Epistemic Authorities on the Backside of Cultures of Ignorance: Genesis and Loss of Speaking Positions in Illegitimate Knowledge Using the Example of the Corona Pandemic

Our contribution is based on the observation that the COVID-19 pandemic not only reinforced the authority of epistemic figures within legitimate knowledge (e.g. epidemiologists, virologists), but also opened powerful speaking positions for epistemic authorities in the realm of illegitimate knowledge in small life-worlds.

Grounded in the sociology of knowledge and inspired by Foucault's and Bourdieu's theories of power and discourse, our study provides a deeper understanding of how these authorities gain and lose legitimacy within small life-worlds. Methodologically, the study presented employs qualitative interviews and group discussions, focusing on the experiences of individuals critical of COVID-19 measures, particularly regarding vaccination.

Our findings show that the knowledge regime of the pandemic has inadvertently fostered speaking positions in the illegitimate sphere that challenge established scientific discourse. This is enabled by institutionalized symbolic capital, such as formal titles (e.g. Doctor of Medicine), which serve as a form of legitimation within illegitimate knowledge. Furthermore, the non-institutionalized status of these speaking positions makes them highly dependent on the ongoing discourse surrounding the pandemic. As the pandemic discourse fades, so does the stability of the speaking positions of epistemic authorities in the illegitimate sphere.

Theoretically, our work deepens the understanding of the interdependence between discourse and small life-worlds by distinguishing between the institutionalized speaker positions within discourse and the precarious, non-institutionalized speaking positions in life-worlds that are stabilized by mutual acts of recognition in face-to-face interaction.

This abstract was prepared with assistance from the AI-based
language model ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI