Tell me about us: epistemic solidarity as a way of shaping disability theorizing

Epistemic solidarity has recently come under attention as a way to overcome epistemic injustice in healthcare. Our goal with this contribution is to challenge the current account of epistemic solidarity, which misrepresents the role of ill, disabled, psychiatrized and neurodivergent people in medical settings – as well as their position of oppression. We will show how various theorizations about disability and neurodiversity are connected to epistemic injustice, and how epistemic solidarity can constitute a way of contrasting it. To do so, we will be drawing from the Social Model of Disability and the Neurodiversity Paradigm, as collective and alternative forms of disability theorizing. By criticizing the current understanding of epistemic solidarity, this paper aims to provide a mutualistic and collective account of it, which is based on shared experience of oppression, and that can actually counter the structural components of epistemic injustice, thus grounding non-exclusionary forms of disability theorizing.