Indigenous Voices Informing Academic Information Literacy: Critical Discourses, Relationality, and Indigeneity for the Good of the Whole

Abstract

Instructional librarianship in public post-secondary institutions requires that librarians be responsive to a diversity of paradigms and student needs, including Indigenous contexts. Although constrained by institutional infrastructures, Indigenous research methodologies and epistemologies provide frameworks for Indigenous librarians and students to practice and support inquiry in ways that are responsive to their culturally-specific needs. Currently, research in the field of library and information science about how Indigenous research methodologies and epistemologies can support academic librarianship is limited, especially concerning how Indigenous voices can inform information literacy as a whole. For this study, 4 Indigenous LIS and academic professionals and an Apache-Comanche Elder were interviewed. These semi-structured interviews were then analyzed to better understand how Indigenous voices can inform information literacy in the public academy. Responses were coded using thematic analysis. Results demonstrate that Indigenous voices can inform information literacy in consideration of relevancy, value neutrality, positionality, through being critical of hegemonic infrastructures including technology, prioritizing native voices, braiding knowledge systems, and centering relationality. These results hold implications for strategic planning, curriculum development, and informing social paradigms that support Indigenous people in post-secondary education while addressing issues in modernity for the good of the whole.