Toward an Etiology of Harm for Knowledge Organization: Onto-Epistemic Injustice in Classificatory Systems of Record

This paper traces the impacts knowledge organization systems have upon what can be known through them, the identities they create or deny, and the resulting structure of reality they uphold. We conceptualize classificatory systems of record to frame classification schemes, knowledge organization practices, and knowledge organization systems as central mechanisms for achieving institutional consensus. We define onto-epistemic injustice as a harm to knowers accomplished simultaneously through what they can or cannot know (epistemic harm proper) and also through what thereby does or does not exist (ontological harm). Whereas epistemicide is the destruction of the ability to know, onto-epistemicide is the concomitant destruction of the ability to become. Onto-epistemicide is the cumulative and compounding result of onto-epistemic injustices. Blending insights from document phenomenology with prior examinations of epistemic injustice, we undertake two comparative descriptive case studies examining how the consensus making processes of classificatory systems of record result in onto-epistemic injustice: A) The Medical Subject Headings from the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM-MeSH) and B) The Digital Collections from the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH). In locating documental experiences of knowing and non-documental experiences of becoming, our onto-epistemic injustice analysis reveals the outcomes in these cases extend beyond harming the ability to know. Rather, knower’s identities and most worryingly their ability to become are simultaneously at stake. While classification and factmaking are necessary components for structuring and recreating social reality, it shouldn’t be harmful to real people.