The hills we live on: Epistemic-political stories and the common ground

Abstract

The idea that there is a power-laden tension between academic and experiential knowledges is widely known and well rehearsed. It circulates in both social movement spaces and society at large. But how is it that the same story about ‘real-world experience’ vs ‘academic’ theory can serve as a foundation both for a defence of trans people's authority over their own lives and for a dismissal of their calls for inclusive language as ivory-tower nonsense? In this article, I take the case of LGBTIQ* movements in Austria as an example to trace stories that link epistemic and political claims as a ‘common ground’ on which divergent and even contradictory claims can be built regarding what constitutes legitimate knowledges and legitimate politics. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s notion of the polyvalence of discourse and Clare Hemmings’ suggestion that stories can function as the ‘political grammar’ of social movements, I examine how three key stories – about theoretical versus experiential knowledge, the importance of listening to marginalised positions and the tension between radicalism and pragmatism – entangle epistemic and political norms and operate as a shared yet contested ‘common ground’. They provide a ‘common’ narrative infrastructure that can be gestured towards in making claims about knowledges and politics. These epistemic-political stories appear self-evident, but their content remains indeterminate until articulated within specific power relations and contexts. It is this common ground that makes it possible for actors to move through contested terrain, even as it is its very commonality that opens it up to contestation.