Encounters with Racialized Ignorance: Case Studies for Narrative Truth-Telling in the Humanities and Social Sciences

The study draws on research by Indigenous and social archaeologists, Indigenist scholars, and philosophers to expose forms of ignorance caused by racialization. Indigenous doctoral students from Ghana, Papua New Guinea, and Timor-Leste decided to partner with two non-Indigenous philosophers to share narratives—“storyworks” (Archibald 2008)—aimed at exposing racialized ignorance in research involving Indigenous peoples and in places marked by colonial heritage. The shared narratives focus on encounters with white ignorance as understood by political philosopher Charles Mills. According to Mills (2007, 2015), white ignorance refers to epistemic malpractices caused by white racial privilege and mechanisms of cultural transmission that perpetuate racialization. The essay begins with a critical exposition of Mills’ concept of white ignorance, which is interpreted from the perspective of the theory of distributed truth-telling. This analysis is then followed by a series of truth-telling narratives—Storyworks 1 to 6—and philosophical exegeses regarding decolonization efforts.