 Kristie Dotson (2011) distinguishes two different kinds of silencing practices: testimonial quieting and testimonial smothering. While testimonial quieting characterizes a failure to recognize the speaker as a knower and thus to offer the speaker appropriate uptake, Dotson describes testimonial smothering as a coerced truncation by speakers of their own testimony. Speakers recognize that their audiences are unwilling or unable to offer appropriate uptake to their testimony, and in response, limit and shape their testimony in order to “insure that the testimony contains only content for which one’s audience demonstrates testimonial competence” (2011, 244). Dotson characterizes both of these silencing practices as forms of epistemic violence, and both have dramatic effects for the epistemic pursuits of individuals and communities alike.