Thinking Categorically

Why is LIS Afraid of Power?

Abstract

Why does librarianship hang on to the strict division of the object of inquiry and the subject pursuing inquiry? This paper adopts a conversational form, as seen in feminist work such as Nancy Fraser, Rahel Jaeggi, and Brian Milstein’s Capitalism: A Conversation in Critical Theory (2018) and Carol Gilligan and Naomi Snider’s Why Does Patriarchy Persist? (2018) in order to explore the contradiction between activism and research in library and information studies (LIS). We chose this form to connect our philosophical approach with our work, as well as to contribute to a growing body of scholarly work written in forms beyond the traditional empirical article. Our research questions in this conversation are: Is it truly possible to transform the field and what is the implied state of transformation? In exploring these questions, we draw on our experience and several examples of research projects that combine activism and inquiry in LIS, digital humanities, and interdisciplinary education in North America. Projects and movements explored include: We Here//UpRoot Knowledge, Dark Laboratory, Land Grab Universities, and Blackfoot Digital Library. While committed to building community among practitioners and scholars in the field, we are ultimately skeptical of the extent to which the field can indeed be transformed through discursive means alone. We see the devaluation of research by practitioners and the immaterial labor of their activism, pitted against the valuation of “pure research” as the legitimized form of liberal idealist philosophy in LIS. Further, we emphasize that new theoretical frameworks are necessary for LIS to consider transformation that unites both material and immaterial aspects of librarianship, including the dynamic constituent power and assemblage as collective power within the profession.

Pre-print first published online 01/30/2024