Imperial ignorance and beyond: mapping the production and practices of organized ignorance

Christiane Wilke, Helyeh Doutaghi and Hijaab Yahya

Chapter 17 in Handbook on Politics and Society, 2025, pp 310-326 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter conceptualizes ignorance as a systemic achievement rather than an individual failure. A close analysis of the US military's treatment of civilian casualty allegations in Syria and Iraq reveals that the construction of knowledge about civilian casualties caused by US forces is also based on the production of ignorance about civilian harm. Drawing on philosophical and sociological literatures on ignorance, we identify an “imperial ignorance” at work that arises from imperial relations and fosters the public legitimacy of imperial military interventions. In this specific case, imperial ignorance includes four facets: the creation of uncertainty, the desire to not know more, undue regard for one's knowledge base, and the rejection of external knowledges. Systems of oppression will often rely on specific forms of organized ignorance to support and obscure their violence; imperial ignorance is only one form of organized ignorance.

Keywords: Ignorance; Imperialism; Knowledge; Armed conflict; Civilians; Epistemology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035301898
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