“The changing same” of whiteness in the US LIS academy: a cathartic testimonial from BIPOC faculty scholars
| Date | 17 July 2024 |
| Pages | 1597-1625 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-03-2024-0066 |
| Published date | 17 July 2024 |
| 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 | Vanessa Irvin,Kafi D. Kumasi,Kehinde Akinola |
“The changing same”of whiteness
in the US LIS academy: a cathartic
testimonial from BIPOC
faculty scholars
Vanessa Irvin
Master of Library Science Program, East Carolina University,
Greenville, North Carolina, USA
Kafi D. Kumasi
School of Information Sciences, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA, and
Kehinde Akinola
East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA
Abstract
Purpose –There is little to no empiricalresearch on the phenomenon of ways in which the racism of whiteness
transpires within the faculties and classrooms of US-based ALA-accredited library and information science
(LIS) education programs. We do have scholars publishing meaningful work exploring diversity-equity-
inclusion topics and initiatives to evolve the LIS discourse on these issues (Honma, 2005; Chancellor, 2019; De
LaRosa et al., 2021; Gibson, 2019; Mehra et al., 2023; Col
on-Aguirre et al., 2022; Hands, 2022). This research
substantiates the conceptual research that exists by empirically exposing the ways in which the racism of
whiteness functions at the interpersonal level of work culture in LIS programs (i.e. the academy) in the US.
Design/methodology/approach –Adapting Baima and Sude’s (2020) modified Delphi Method, a focus
group of 13 BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) library and information science faculty members in
the United States were recruited to participate in a one-time 60-min virtual Zoom session. Participants were
engaged in three iterative rounds of reflectiveinquiry to reach a consensus of experience. The study design was
embedded with critical race theory-based (CRT) ethnographic methods such as testimony (counterstorytelling),
collective affirmation (shared narratives), and silence.
Findings –BIPOC LIS faculty (tenure-track and tenured) have similar ideas about whiteness and how it is
operationalized as micro- and macro-aggressions in the LIS academic workplace, most significantly inside the
classroom. The experience of whiteness was prevalent among all study participants in two areas: workplace
meetings with faculty colleagues and classroom sessions (face-to-face and online) with students.
Originality/value –The findings offer empirical evidence to support the prolific conceptual literature in LIS
discourse concerning ways in which critical race theory (CRT) interrogates LIS’s socio-professional injustices
and inequities (e.g. Gibson et al., 2018; Stauffer, 2020; Leung and Lopez-McKnight, 2021; Jennings and Kinzer,
2022; Snow and Dunbar, 2022). There remains a dearth of empirical research that reports how whiteness is
reproduced in the practices, knowledge, and resources that make up the ethos of the LIS faculty meeting and
classroom. Documenting the testimonies of BIPOC LIS faculty solidifies the existence of whiteness as a toxic
reality in the LIS academy.
Keywords BIPOC, Critical race theory (CRT), LIS faculty, Microaggressions, Racism, Testimony, Whiteness,
Workplace
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
In the United States’majoritarian culture, minoritized citizens navigate the racist underpinnings
of society with what W.E.B. DuBois (1903; 1994) called “a double consciousness”(p. 2). The racist
Journal of
Documentation
1597
We wish to thank the BIPOC LIS scholars who participated in this study with the focus group, emails
and all correspondence. We are grateful for your courage and support. This research received IRB
approval from Wayne State University, Detroit, Illinois, USA.
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 18 March 2024
Revised 18 June 2024
Accepted 20 June 2024
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 80 No. 6, 2024
pp. 1597-1625
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-03-2024-0066
underbelly of US society, where citizens who identify as white operationalize the hegemonic
social system that privileges that identity as the normative power and authority, is known as
“whiteness”(Baima and Sude, 2020;Carstairs, 2001).Blaisdell et al. (2022) confirm thatwhiteness
“operates in a variety of ways to secure status, rights, and resources for white people at the
expense of people of color”(p. 475). The double consciousness operationalized by minoritized US
citizens can be perceived as a kind of codeswitching that becomes an ontological quagmire
where one’s authentic at-home identity mutates into a performative at-work identity, even
though epistemologically, the person is the same. This double agency is intricately vulnerating,
perplexing, and dispiriting –always changing yet the same. Inspired by the wisdom of Amiri
Baraka, we call this embodied stance, “the changing same.”
“The changing same”is an expression coined by renowned poet and author Amiri Baraka
(1934–2014) in his paper, “1966: The Changing Same (R&B and New Black Music),”which
was originally published in 1968 with Baraka’s last edition published in 2003. Baraka ([1968]
2003) posited that even though Black music changed as Black people changed, “the New
Black Music is expression, and expression of reflection as well. What is presented is a
consciously proposed learning experience”(p. 188). For minoritized US citizens, this learning
experience is the rollercoaster ride of navigating systemic injustice, while maintaining a sense
of an authentic self. Given the ways that the US system has historically impacted US Black
and Indigenous communities more than other groups (Blendon and Casey, 2019), “the
changing same”has become a dual-seated identity.
In this study, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) library and information
science (LIS) faculty consciously reflect on “the changing same”in the cathartic reports of
their agency as performative in the university workplace, no matter the history, presence, or
anticipation of their experience. When we understand whiteness as a stream of social
practices and institutional structures that keep white people in power and privilege from a
white perspective (DiAngelo, 2018;Helms, 2017), collectively, all non-white people enact
improvisational and reactive performance (Baraka, [1968] 2003). As BIPOC faculty members
of a discipline that has a long history and heritage aligned with whiteness and its constructs
(Honma, 2005;Jennings and Kinzer, 2022;Stauffer, 2020), we must constantly adjust, shift and
change our responses to the white behaviors of faculty colleagues and students to negotiate
an equitable work life in order to earn a living (Jones and Shorter-Gooden, 2003); thus, we are
always changing while we are always the same.
Whenwe say “white behaviors,”weare moving closer to understandingthat whitenessis an
agency of personal power that is supported by heritage-based systemic structures in
institutions(Parsons, 2006). In the LIS academy,BIPOC faculty are inherentlymarginalized by
white facultyand students who reflecttheir social status from the streetsto inside the academy
–the changing same of “consistent attitudeswithin changed contexts”(Jones and Baraka,1963,
p. 183). BIPOC citizens have to code-switchwalking the streets, while whites do not: thesame
transfers to theworkplace and in classrooms, evenwithin the midst of changing socialmores
and times. Case in point, white faculty members position themselves as the embedded power
brokers(insiders) of the academyand BIPOC faculty arepositioned on the fringesof workplace
culture (outsiders). We all enactsocietal behaviors during this“changing same”of times.
Applicationsof Critical Race Theory (CRT)have become more well-knownin topics related
to thelibrary and informationsciences (e.g. Gibsonet al., 2018;Jennings and Kinzer,2022;Leung
and Lopez-McKnight, 2021;Snowand Dunbar, 2022;Stauffer,2020). However,the literature has
been mainly conceptual. In LIS discourse there remains a dearth of empirical research that
signifies ways in which racism and whiteness are reproduced in established practices,
knowledge, and resources that make up the way LIS is carried out in academic work
environments. One project that moves the field closer to operationalizing how the racism of
whiteness functions in the profession is the book Topographies of Whiteness in Library and
InformationScience (2017), edited by GinaSchlesselman-Tarango. Lenart,in his book review,
JD
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1598
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