ideas; freedom for all people to form, to hold, and to express their own beliefs; respect for the individual person; democracy; diversity; social responsibility; intellectual freedom; education and lifelong learning; and serving the public good. Moreover, information literacy education was proclaimed a human right in 2005 (IFLA, 2015) and is considered an important prerequisite for democracy (Obama, 2009).
While the Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education does require taking a critical approach toward information literacy, both in its knowledge and dispositions objectives, it stops at learners acknowledging biases in bodies of knowledge. In response, Laura Saunders (2017) at Simmons College proposed a new frame: Information Social Justice. The Information Social Justice frame asserted that in order to most effectively understand and use information, “users must be able to examine and interrogate the power structures that impact that information and analyze the ways that information can be used to both inform and misinform” (Saunders, 2017, p. 67). Our project—through readings, class discussions, self-reflections, and the editing of Wikipedia—helped our learners, and ourselves, develop several of the knowledge practices and dispositions that serve this proposed frame by both exposing and expanding the dynamic, multifaceted nature of the information landscape, and thereby reinforcing the importance that we all employ empathy, critical scrutiny, and self-reflection when engaging with information. Our learners gain critical information literacy fluency when they can recognize where injustice occurs in a presentation of information and feel empowered with skills to effect change.
Information Literacy as Social Justice in Cultural Anthropology
Contemporary cultural anthropology closely interrogates social inequalities on local, national, and global scales. Anthropologists research from the “ground up,” analyzing rich detail of lived experiences within larger social and cultural contexts. Many cultural anthropologists align themselves with those who are oppressed (Kirsch, 2018; Singer & Baer, 2018). Gender inequality is o en an important element of these analyses of social inequalities.
