Epistemic Violence

The systematic marginalization, dismissal, or overriding of certain groups' knowledge, experiences, and ways of understanding the world. In disability contexts, epistemic violence occurs when non-disabled researchers, clinicians, or companies claim authority over disabled people's own understanding of their experiences—defining what disability means, what disabled people need, and what constitutes improvement, without meaningfully including disabled perspectives. In autism technology, epistemic violence manifests when autistic people's own experiences and values are denied merit in favor of perspectives from non-autistic researchers, parents, or entrepreneurs who control the discourse.