Fact Construction and Categorization in Assessment: Cultivating Epistemic Justice and Resistance in Social Work Assessment

Abstract

When an individual’s experience is discredited and their views silenced in conversation, epistemic injustice ensues, resulting in an ontological attack on the individual’s human dignity. I examine how social workers claim to know and construct the facts of clients’ experiences, subsequently categorizing them in accordance with professional and institutional knowledge. These constructs may differ from the clients’ own experiences, perpetuating epistemic injustice. Elaborating a process of fact construction and categorization in two case examples, I interrogate the inevitable workings of power at multiple levels during assessment. I argue categorization as a site of epistemic injustice serving three functions: permitting dominant discourses to be taken-for-granted and to legitimize professional actions, framing interactional tasks to align with professional and institutional agendas, and enticing clients and workers with activity-bound accountability, obligation, and entitlement. This analysis invites social workers to reflect critically on how to resist epistemic and social injustice in everyday assessment.