Epistemological Deviant, Epistemic Abjection and Lost Opportunities: A Case Study of a Muslim Trans Intersex Student’s Othering and Dehumanisation in an Indian Science Classroom

Abstract

This article sheds light on the registers of violence through which people from marginalised groups—especially non-normative or minoritised collectivities of gender, sex and religion—are constructed as outsiders in science higher education in India. Further, this article delineates the production and construction of a ‘normal’ sex/gender in a science classroom as distinct from a ‘biological’ sex/gender. Towards these goals, this article uses autobiographical narratives of a Muslim intersex transgender (trans) individual pursuing their masters in a science institution in Bengaluru, India, which it analyses using sociology of science and psychoanalytic lenses to articulate these mechanisms as the construction of the ‘epistemological deviant’ and the employment of ‘epistemic abjection’.