Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies
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Post-Custodial Archiving for the Collective Good: Examining Neoliberalism in US-Latin American Archival Partnerships
No full textLLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections at the University of Texas at Austin applies post-custodial archival methods in pursuit of a new vision of digital archival practice and the transnational construction of historical memory. This work seeks to develop a practice for digital archiving that enables the redistribution of resources while centering communities as contributors and owners of their own documentary heritage. Although LLILAS Benson has successfully built partnerships and continues to manage widely recognized collections using a post-custodial model, the anti-colonial framework through which this work has been understood does not fully account for the power imbalances at play. Using Cifor and Lee’s survey of neoliberalism in the archives as a launching point, this article considers how neoliberalism has shaped post-custodial practices at LLILAS Benson, focusing on ideas and practices of labor, digitization, and the common good. Through this analysis, the authors describe not a static set of methodologies, but rather an ongoing process of learning, unlearning, and restructuring in pursuit of a collective good.
Pre-print first published online 03/03/201
Accesso Libre: Equity of Access to Information through the Lens of Neoliberal Responsiblization
Get PDFThis paper uses the concept of neoliberal responsibilization, the reductive framing of systemic power dynamics as questions of individual choice and agency, to critically interrogate equity of access to information, a central value of the broader field of library and information science (LIS). Based on a case study of Accesso Libre, a public/private partnership based in a South Los Angeles public library, I argue that equity of access to information is an insufficient concept to evaluate the power dynamics of this (and similar) partnerships, wherein powerful corporations encourage the use of commercial informational resources in minoritized communities. As an alternative, responsibilization directs analysis to different questions about equity, a set of concerns that offer LIS theorists and practitioners a way of reflecting on the ethical commitments at the core of the field.
Pre-print first published online 03/09/201
A Case for a Critical Information Ethics: Lessons Learned from Research Justice
Get PDFInformation ethics as taught in academic information literacy treats students as consumers, largely ignores the broader sociopolitical context of academic knowledge creation and, through a lack of critical analysis, reproduces Eurocentrism and colonialism in the information literacy classroom and literature. We propose applying a critical information ethics inspired by research justice that emphasizes solidarity with marginalized people and communities, respect for community knowledge, and moral integrity related to situated knowledge versus capitalist notions of information as a commodity.
Pre-print first published online 01/20/201
The Registration of Religious Identity: Parallels between the United States' (Proposed) Muslim Registry and Apartheid South Africa's Population Registration Act
Get PDFThis article explores aspects of the disciplinary documentation of religious, and by extension, racial identity within the context of post-9/11 United States. Using Donald Trump’s proposal for a Muslim registry as both a framing device and a point of departure, this article provides a comparative documentary analysis illuminating the chilling parallels between the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) program in the United States and the Population Registration Act (PRA) of Apartheid South Africa. In both cases, documentation was used to control and discipline individuals according to particular aspects or features of their identity. In post-9/11 United States, the particular aspects or features of an individual’s identity of concern are their Islamic religious identity; meanwhile, in Apartheid South Africa, the aspects or features of identity that were of paramount significance were one’s race and ethnicity.
This article helps provide some conceptual tools for scholars interested in the classification, registration, and documentation of diverse kinds of identities. It presents a documentary analysis of the racial registration strategies of Apartheid South Africa to help historicize and problematize the United States’ previous and proposed religious registry programs. Its aim is to draw lessons from South Africa’s painful past to provide an urgent warning of the oppressive implications of identity registrations like the NSEERS program and the worrying possibility of another misguided and counterproductive Muslim registry.
Pre-print first published online 03/03/201
“Blind Trust is Not Enough”: Considering Practical Verifiability and Open Referencing in Wikipedia
Get PDFThis article draws attention to the often-unseen information inequalities that occur in the way that Wikipedia content is referenced. Drawing on digital information control and virtual gatekeeping scholarship, we contend that by not considering the degree to which references are practically accessible and verifiable, Wikipedia editors are implicitly promoting a control mechanism that is limiting the potential of Wikipedia to serve, as Willinsky puts it, “as a gateway to a larger world of knowledge.” We question the widespread practice of referencing peer-reviewed literature that is obscured by prohibitive paywalls. As we see it, two groups are disadvantaged by this practice. First, Wikipedia editors who lack access to the most current scholarly literature are unable to verify a reference or confirm the veracity of a fact or figure. Second, and perhaps most important, general readers are left with two unsatisfactory options in this scenario: they can either trust the authority of the citation or pay to access the article. Building on Don Fallis’ work on epistemic consequences of Wikipedia, this paper contends that promoting practically verifiable references would work to mitigate these inequalities and considers how relatively new initiatives could be used to improve the quality and utility of Wikipedia more generally.
Pre-print first published online 03/03/201
Review of Soft & Cuddly by Jarett Kobek
Get PDFKobek, Jarett. Soft & Cuddly. Los Angeles, CA: Boss Fight Books, 2017. ISBN 13: 978-1-940535-15-9.
Pre-print first published online 03/09/201
Understanding How Open Government Data is Used in Capital Accumulation: Towards a Theoretical Framework
Get PDFThis article examines the role of open government data in capital accumulation. Open government data is a relatively new phenomenon that involves the pro-active and regular release of government data, in the form of downloadable records, for use and re-use by anyone. Private capitalist enterprises are among those who make use of such data. Publicly produced data is transferred into the hands of private capital through a non-rivalrous form of enclosure. Capital then uses government datasets to create new commodities by the application of skilled labor to the data, in processes including data mashup and data visualization. Inherent in all commodity production is the extraction of surplus value from labor by capital. This, together with the process of enclosure, provides opportunities for capital accumulation from open government data
“Believe Me”: Authenticity, Federal Social Media Use, and the Problematized Record in the American Digital Public Sphere
Get PDFThis article addresses current issues in authenticating and managing digital-born social media records, with reference to the Twitter output of the sitting President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, and members of his Administration. Focusing on Trump’s considerable corpus of tweets created after his inauguration on January 20, 2017, it employs scholarship from archival studies, legal studies, and communication and media studies to explore conjunctive questions of authenticity and its components of identity and integrity in social media records, as well as those records’ roles as archivable objects, legal evidence, and expressions of American information culture within the digital public sphere. Due to the perpetually changing nature of the subject, this article highlights complexities of and raises questions about governmental creation and management of problematized social media records in the United States more than answers them, with the hope that it can act as a springboard for further research. Ultimately, it aims to lead toward a praxis of information management in the United States that eventually rebuilds public trust in governmental institutions and practices, and most importantly, strengthens the transparency and accountability of political leadership on the federal, state, and local levels.
Pre-print first published online 03/03/201
Documenting ICE: Appraising Records of U.S Immigration Detention
Get PDFOn July 14th, 2017, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) posted a notice in the Federal Register that U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was seeking permission to destroy eleven types of records related to people detained by ICE. These include records of sexual abuse and assault, escapes, deaths, solitary confinement, and complaints made to a hotline by those in ICE custody. ICE requested timelines for the destruction of these records ranging from three to twenty years and in late August 2017, NARA granted preliminary approval of this request. This perspective essay seeks to shed light on the vast array of arguments asserting the value of these records to the people in ICE detention. Moreover, it attempts to weigh the evidence of ICE’s recordkeeping practices, the preponderance of which points to ICE’s inability and aversion to accurate, truthful and accessible documentation surrounding its operation. This exploration ultimately considers this historical moment as one in which archives can show their value as resources for government accountability, historical research and communities of migrants and refugees to argue that it is incumbent upon archivists to seize the opportunity
Evidences, Implications, and Critical Interrogations of Neoliberalism in Information Studies: An Introduction
Get PDFGuest editors Jamie A. Lee and Marika Cifor introduce the issue on Evidences, Implications, and Critical Interrogations of Neoliberalism in Information Studies