collective epistemic ownership
Definition
Collective epistemic ownership refers to a group's perception of collectively owning cultural knowledge, meanings, and national narratives, treating the intangible symbolic content of a nation as something that belongs to "us" rather than its physical territory. Where territorial ownership concerns geopolitical space defined by borders, epistemic ownership concerns what a country "means", the shared stories and symbolic elements through which collective identity is constructed. Empirically validated through confirmatory factor analysis in two large-scale Finnish samples, the two dimensions are distinct yet correlated (r = .805 among ethnic majority Finns; r = .694 among second-generation immigrants). Collective investment is the strongest predictor of epistemic ownership in both groups, while intimate knowledge and collective control operate differently depending on group status: majority members draw on intimate knowledge, whereas immigrants rely more on collective control as an active claim to co-authorship of the national narrative. For majority Finns, epistemic ownership predicts collective responsibility, whereas among second-generation immigrants it is associated with rights claims rather than responsibility, indicating that the concept carries different psychological functions across social positions.
Sources: Szebeni et al. (2025)
Related Terms
- collective psychological ownership (1 shared article)
- intergroup relations (1 shared article)
- territorial ownership (1 shared article)
- second-generation immigrants (1 shared article)
Applications
Collective Epistemic Ownership and Collective Psychological Territorial Ownership
Collective epistemic ownership and territorial ownership represent two distinct dimensions of collective psychological ownership of a country, confirmed by a two-factor solution outperforming a single-factor model in both the ethnic majority and immigrant samples. The dimensions share a strong correlation yet diverge in their antecedents and consequences: for majority Finns, territorial ownership is linked to exclusive determination rights, while epistemic ownership predicts collective responsibility.
Sources: Szebeni et al. (2025)
Collective Epistemic Ownership and Epistemic Injustice
Among second-generation immigrants, intimate knowledge was negatively associated with epistemic ownership, suggesting that minority-held knowledge is not recognized on equal terms with that of the ethnic majority, which limits immigrants' sense of epistemic ownership and their access to co-authorship of the national narrative.
Sources: Szebeni et al. (2025)
Collective Epistemic Ownership and Collective Investment
Collective investment is the strongest predictor of epistemic ownership across both ethnic majority Finns and second-generation immigrants, with standardized path coefficients ranging from 0.42 to 0.64. This pattern positions contribution as the primary route through which groups of differing social status arrive at a sense of co-owning the national narrative.
Sources: Szebeni et al. (2025)
