A holistic decolonial lens for library and information studies
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-10-2021-0205 |
| Published date | 09 June 2022 |
| Date | 09 June 2022 |
| Pages | 224-244 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
| Author | Andrea Jimenez,Sara Vannini,Andrew Cox |
A holistic decolonial lens for
library and information studies
Andrea Jimenez, Sara Vannini and Andrew Cox
Information School, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Abstract
Purpose –The aim of this paper is to introduce a holistic decolonial lens for Library and Information Studies
(LIS). As such it centres in the following questions: what does decolonisation mean in the context of LIS? How
can a holistic approach help improve our understanding of the field?
Design/methodology/approach –This is a conceptual paper that draws on theoretical analysis and
discussion with in-depth examination of two cases of librarianship and information for development.
Findings –The paper presents a decolonial framework for interpreting and comprehending LIS-specific
issues. As a result, we believe it is critical to recognise three interconnected types of colonial legacies and
identify ways in which LIS academics and practitioners can consider these in the context of their research
and work.
Research limitations/implications –The paper introduces a holistic framework for thinking about
decolonialityin the LISdiscipline. Furtherwork should considerhow this frameworkcan be useful for other LIS
fields.
Practical implications –The framework is of practical significance for LIS academics and practitionerswho
wish to take a decolonial approach to their research and thinking. We provide questions intended to lead to
action.
Originality/value –The paper provides a holistic decolonial approach to critically reflect on research and
teaching practices in the context of LIS.
Keywords Decolonisation, Information, Information studies, Coloniality, Decoloniality
Paper type Conceptual paper
1. Introduction
The Rhodes Must Fall movement in 2015, which advocated for the removal of the Cecil
Rhodes’s[1] statue, received international attention and rekindled a broader movement to
decolonize education in South Africa (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2018;Moosavi, 2020). This sparked
the formation of other student movements at other universities, both in South Africa and
around the world.
Decolonisation remains a contentious term, encompassing a wide range of perspectives,
approaches, political projects, and normative concerns. Decolonisation is usually understood
as a way of challenging colonialism, empire, and racism as key forces in society today
(Bhambra et al., 2018). In the context of the University, it is a way of understanding how
colonial legacies continue to be an everyday reality, not just in terms of economic and political
interventions, but also in terms of knowledge production processes. Scholars argue that
universities, as institutions of knowledge creation, preservation, and reproduction, serve the
colonial project by educating elites in the image of the European white man (Gopal, 2021).
In response, many academic disciplines are investigating their bodies of knowledge to ask
if these reproduce colonial legacies through the dominance of theoretical traditions
originating in the global North (Mbembe, 2016), as well as through the Whiteness [2] of
those who work and teach about it (Esson et al., 2017;Brooks-Immel and Murray, 2017).
However, given the proliferation of initiatives to decolonise, and although the resurgence of
decolonisation debates is encouraging, scholars and activists alike are concerned about the
uncritical ways in which the term is being adopted by institutions, co-opted into neoliberal
agendas, and isolated from its feminist and anti-capitalist traditions/origins, limiting its focus
to diversifying reading lists and public messaging (Moosavi, 2020).
JD
79,1
224
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0022-0418.htm
Received 21 October 2021
Revised 8 May 2022
Accepted 16 May 2022
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 79 No. 1, 2023
pp. 224-244
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-10-2021-0205
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a holistic framework to contribute to decolonial
efforts in LIS. Some efforts to address decolonisation in LIS have begun (see Patin et al., 2021).
Given the complex and fragmentary nature of LIS, it was decided to focus on two particular
sub-fields in LIS: librarianship and information for development. Librarianship is a critical
component of LIS and a traditional bedrock for it, and both practitioners and scholars of
librarianship have increasingly attempted to decolonize their practices (Birdi, 2020,2021).
Information for Development, with its emphasis promoting access to information to the most
underserved communities, is a field one would expect to already be strongly engaged with
decolonial thinking. It has been begun to recognise how concepts like development are
increasingly seen as part of the colonial agenda, because they imply that all countries can/
should “progress”toward the model offered by the global North (Jim
enez and Zheng, 2018,
2021;Vannini et al., 2017a,b).
This paper’s authors are academics from the same Western university and Information
School. As such, we have to acknowledge our on-going privilege within coloniality. Thus, we
have been working to think through the implications of decolonisation for our department,
seeking a holistic approach that includes critically examining reading lists, research areas,
diversity of students and staff members, and other dimensions. The first author is a Peruvian
academic who is of mixed race who has conducted research predominantly in the global
South. The second author is a white Italian academic, who has worked in different Western
Universities across different continents and conducted research both in the Global North and
South. The third author is a white middle-aged, British male scholar much of whose work
could be potentially categorised as implicitly shaped by colonial thinking. Collaborating on
the paper was seen as part of the process of self-liberation from the limits of this perspective.
Based on our research and lived experiences, as well as our reading of the subject, our
starting point is that decolonisation requires a comprehensive and integrative approach.
That is, decolonisation should not be limited to a single aspect of our academic work (e.g.
research or teaching for instance). Instead, decolonisation should be viewed as a holistic [3]
approach that calls for a systematic change in our disciplines and practices as they currently
exist, as well as in our institutions and roles in academia. It necessitates that we focus on more
than just diversifying our reading lists for our modules or citing more people of colour in our
papers. Therefore, our research questions are “What does decolonisation mean in the context
of LIS? And how can a holistic approach help improve our understanding of the field?”
This paper is structured as follows: the first section will provide an overview of LIS studies
and what has been done in relation to decolonisation. We focus on 2 specific foci within LIS to
provide more specificity. We then introduce Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s (2013) framework as a
starting point for our holistic framework for thinking about decolonisation in the context of
LIS. We conclude by discussing how the framework can be operationalised and adapted for a
critical analysis of information studies.
2. Library and Information Studies
Many authors have expressed concern and interest in defining LIS and its scope (
Astr€
om,
2008;Bates, 2015;Chua and Yang, 2008;White and Griffith, 1981). Walter and Wilder (2016)
suggest three reasons for this: a lack of LIS courses and programmes, a lack of LIS-specific
theory, and the close links between research and practise. This broadens the scope of LIS
research to include “[...] the collection, organisation, retrieval, and presentation of
information in various contexts and subject matters.”(Bates, 2015). In more general terms,
LIS deals with ways to facilitate communication of information between people, and has
mainly been categorised in specific research areas, including “information seeking and
retrieval, classification and indexing, collection development, information systems design,
and management of information services”(
Astr€
om, 2004, p. 12).
A holistic
decolonial lens
for LIS
225
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