6.1 Panelist Interviews
The following interview videos are organized by chapter. As you watch, refer to the reflective questions below or in your workbook to guide your thinking. These prompts are not meant to analyze the panelists’ experiences, but to support your own reflection on how you see yourself, both now and in the future, as someone committed to practicing knowledge justice in your profession.
Introducing Our Panelists
We are pleased to welcome four guests to Knowledge Justice in the Helping Professions:
- Ashley Campbell, Registered Nurse
- Ashley Edwards, Indigenous Initiatives and Instruction Librarian
- Thomas Pigeau, Registered Psychotherapist
- Rachel Radyk, First Nation Traditional Health Policy Analyst; Registered Nurse
Your Chapter 6 authors want to thank our interviewees for generously donating their time, wisdom, and gifts to this final chapter.
Chapter 1: Identity, Positionality, Privilege
In this first video of the chapter, professionals from across a range of helping fields introduce themselves and their areas of practice. Each interviewee shares their role and responsibilities within their profession, offering insight into the work they do every day. They also share reflections on how their lived experiences inform their practice, and ways their social identities shape the ways they understand people, build relationships, and make decisions in their professional roles.
Stop and Reflect
As you watch the interview pertaining to Chapter 1: Identity, Positionality, and Power, consider the following:
- How have your own life experiences and social identities (such as race, gender, class, immigration history, etc.) shaped the way you see others? Can you think of a time when this was especially clear?
- How do your social identities influence your decision-making as a future helping professional? Or, can you think of a time when who you are has impacted how others respond to your work, ideas, or actions in professional settings?
- Where might your identities give you privilege? Where might they leave you more vulnerable to exclusion or bias?
- What steps can you take to notice and unsettle your biases? How will doing so impact your professional practice?
All activities can also be found in a downloadable workbook. Visit the ‘Using this Resource‘ page to access the workbook in MS Word and PDF formats
Chapter 2: Recognizing Epistemic Injustice
In this second video, interviewees reflect on whose experiences, voices, and ways of knowing are most valued in their professions –and whose are overlooked, ignored, or dismissed. They were asked to share stories about any epistemic injustices they have witnessed or experienced in their fields, and to provide concrete examples from their professional practice. These stories reveal how Eurowestern knowledges are privileged in the helping professions, and highlight the real consequences when diverse voices are silenced or excluded.
Stop and Reflect
As you watch the interview pertaining to Chapter 2: Recognizing Epistemic Injustice, consider the following:
- In your field, whose voices, experiences, and ways of knowing are most respected? Who tends to be ignored or dismissed? Why?
- Have you ever witnessed or experienced epistemic injustice in a professional setting? Or a time where someone’s knowledge was downplayed, ignored, or dismissed? How did this impact you, your colleagues, or the person receiving care? What happened next?
- How might institutional policies, structures, hierarchies, or norms uphold epistemic injustice in your field? Who is responsible for creating, maintaining, or revising these traditions?
All activities can also be found in a downloadable workbook. Visit the ‘Using this Resource‘ page to access the workbook in MS Word and PDF formats
Chapter 3: What is Knowledge Justice?
In this third video of the chapter, interviewees were invited to share how they personally interpret knowledge justice and what it means within the context of their profession. They reflected on the possibilities for change if resources, power, and support were not barriers, imagining how their fields could be transformed to value diverse sources of knowledge. These reflections offer insight into real-life challenges and aspirational visions for building more inclusive, equitable practices within the helping professions.
Stop and Reflect
As you watch the interview pertaining to Chapter 3: What is Knowledge Justice?, consider the following:
- Where do you see your professional colleagues making space for diverse ways of knowing and being? In what ways is your field resistant to change? How do these shifts and barriers affect the way you approach your role?
- If you had all the support, power, and resources you needed, how would you reshape your profession to honour diverse forms of knowledge? Where are there limits to that work? What’s one step you could start with, right now, to practice knowledge justice as a new helping professional?
All activities can also be found in a downloadable workbook. Visit the ‘Using this Resource‘ page to access the workbook in MS Word and PDF formats
Chapter 4: Searching for Diverse Voices
In this video, interviewees reflect on how they intentionally seek out diverse perspectives in their practice. They discussed the strategies, challenges, and commitments involved in broadening whose knowledge is recognized and valued in the helping fields. They also share examples of how each bring excluded and silenced voices when making practice-based decisions. These conversations highlight the deliberate, ongoing effort each of our guests has put forth to expand practices in ways that honor inclusivity and knowledge justice within their professions.
Stop and Reflect
As you watch the interview pertaining to Chapter 4: Searching for Diverse Voices, consider the following:
- What does the language used in your profession reveal about whose knowledge is seen as most valuable? How might you shift your own use of language to be more inclusive?
- When you come across a gap in your knowledge, where do you usually go to fill it? How often do you include community voices, lived experience, Indigenous worldviews, or other diverse perspectives? Does the media you consume feature a range of social identities?
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How might the way you seek out new knowledge unintentionally cause harm, exclude diverse voices, or reinforce systemic inequities?
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How does lived experience (your own or others’) inform your professional practice? What steps can you take to listen to others’ stories without exploiting or retraumatizing them?
All activities can also be found in a downloadable workbook. Visit the ‘Using this Resource‘ page to access the workbook in MS Word and PDF formats
Chapter 5: Evaluating and Positioning Knowledge Sources
In this final video of the resource, interviewees reflect on the ways in which evaluating and selecting knowledge sources can unintentionally cause harm or silence important voices (often from underrepresented communities and groups). They also consider how their own positionality shapes the way they assess credibility, authority, and relevance. Their insights remind us that the act of choosing which knowledge to trust is never neutral –it is shaped by power, identity, and social location– and that ethical engagement requires us to remain mindful of both inclusion and potential harm.
Stop and Reflect
As you watch the interview pertaining to Chapter 5: Evaluating and Positioning Knowledge Sources, consider the following:
- What counts as a “credible” source in your field? Who is considered an “authority”? How might those definitions unintentionally exclude certain knowledge forms?
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How does your own positionality shape the way you evaluate knowledge sources? How might it make you more receptive to some voices while overlooking others?
- What will ‘evidence-based practice’ look like for you, now that you have completed this resource?
All activities can also be found in a downloadable workbook. Visit the ‘Using this Resource‘ page to access the workbook in MS Word and PDF formats
