Is it possible to combine a struggle for universal epistemic justice with a fundamental acknowledgement of situatedness and bounded claims? All historians, not just all history, are situated - firmly located in time, place, and circumstance. This understanding comes from personal experience and from a professional study of histories of cultural encounters and indigenous peoples. I am unwilling to assume the universal applicability of certain historical practices, yet remain deeply concerned with dialogues between ciffeent communities of knowledge. This places the focus on encounters, on the necessity for asking real questions and for careful listening. Following the Kiowa novelist N. Scott Momaday, this article duly argues for a link between the spoken word, listening, and responsibility for action. This responsibility is sharpened by an awareness of complicity in the systems of inequality that the scholar wishes to address.