Epistemic Justice and Decolonial Intersectional Futures in Deliberative Democracy

Deliberative democracy’s normative ideals demand epistemic plurality and justice – not only the inclusion of diverse perspectives, but also the recognition of diverse forms and systems of knowledge. In practice, this ideal can fall short. Anna Slaviero examines the Norwegian Education Act’s systemic exclusion of Sámi knowledge from its deliberative consultation process, and suggests theoretical and practical steps towards epistemic justice in deliberative democracy.

The rising global interest in deliberative and participatory innovations reflects their potential to address eroding trust in traditional democratic institutions and the growing complexity of social, economic, geopolitical and climate and ecological challenges. Yet, achieving inclusion and equity within these processes remains challenging, especially in efforts to include marginalised peoples within mainstream systems.

Indigenous consultations are institutionalised deliberative processes established by international law instruments – such as ILO Convention N°169 and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – and implemented by states, following the dialogic turn in addressing minorities’ struggles over recognition. Standards require prior accessible information, respectful and culturally adequate dialogues, and equal opportunities for Indigenous representatives to influence decision making affecting Indigenous lives.

Potentially inclusive spaces are shaped by asymmetric power relations and unequal resources and capabilities.

However, implementations are often reduced to bureaucratic box-ticking, treated by decisionmakers as non-binding, formal exercises devaluing the importance of consent. Potentially inclusive spaces are shaped by asymmetric power relations and unequal resources and capabilities: state authorities define agendas and roles, framing consultations as informative meetings rather than equal exchanges. These dynamics lead to illocutionary group silencing: the majority’s prejudicial views on the deliberative capacities of minorities systematically undermine the conditions for mutual respect and epistemic trust.

My research on the Sámi consultation process to Norway’s new Education Act (2023), through document analysis and interviews with Sámi Parliament’s employees, examines patterns of epistemic inequality that hinder deliberative values. During the process, the Sámi Parliament thoroughly expressed their demands and provided Norwegian authorities with concrete proposals to improve the development of Sámi education and ensure Sámi children learn their languages and cultures. However, their expertise was excluded, leading the Sámi Parliament to withhold consent to the Education Act. As a result, the legislation failed to embrace Sámi needs and rights, and deliberation ultimately ended with no common agreement.

The Norwegian government’s treatment of Sámi representatives as epistemically unequal denied them a meaningful opportunity to shape a crucial aspect of their cultural identity – education. The Education Act thus reflects only the majority’s perspective, exemplifying epistemic injustice through hermeneutical domination and a failure of deliberative epistemic function, which requires the inclusion of diverse knowledges from informed participants to prevent mainstream elite dominance.

Thus, even when marginalised peoples participate in state-led deliberation, the majority maintain its privilege by not recognising the other as equally legitimate to reason. During consultations, the Sámi Parliament submitted concrete proposals, yet not one of these was included in public hearings by the Ministry of Education, and the Norwegian Parliament did not even consult Sámi representatives in the final stages. Sámi perspectives on Sámi education were effectively sidelined by decisionmakers, while the deliberative meetings – demanding, frustrating and demoralising – made clear from the start that their input would carry no weight, leaving participants feeling unheard and dismissed.

The consultation process reproduced colonial hierarchies by positioning Sámi people as a junior party with less authority and knowledge in decisionmaking. This lack of reciprocity – meaning here the conditions of mutual respect and recognition – violates deliberative ethical principles of radical equality. The outcome in this case is a substantial disagreement between the Sámi Parliament and Norwegian authorities, further exacerbating the already fragile Indigenous-state relationship, marked by historical and ongoing marginalisation and internal colonisation.

Deliberative Democrats must acknowledge their privileges and recognise the theory’s entanglements with coloniality.

To achieve deliberative emancipatory goals of equality and inclusion, a change of perspective on designing participation is essential. Deliberative Democrats must begin by acknowledging their privileges, recognising the theory’s entanglements with coloniality, and exploring ways to mitigate systemic inequalities within deliberation. Decolonising deliberative democracy begins with acknowledging the violence of democratic modernity, which has perpetuated the domination of Eurocentric thinking and epistemic asymmetries within institutions and theories, facilitating the universalisation of Western worldviews and the oppression of other knowledge systems.

The Norwegian Education Act illustrates that deliberative theory must be grounded on an ecology of knowledges – not only recognising but actively including the diversity of onto-epistemological perspectives in deliberative practice. Theory and practice must orient democratic innovations to concretely address social, political, economic and ecological disparities to achieve equality and self-determination. This raises critical questions to ask of real-world deliberative processes: how are the meetings organised? Who is considered an expert? Who gets to participate in the dialogue? Who doesn’t? Whose norms, structures and languages dominate? Whilst these are practical questions, I argue that decolonial and feminist research offers vital theoretical insights for the reconstruction of generative deliberative practices.

Feminist theories highlight the coloniality of gender: gendered social categories cannot be understood outside the colonial framework. Decolonial feminism thus challenges racialised, capitalist gender oppressions inherent in patriarchal colonial structures. Oppressions – based on race, gender, class, sexuality and physical characteristics – systematically intersect, most visibly at societal margins, which feminists see as sites of “radical openness” for collective practices. Such an intersectional system is not just about overlapping identities, but a critical framework for analysing and understanding systemic disparities and marginalisation and strategies for inclusive participation to challenge unbalanced power dynamics.

The maintenance and expansion of capitalist colonial patriarchal systems rely not only on paid labour but also on the broader foundation of invisible unpaid work through the exploitation of women’s domestic and care work, the oppression and extermination of Indigenous groups and the activities of more-than-human socio-ecological networks. Feminists advocate for individual and collective acts of care for bodies and territories, to challenge this oppressive system through sanación política (political healing). Such a process fosters respectful relationships among individuals, groups and non-human ecosystems. Since invisible care work also sustains public spaces, including deliberative fora, a feminist approach calls for recognising caring for democracy as a practice within the complex democratic assemblage.

Decolonising and depatriarchalising deliberation must be transformative, embracing pluriversal and intersectional lenses to avoid epistemic violence and marginalisation.

In practice, these principles can be applied through different strategies. Basic measures such as offering compensation, clear communication, physical and digital accessibility, accessible scheduling, respect for cultural protocols, are essential to value and care for participation. Co-design with affected people ensures the schedules, locations, meeting formats, and participant selection respect everybody’s needs and necessities. Care must be taken to create an environment where all participants feel valued and every voice is heard equally. A dialogue is inclusive and accessible when people can use their own language – especially when certain concepts lack direct translation in other languages. Careful facilitation can recognise and challenge implicit biases and power dynamics to mitigate domination by majority interlocutors. The Sámi Parliament explicitly requested the collaborative development of consultation guidelines to ensure meaningful participation at every stage. However, Norwegian authorities ignored this proposal, further undermining the process’s legitimacy.

Sámi representatives were not consulted on the composition and mandate of the Committee drafting the legislative proposal. This exclusion is an act of epistemic injustice: Sámi educational knowledge was ignored since the beginning, and the process was designed without their input. How can decisions about Sámi educational programs be made without understanding Sámi languages and cultures and how they are transmitted? Sámi pedagogical experts should have been included in the Committee and their insights integrated into all stages of the process – as also noted by legal standards.

The process of decolonising and depatriarchalising deliberation must be a transformative one, embracing pluriversal and intersectional lenses to avoid epistemic violence and marginalisation, in favour of facilitating deliberative spaces based on mutual respect and collective care. Deliberative processes should be structured with awareness of these inequalities and reflexivity, actively working to map out power dynamics and redefine them.

About the Author

Anna Slaviero holds a Master’s Degree in Indigenous Studies from the Arctic University of Norway and is currently completing a Master’s in Gender Studies and Politics at Roma Tre University. Her research focuses on the convergences of grassroots and Indigenous perspectives, intersectional identities, and socio-ecological transformations, using decolonial and feminist approaches to explore participatory processes.