Intercultural warrant: deploying cultural warrant ethically
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-03-2021-0054 |
| Published date | 11 March 2022 |
| Date | 11 March 2022 |
| Pages | 1476-1486 |
| 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 | Inkyung Choi |
Intercultural warrant: deploying
cultural warrant ethically
Inkyung Choi
School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
Champaign, Illinois, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to discuss deployment of cultural warrant in intercultural
environment, aiming to better achieve ethical warrant.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper synthesizes research on cultural warrant and classification,
and uses examples of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) to illustrate cultural warrant in a case of cross-
cultural adaptation of bibliographic classification.
Findings –The notion of intercultural warrant was suggested as an operational approach to cultural warrant
in the context of intercultural use of Knowledge Organization System (KOS).
Research limitations/implications –The research focuses on discussions of cultural warrant in the
context of intercultural uses of KOS but lacking diverse examples of KOS and beyond (such as descriptive
metadata standards).
Originality/value –This paper suggests the development of intercultural warrant as a theoretical view to
understand classification systems commonly used worldwide and a path to achieve ethical treatments of
cultures in such systems.
Keywords Classification, Cultural warrant, Ethical warrant, Interculturalwarrant, Cross-cultural adaptation,
Cross-cultural comparison, DDC
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
In Library Information Science (LIS) and information science, the fact that “there is no perfect
classification system for everyone”has been widely accepted (Mai, 2010;Olson, 2009b).
Furthermore, classification systems have the potential to exclude the unnamed or the
unrecognized, which can cause harm to those unrecognized but surely exist. It’s not new that
we discuss ethical treatments of cultures in categorization and classification. Classification
studies in LIS have long been criticizing biases in the existing systems and suggesting
remedies for such harms (Olson, 1996,2013;Fox, 2013;Turner, 2015). One of the fundamental
concepts in the efforts to discover biases and properly acknowledge the previously
unrecognized is that of cultural warrant—the system should be warranted on the time and
space where the system is used and designed—as well as ethical warrant—being mindful of
the oppressed or minorities (Bullard, 2017). In popular classification systems such as Dewey
Decimal Classifications (DDC), Library of Congress Classifications (LCC) and Universal
Decimal Classifications (UDC), many obsolete concepts, which have grown into biases, were
corrected based on the discussions of cultural warrant as well as ethical warrant (Choi, 2018).
Adding an international perspective, however, invites a careful implementation of cultural
warrant. Domestically grown classification systems are not just for domestic use anymore,
especially in the case of the United States, whose library classification systems are widely
used internationally. If non-US countries simply adopt these systems without proper
modifications, there are risks of cultural hegemony—dominance of US viewpoints over
native/local viewpoints. Thus, proper adaptations of the dominant system to local systems
are critical. In the practical perspective, proper adaptations should seek to maintain the
benefits of adopting the dominantly used system to facilitate a better exchange of knowledge
and, at the same time, to reserve the uniqueness of native and local viewpoints meeting local
JD
78,6
1476
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 9 March 2021
Revised 12 February 2022
Accepted 18 February 2022
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 78 No. 6, 2022
pp. 1476-1486
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-03-2021-0054
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