"My dissertation aims to build a bridge between analytic social epistemologies, feminist epistemologies, and refugee studies by bringing them into conversation on gender-based asylum cases, i.e. cases where gender-related persecution is the primary consideration for the determination of refugee status. It does so by using the concept of "epistemic dependence," which refers to our social mechanisms of reliance in the process of knowing, i.e. what we rely on and how we rely on it. In this dissertation, I argue that tracking problematic operations of epistemic dependence can provide an illuminating framework for understanding the epistemological impacts of the social and political structures that govern asylum claims." -- Abstract.
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