Knowing Someone

Abstract Fulfilling the right to be known possessed by survivors of gross violations and injustices involves understanding what it means to know a person as an act of epistemic reparations. In this chapter, two different ways to know a person or persons are characterized that are relevant for repairing epistemic wrongs: bearing witness and restoring status. Knowing someone in a bearing witness sense minimally requires a victim’s story, which needs to be appropriately anchored in reality, being given proper uptake. Knowing someone in a restoring status sense instead focuses on the perception of a victim and his relations within his relevant communities, involving, for instance, his name being “cleared,” his reputation being repaired, and his appropriate status being cultivated or restored.