Katharine Jenkins: ‘Ontology and Oppression: Race, Gender, and Social Reality’

LSE Philosophy #PopperSeminar | 7 November 2023
Katharine Jenkins (University of Glasgow): ‘Ontology and Oppression: Race, Gender, and Social Reality’
Abstract: This talk draws on the rich history of accounts of race and gender kinds that position these kinds as the products of histories of oppression. I will consider how we should understand the precise ontological and normative status of race and gender kinds in the spirit of these accounts whilst also taking into consideration the fact that many people value membership in race and gender kinds. I defend a pluralist account of race and gender kinds, introducing a framework for pluralism, the ‘Constraints and Enablements Framework’, based on using constraints and enablements as a common denominator for different varieties of kinds. I then assesses the normative status of these kinds using the concepts of ‘ontic injustice’ and ‘ontic oppression’, which capture the ways in which being made into a member of a social kind can itself be wrongful. My conclusion will be that some race and gender kinds are ontically oppressive, others are not, and some are actively emancipatory - even for a given gender or racial designation. When people value membership in race and gender kinds we can plausibly take them to be valuing membership in the harmless or emancipatory kinds, at least some of the time.
Katharine Jenkins is a philosopher at the University of Glasgow, specializing in social philosophy. Katharine joined the department as a Lecturer in July 2020 and was promoted to Reader in 2022.