Pain Talk: Beyond Epistemic Injustice with Jada Wiggleton-Little

Bioethics in the Margins

Amelia and Kirk interview Jada Wiggleton-Little who is a PhD Candidate at UC San Diego working primarily in philosophy of mind, social epistemology, and clinical ethics. Ms. Wiggleton-Little unpacks her theory called pain-related motivational deficit. Pain-related motivational deficits occur when a self-reported pain is believed but fails to motivate concern because ideologies distort either features of the speaker in pain (e.g., obese people deserve their pain) or distorts the kind of pain being expressed (e.g., excruciating period pains are normal). To resist these oppressive distortions, patients often adopt performative strategies that cater to gender and racial expectations and the medical gaze. It is a way of reclaiming one's agency in the clinic, but it is also a laborious task for patients already suffering with chronic pain. Listen for practical solutions and find out what it would look like to be an epistemically humble clinician.