Key Terms

This is a term coined by Patricia Hill Collins which refers to images of subordinate groups developed by dominant groups. Such images are controlling in that they objectify and enforce stereotypes of subordinate groups which justifies their continued inferiority.

A conversation between two people of equal status.

The standards that we use to judge if a claim is knowledge and why we believe what we believe. Collins writes about how epistemology is related to power dynamics in society in which certain epistemologies are considered more legitimate than others.

Coined by Patricia Hill Collins. Refers to organised oppression that results in the systemic exclusion of some people from an institution. 

Coined by Patricia Hill Collins. The use of discipline and surveillance to oppress a certain group of people. Simply put, threatening to harm a group if they rebel. 

Coined by Patricia Hill Collins.Refers to the justification of oppression by shaping ideologies that disadvantage a group.

Refers to the interconnected nature of social categories of an individual or group, such as but not limited to ability, race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, which create overlapping, interlinked, and interdependent oppression and privilege.

Coined by Patricia Hill Collins. Refers to marginalisation of certain groups through everyday interactions with others. 

Linked to oppression in the interpersonal domain. Refers to a casual comment that degrades an individual, often based on a stereotyped idea of their social identity.

This expression refers to the clash between two conflicting perspectives of how an individual sees themselves versus how they are incorrectly perceived by others to be.

Broadly-speaking, slavery refers to any system which allows individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals and treat them as property.

This is the policy of a nation seeking to extend or retain its authority over other people or territories, generally with the aim of exploiting them. 

The act of a man explaining something to a woman in a derogatory manner, often assuming that she knows less than he does.

This refers to the policy of systematically excluding a sub-population of voters from exercising their voting rights, often by means of bucolic laws or unjust requirements. 

This form of injustice occurs when a speaker’s credibility is unwarrantedly undermined by a hearer’s negative stereotypes regarding the speaker’s social identity.

Freire argues that in order for oppressors to maintain their power, they must prevent the oppressed from uniting into an organised resistance movement.

Collins argues that different groups of people will have different lived experiences, which in turn produce their own sets of knowledge. These different sets of knowledge are not more or less valid than one another, but rather their own partial truths. Thus, it is important for groups to consider other groups’ standpoints and to expand their own epistemologies based on these other partial truths.

Radicalism refers to a revolutionary mode of change-making that calls for the immediate and absolute transformation of present socio-economic structures.

Medina’s term for when two conflicting or incompatible worldviews are held by a single person, so much so that it causes the ‘friction’ between the two points of view create beneficial moments to consider different ways of knowing, producing meta-lucidity.This expression refers to the 96 clash between two conflicting perspectives namely how a subject sees him-self and how it is ignored and/or distorted by the others.

Reformism refers to a mode of change-making that utilises gradual incremental changes to the present system.

A queer person is one whose sexuality and/or gender does not conform to the heteronormative and transmisogynistic standards of dominant society. Queerness is the state of being queer.

Within groups and organizations, there can be internal social hierarchies, given that the individual group members have highly intersectional social identities (i.e. their race, ethnicity, gender, class, ability, age, religion, etc). If group leaders fail to acknowledge this intersectional internal diversity, they can inadvertently perpetuate group-internal oppressions.

A transgender person is one whose gender identity does not conform to the gender that they were assigned at birth.

Du Bois’ term for when an oppressed group has to navigate both their own worldview, but also through the dominant oppressor’s worldview. Du Bois primarily uses this term negatively to express the internal conflict in the minds of the oppressed when forced to measure their own self-worth against the yardstick of a dominant group’s.

A person who is non-binary identifies as a gender that is not strictly “woman” or “man”, either somewhere in between those two genders, or somewhere outside of the spectrum entirely.

Medina’s elaboration and adaptation of Du Bois’ “double consciousness”: instead of navigating two worldviews in our head, we should strive towards navigating a potentially endless number of worldviews in our head so that we may better understand the position of other oppressed people. The epistemic friction produced by these potentially endless worldviews can help us be better knowers of other standpoints and not just ours.

An acronym that stands for “lesbian”, “gay”, “bisexual”, and “transgender”. Another common variations are LGBTQIA+, which also includes “queer” or “questioning”, “intersex”, and “agender” or “ally”, with the “+” indicating more queer identities. It is often used as a catchall to refer to the queer community.

A transgender person is one whose gender identity does not conform to the gender that they were assigned at birth.

Freire’s concept of praxis involves combining reflection and action in order to transform the world. Neither reflection without action, nor action without reflection, will result in liberation. Thus, true liberation can be accomplished only when action and reflection occur in conjunction with one another.

For Medina, this is a virtuous quality cultivated by epistemic friction, a case where the oppressed groups are more likely to display a quality of knowing what they know, and knowing what they are ignorant of due to their having to navigate the dominant worldview and their particular worldview.

Safe spaces are spaces for individuals, especially oppressed groups, to freely examine issues that concern them. These spaces are usually open only to members of the minority group to retain its safeness.  

The interconnected nature of social categorizations of an individual or group, such as but not limited to ability, race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, which create overlapping, interlinked, and interdependent oppression and privilege.

This term refers to the process by which oppressed people come to accept and internalize certain beliefs and stereotypes about their own group. They might also begin to act out such stereotypes which might further harm those in the group.

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Refers to systematic legislation that results in increased barriers to voting for voters. This often takes the form of omitting certain groups' votes from the final tally; levying taxes to vote; opening voting booths only during weekdays and working hours. ​