Lesley Hughes, Clare ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-3493-1514 (2026) Smothered Voices and Epistemic Harm: How Wortcunners Navigate Spirituality and Legitimacy in British Academia. Curiositas. pp. 23-50.

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Abstract

This paper investigates how epistemic injustices and harms are perceived and experienced within the British university system by practitioners of nature-based spiritualities. This study draws on semi-structured interviews alongside an autoethnographic component, in which I also interviewed and analysed my own experiences. Interviews were conducted between March and October 2025 and explored the enchanted yet marginalised experiences of plant practitioners living in Britain, also known as wortcunners (from Old English wort, meaning ‘plant’ or ‘root’ and cunner, meaning ‘one who knows’). Within this research emerged accounts that highlighted how the spiritualities of university-based wortcunners (staff and students) occupied an uneasy and precarious position within dominant academic paradigms. Through their testimonies, I identified various entangled epistemic harms, including testimonial smothering, testimonial betrayal, contributory injustice, and dynamic hermeneutical injustice where wortcunners described being cautioned against “coming out” as witches, observed colleagues belittled or bullied for their spiritual plant practices, and fearing professional retribution or reputational damage. Others adopted self-deprecating language to frame their spirituality as “quirky” or “woo-woo” to maintain academic legitimacy or endured “mortifying” silences when attempting to articulate spiritual experiences. Collectively, these accounts reveal a snapshot of how nature-based spiritual knowledges are rendered vulnerable within the British university system, and how wortcunners are compelled to navigate and balance spiritual identity with academic legitimacy in environments that privilege normative and dominant Western knowledge systems.

Item Type:	Article
Status:	Published
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
School/Department:	School of Humanities
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/14758

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