Panel: EPISTEMIC INEQUALITIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS EDUCATION



496.4 - REDRESSING EPISTEMIC INEQUALITIES THROUGH COMPASSION: A RELATIONAL APPROACH TO INTERRELIGIOUS EDUCATION

AUTHORS:
Domsel M.M. (University of Bonn ~ Bonn ~ Germany)
Text:
This paper examines Compassion Learning as an epistemic ethical resource within interreligious education, addressing the panel's focus on epistemic inequalities and the recognition of knowledge actors. While interreligious teaching and learning formats aim to foster reflective engagement with religious plurality, they often reproduce asymmetries in recognition, interpretation, and authority. Drawing on Fricker's concept of epistemic injustice (2007) and compassion-based pedagogies, I argue that Compassion Learning serves as a relational-ethical practice that mitigates epistemic marginalisation and enables more equitable participation in interreligious classrooms. I conceptualise Compassion Learning, drawing on a Ginkgo Foundation research project, as an embodied, dialogical practice that foregrounds mutual attentiveness, vulnerability, and recognition of epistemic positionality. By integrating theological reflection on compassion with empirical insights from participatory learning research, the presentation demonstrates how compassion can reshape students' and teachers' engagement with difference, reduce othering dynamics, and redistribute epistemic authority. The contribution also illustrates, through pedagogical examples, how compassion-informed approaches promote not only affective sensibilities but also epistemic justice in interreligious learning. In doing so, it advances a framework in which recognition, interpretive legitimacy, and collective meaning-making are actively cultivated, positioning interreligious education as a transformative space where ethical reflection, relational accountability, and collaborative praxis intersect.