posts/1154990624694804/
Migración Colombia, Distribución Venezolanos en Colombia, August 2021, https://www. migracioncolombia.gov.co/infografias/distribucion-de-venezolanos-en-colombia-corte- 31-de-agosto-de-2021
O’Toole, M. (2019, June 5). Venezuela, now a top source of U.S. Asylum claims, poses a challenge for Trump. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump- venezuela-asylum-immigration-20190605-story.html
Otis, J. (2020, December 29). Large venezuelan migration sparks xenophobic backlash in Colombia. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/12/29/949548865/large-venezuelan- migration-sparks-xenophobic-backlash-in-colombia
Palacios, C. (2019, June 12). Paren de parir. El Tiempo. https://www.eltiempo.com/opinion/ columnistas/claudia-palacios/paren-de-parir-columna-de-claudia-isabel-palacios- giraldo-374742
Pertuz, J.L. (2020, October 29). Claudia López propone deportar ‘sin contemplación’ a venezolanos que cometan crímenes en Bogotá. BluRadio. https://www.bluradio.com/ blu360/bogota/no-quiero-estigmatizar-a-venezolanos-pero-unos-nos-estan-haciendo- la-vida-cuadritos-claudia-lopez
Pohlhaus, Jr., G. (2017). Varieties of epistemic injustice. In I. J. Kidd, J. Medina, and G. Pohlhaus, Jr. (Eds), The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice (pp. 13-26). Routledge.
Pohlhaus, Jr., G, Medina, J, and Kidd, I.J. (2017). The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice. Routledge.
Proyecto Migración Venezuela. (2019, November 8). Aparecen panfletos amenazantes contra venezolanos en Boyacá. Proyecto Migración Venezuela. https://migravenezuela.com/ web/articulo/aparecen-panfletos-con-amenazas-a-los-venezolanos-en-ventaquemada- boyaca/1566
Roller, E. (2018, June 21). Trump implies asylum seekers are liars, so it’s not hard to see where this goes next. Splinter. https://splinternews.com/trump-implies-asylum-seekers-are- liars-so-its-not-hard-1827016969
Stott, M and Gideon, L. (2020, February 18). Venezuela: refugee crisis tests Colombia’s stability. Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/bfede7a4-4f44-11ea-95a0-43d18ec715f5
Téllez, J. (s.f.). “Migrar y parir: dar a luz lejos de casa.” Poder Parir. https://violenciaobstetrica. co/migrar-parir-mujeres-venezolanas/
Wolf, A. B. (2020). Just Immigration in the americas: a feminist account. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Xenofobia en Colombia: se incrementan crímenes contra migrantes venezolanos. (2021, December 13). El Nacional. https://www.elnacional.com/venezuela/xenofobia-en-colombia-se- incrementan-crimenes-contra-migrantes-venezolanos/
Zulver, J. (2019, February 26). At Venezuela’s border with Colombia, women suffer extraordinary levels of violence. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ politics/2019/02/26/venezuelas-border-with-colombia-women-suffer-extraordinary- levels-violence/
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Categories
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Allison B. Wolf
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
1. The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term "Work" shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
2. Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
3. The Author shall grant to the Publisher a nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoCommercia-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions: (a) Attribution: Other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;(b) Noncommercial: Other users (including Publisher) may not use this Work for commercial purposes;
4. The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal;
5. Authors are permitted, and Estudios de Filosofía promotes, to post online the preprint manuscript of the Work in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (see The Effect of Open Access). Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work is expected be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Estudios de Filosofía's assigned URL to the Article and its final published version in Estudios de Filosofía.