Suzanne Lipu

Information literacy research

Several people have mapped out the corpus of information literacy research that has taken place since the late 1990s (such as Hughes et al. 2005; Virkus 2003; Bruce 2000). The picture we are presented with clearly shows that only a small range of approaches have been taken. Virkus (2003) reviewed information literacy research in Europe. She reports that information literacy research in Europe, as in other parts of the world, came out of user education or bibliographic instruction research, and subsequently out of emerging research into information overload, information use and information literacy and learning. This was followed by interpretations of information literacy within the frame of information and communication technology (ICT) competencies and other digital literacy conceptualizations. Virkus points out that, in much of this research, information literacy competencies were taken as assumed and natural in everyday contexts and that this was a problem. Virkus mentions a few studies of information behaviour and information seeking and also explores the wide range of information literacy research conducted in educational settings across Europe. Her review established that most of these were conducted using phenomenographic methods, critical realist approaches, case studies and action research.

In 2005, Hughes, Middleton, Edwards, Bruce and McAllister prepared an overview of information literacy research in Australia (Hughes et al. 2005). They categorized the research as belonging to the fields of higher education, the workplace and the community. In studies conducted in education settings, they claim there was continuing research on information literacy from skills-based perspectives and cognitive approaches, but there was a growing body of research on information literacy as an approach to learning. There were also numerous studies that focused on information-seeking behaviour. Information literacy research in workplace settings also focused mainly on educational programs and information use and behaviour. Community-based information literacy research during the period of the authors’ survey was still a small segment of what they identified; it comprised studies of information access for social action and of the role of ICTs. Hughes and her colleagues noted that only a small range of methodological approaches were being applied in the research they identified. These included phenomenography, survey method, case study method, grounded theory and critical incident technique.

Current information literacy researchers are being more vocal in their critiques of these approaches to information literacy research. For example, Tuominen, Savolainen and Talja (2005) argued that information literacy researchers need to investigate further the interplay between contexts, knowledge and learning to get an in-depth understanding of information literacy practice in those contexts, instead of continuing to focus on skills and attributes so heavily.

Elmborg (2006) wrote about the role of critical theory in information literacy and noted the scarcity of published research that had viewed information literacy from critical theory perspectives, such as those of Paulo Freire. Elmborg claimed that academics and librarians (or information literacy instructors) tend to replicate and endorse a set of knowledges, truths and behaviours and teach information literacy based on these largely unquestioned practices, without really investigating, contesting or understanding the nature of literacies or accepting that ‘literacy is in constant flux and embedded in cultural situations, each situation nuanced and different from others’ (Elmborg 2006, p. 4). Savolainen (2008) extrapolates by talking about information literacy research as continuing to be framed in the broader context of’traditional’ or dominant discursive practices. One example is information behaviour research, which he says has focused primarily on individuals rather than on people as social beings and members of communities that ‘constitute the context of their mundane activities’ (Savolainen 2008, p. 120).

Buschman (2009) has also asked us to consider our conceptualizations of information literacy and has questioned whether our commonly accepted understandings of information literacy within the broader scope of literacy are actually holding scholarly progress back. In 2002, Marcum expressed his view that information literacy research needed to move away from a narrow skills-based learning perspective and towards a more sociotechnical approach—a move that has in fact happened in recent years (see Tuominen, Savolainen &Talja 2005) and continues to develop.

It is evident, then, that the approaches taken in information literacy research have overall been fairly narrowly focused. Although this type of research might proliferate in the early stages of any new discipline, the danger of persisting with such a narrow focus is that researchers may unwittingly constrain our potential. We may replicate what we already know and miss opportunities that encourage us to grow and debate fresh perspectives that would inevitably develop our understanding.

Gender-focused information literacy research

According to Scott and Marshall’s dictionary delineations (Scott & Marshall 2005), the term gender was introduced to sociology by Ann Oakley in her 1972 book, Sex, Gender and Society, where ‘sex’ referred to biological divisions of male and female and ‘gender’ was about ‘the socially constructed aspects of differences between men and women’. Scott and Marshall claim that the term is also used to talk about identity, personality, cultural ideals, stereotypes of masculinity and femininity and the sexual division of labour. The definition in the Dictionary of Social Sciences (Calhoun 2002) goes further by saying that gender is not just about ‘culturally constructed forms of behavior that roughly correlate with sexual difference’; it also adds that ‘In most societies, gender difference is accompanied by gender inequality—almost always the subordination of women’.

Gender inequality has been addressed in related fields, such as information technology (IT) research. A good example of this is Rosser’s (2005) work, which uses various feminist theoretical frameworks to explore women in the IT workforce, women as users of IT, and women and IT design. Another is Henwood’s (2000) empirical study into computing and IT in two educational settings where gender and equity issues were treated differently, one taking a liberal equal-opportunity approach, and the other a more constructivist, and arguably radical, feminist approach.

Hildenbrand (1999) believed that the growth of technology in the library profession and in library and information science education would only serve to reinforce inequalities based on gender stereotyping of women’s lack of ability to use technology or lead the profession effectively. She encouraged a more proactive response to ensuring women’s participation in higher-level positions in academia and the profession. This position was seen later as ‘fatalistic’, especially by cyberfeminists, such as Wajcman (2007), who view digital technologies as having liberating possibilities for women. Wajcman believes that views like Hildenbrand’s portray women as victims. She says that, in her own development as a cyber/technofeminist, she has viewed gender and technology as co-produced and promotes this approach for women to have more influence in the social world they live in:

Kelan’s (2007) focused on the way that IT is gendered through her research with ICT workers, using a social constructivist framework and discourse analysis. She concluded that, while men tended to describe technology as a toy, women tended to describe technology as a tool. She also found that there were some descriptions that were less binary and that this could mean that the differences highlighted in much IT and gender-related research could be changing, and that there are opportunities for women to develop further in this field.

Gender and technology research on women from developing countries is less abundant, however. Kole (2001) presented an analysis of various theories of gender and IT and argued that ICT and information literacy skills needed to be explored in very localized contexts if they were going to be relevant to those contexts.

In her review of feminism in relation to technology in the information society, Wyatt (2008) argues that much theoretical understanding about IT remains unexplored, especially as our theoretical understandings of feminism also keep changing. While initial studies focused on gender, capabilities and technology as work tools, there have been significant shifts over time and there has not been enough research into the political possibilities of technology for women or into the emerging social purposes of technology from feminist perspectives.

Substantial literature reviews, including those mentioned here, clearly show that the gender-focused studies in information literacy research—as in information seeking and information behaviour research—tends to focus on stereotypical gender differences rather than on inequality. A classic example of this line of research is Zoe and DiMartino’s (2000) study. They concur that the gender gap occurs to be closing in terms of viewing technology use as critical to being ‘effective’ as an online information seeker. Their information was sourced from material from the late 1980s to the 1990s. It is reasonable to ask what we have learnt since then.

Vehviläinen and Brunila (2007) provide some insight into the differences between feminist and gender-focused studies and note that there has been a spectrum of feminist work in the field. The liberal feminist approach emphasizes the importance of getting more women to participate in ICT education and professions (Vehviläinen & Brunila 2007, p. 387) and the importance of equality of access. The social constructionist feminist approach is more focussed on women’s construction and use of technology and views technology as a ‘social achievement including gendered practices and knowledge in addition to artefacts’ (p. 388). Vehviläinen and Brunila focus on the intersection of these positions:

Equality thus needs to start from a local perspective, but also must be considered within a global ICT context. Liberal feminism and social constructionism represent different engagements with equality and information and information technology and could be useful views for information literacy researchers to explore.

Aside from women and technology studies, there have been some feminist studies in other aspects of information itself and our ‘inherited’ information and knowledge structures and systems, which feminists have questioned. Olson (2001, 2007), for example, has talked about the term ‘woman’ being at the very bottom of the hierarchical list of the ‘human beings’ category within the Library of Congress Subject Classification Scheme and that the logic used to determine the hierarchical structures and systems that we use emanate from Western masculine historical frameworks which do not necessarily reflect women’s ways of defining subjects.

Palmer and Malone (2001) wrote about how evolving subject heading lists have resulted in many sources of information about women being grouped inappropriately, rendering them invisible, or, at the very least, challenging to locate now. They refer to the subject heading Woman—Social and moral questions, which existed for sixty-nine years and resulted in misrepresentation and the lumping together of many unrelated titles. Even though information retrieval systems continue to improve, there are a large number of ‘hidden’ texts about women that are still difficult to find because of these outdated conventions, which is an outrage in the current environment. Davis (2008) suggests that it is time to explore further the organization conventions and hierarchies that we have inherited from the viewpoint of alternative epistemologies like feminism.

Need for feminist approaches in information literacy research

This author is not suggesting that gender-focused—as opposed to feminist— information literacy research should be discontinued. However, feminist critiques of information literacy research could further enhance the field by reformulating some of the research issues in information literacy and by ensuring that authentic feminist representation of information literacy practiccs is included in the field. As pointed out earlier, feminism is more than a focus on gender; rather, it is a social movement. Paying attention to subordination of women also advocates political, social and economic equality and involves an enhanced understanding of the roles that sex and gender have on structuring practices and society and vice versa (Calhoun 2002).

Most readers are probably familiar with at least some of the work feminists have been involved in on fronts such as the political front (for instance, the right to vote), economic equality (such as equal pay for equal work) and some social agendas (for instance, the right to fertility control). In more recent years, traditional feminism itself has become problematized from the position that there is no one ‘feminism’. There are ongoing debates, for example, over issues such as colour in feminist studies and activities and the relevance of feminism in Third-World societies where there may be no social and economic equality of any sort anyway. As in any research field, researchers who represent the different feminisms have much to offer information literacy research.

Information literacy research is not the only research field to have a gaping hole in the application of feminist research approaches. Sharp and Hefley (2007) have made the same observation in the field of criminology, where the dearth of non- marginalized feminist scholarship is of great significance because women are affected by the criminal justice system’s policies, which are based on male needs and behaviours, and, as the incidcnce of women committing crime—and consequently being incarcerated—is increasing in the United States, this is a matter of concern.

So how does the lack of feminist approaches affect information literacy research, one might ask. We can approach this question by looking at the development of the Australian and New Zealand Information Literacy (ANZ1IL) Framework (Bundy 2004). The ANZ1IL standards were adapted from the US Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (ACRL 2000). Sixty-two people, including the author of this chapter, from various educational and other information contexts, participated in the development of the ANZIIL framework, at a forum where the majority of attendees were women and a workshop facilitated by a woman. In spite of the dominant role of women in the workshop and the development of the standards (and, later, the framework), all of which happened in Australia, a developed country, there was no consideration of taking a feminist perspective on information literacy issues in the standards and no questioning of the assumption that the United States standards would suffice. Although there was some rephrasing of the United States standards for an Australian context, their origins or relevance in an Australian context were not challenged, and there was very little indigenous representation.

While it is not a social policy per se, the ANZIIL framework has been widely used, especially within educational institutions responsible for fostering information literacy in Australia and New Zealand and in other, primarily developed, countries. It has enjoyed, therefore, quite substantial support. It is timely perhaps that the framework be critiqued from various positions and that the conceptualizations and premises on which it is based are interrogated and debated by a broader audience. This is not to say that information literacy has not been contested as a concept on a global level. For example, in 2002 Aiyepeku, Atinmo and Aderinoye (2002) prepared a white paper for UNESCO, the US National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, and the National Forum on Information Literacy, for use at the Information Literacy Meeting of Experts in Prague. They strongly advocated a ‘functional infoliteracy campaign’ in African states that would promote information literacy in direct relation to the needs of those states—‘Every personal, institutional, community, national, sub-regional, or international initiative to promote an information literate African citizenry must identify with the ultimate goal of Africa’s socio-economic emancipation’ (Aiyepeku, Atinmo & Aderinoye 2002, p. 9). The argument they put forward highlights the challenges of promoting information literacy (especially digital literacy) in African states where survival is a much greater need on a daily basis. They also identified other needs such as promoting indigenous knowledge.

Feminist researchers would argue that what is lacking in this argument is attention to the needs of women in African states, as they are susceptible to great pressure and often greater disadvantage than men, in the information environment. This is compellingly argued by Okiy (2005) who discussed how libraries can play a role in promoting literacy and political awareness through a range of programs for women in Nigeria so that more women can participate in the country’s development and simultaneously help them address issues such as gender inequality, infant mortality, illiteracy, child trafficking and genital mutilation (Akanda 2005, referred to in Okiy 2005, p. 220).

Similarly, Omotayo (2006) says that women librarians, in particular, need to be proactively providing women in Nigeria with sufficient information to help resolve conflict in the country and achieve peace. Badawi (2007, p. 170) observes that, where public libraries have engaged in activities with the people in their communities they have become ‘centers of political activity’. Libraries can help people overcome some of the religious and cultural barriers that stop women from participating fully in democracy not only by delivering information, but by ensuring that information is in formats that women can understand. Librarians use ICTs to effectively share and collaborate with other female librarians to assist women in politics in Nigeria (Badawi 2007, p. 173). All of these activities are about fostering information literacy in practice—from everyday activities affecting women in these areas through to nurturing decision-making and empowerment in all aspects of women’s personal lives and to promoting their role as active citizens within their regions. These goals do not just relate to women in African states, of course.

We know that women constitute the majority of the world’s illiterate (which is, of course, measured in terms of textual literacy). According to UNESCO, one in five adults is still not literate and two thirds of those who are not literate are women (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 2009). This should be of great concern to us as information literacy researchers because, as Stromquist (2006, p. 143) points out: ‘There is wide recognition that literacy is a major human invention that enables people to have access to information across a wide range of time and space. Literacy enables people to engage in increasingly complex activities over time and to gain individual autonomy in doing so’.

Challinor (2003, p. 23) stressed, however, that ‘without a discussion of how information literacy should impact, elevate and enhance the lives of women, we are selling our concept short’. Information literacy researchers have done little to address this concern. It has been claimed that being information-literate is critical to being enabled as a participative citizen (Bundy 2002). Dominant discourses in our field claim that, if you are information-literate you will be personally empowered and thereby enabled. One would, therefore, assume that, to act on and address some of the issues raised in Okiy’s, Omotayo’s and Badawi’s work, feminist research is urgently needed and timely in the light of new understandings of information literacy that are being derived from sociocultural research approaches (for example, Lloyd 2005; Tuominen, Savolainen & Talja 2005).

Campbell and Wasco (2000, p. 775) have summed up a major advantage of feminist approaches thus: ‘Feminist social science legitimates women’s lived experiences as sources of knowledge’ and, more importantly, acknowledges that ‘the ordinary and extraordinary events of women’s lives are worthy of critical reflection as they can inform our understanding of the social world’.

More recently, Catts and Lau (2008) produced a proposal for Information Literacy Indicators which included taking into account information literacy and equality. They claim that the Organisation for Economic and Cultural Development (OECD) has identified a correlation between ICT skills and literacy through its International Adult Literacy Survey and, further, ‘that those with ICT skills are likely to have higher literacy skill levels’, although they say the cause has not been identified. They report the OECD’s claim that ‘In many countries, women report less access to ICT and fewer ICT skills’ (OECD 2005, cited in Catts & Lau 2008, p. 23).What is especially interesting to note from this is that women not only are likely to have less access to ICT but also have higher illiteracy levels, as mentioned earlier, so they are doubly disadvantaged. This claim assumes, of course, that literacy itself and information literacies are directly related to equity issues. We need more research to make such claims, however, given that the cause (or causes) and relationships have not yet been explored enough.

Initial findings from my current study into Papua New Guinean women’s use of information and the relationship between information literacy and personal empowerment from a critical, postcolonial feminist approach has revealed that information in the Papua New Guinean workforce is a major source of power (Lipu, PhD in progress). Access to information is often limited to those in senior positions. The majority of senior positions are held by men (for example, ten out of eleven director positions in the Department of Health, as of November 2008, were men) even though women in such organizations may make up half the workforce. The inequity of access to information means that women are largely excluded from decision-making processes and may even lack the appropriate information necessary to do their jobs, thereby making them susceptible to abuse or losing their employment.

These findings imply that information literacy is a necessary condition for women’s empowerment in many local contexts. For example, in Papua New Guinea a disproportionate number of young women are infected with IIIV (as compared to men). Factors contributing to this imbalance have been attributed to the manifestation of gender inequality (including high levels of sexual and physical violence, such as gang rapes) and misinformation about how the disease is spread (AusAID 2009). While the lack of accurate information also impacts on men, of course, the general lack of empowerment amongst women means that women are more likely to be excluded from having access to accurate information, even when it does exist. How then can women take steps to protect their own bodies when they face inequality at so many levels? Issues such as violence, poverty, cultural and religious beliefs (to name a few) intersect with the lack of accurate information. My current research is revealing that being able to find and use information is something that educated women identify as giving them choices and increasing their personal empowerment in making decisions about all aspects of their lives and of the lives of those they are responsible for.

This section has attempted to show the need in information literacy research for feminist approaches, which mean more than just research about women. Research on women and the relationships between information and power and between information and empowerment is needed. Feminist research looks at information literacy in localized, everyday contexts. In the next scction I introduce several feminist epistemologies and outline their potential for information literacy research.

Feminist epistemologies

Epistemologies are theories about the nature of knowledge. Feminist epistemologies form a subset of social epistemologies, which examine the interplay between knowledge and social relations and institutions (Pressley 2008). Feminist epistemologies deny the existence of one truth per se and focus on whose knowledge it is that is being proclaimed. They also focus on context and situation. Pressley (2008, p. 47) sums it up nicely: ‘The particulars of knowledge construction are the main focus for feminist epistemologists, rather than the development of an impossible set of universal circumstances for justifying knowledge’.

There is an overarching rainbow of feminist epistemologies which range from liberal to radical to post-modern perspectives. Over recent years, feminist epistemologies have been drawn upon in studies in a range of fields, including education, health and science. These studies have pointedly revealed that there is no single feminist theoretical perspective. Janice McLaughlin argues that part of the reason there is ‘uncertainty’ in feminist theoretical debates and agendas is the ‘uncertainty about what theory can say and on whose behalf it speaks’ (McLaughlin 2003, p. 4). She also claims that early feminist theoretical discussions ignored or denied the importance of difference. In more recent years this is no longer true, as vehemently debated feminist research perspectives abound and consensus on one perspective or another seems unlikely. Such consensus would also be highly undesirable for it would inevitably mean the exclusion of some and dominance of others, which would be counter to basic feminist values of equity.

Choosing one perspective would also disregard the importance of intersectionality—the recognition that identities/subjectivities/power and knowledge are not stable discrete things but are fluid and situational. Intersectional perspectives sit comfortably within feminist paradigms, particularly third-wave feminisms which do not foreground gender and discard the influences of class, race, culture, disability and sexual preference, among other things (Styhre & Eriksson-Zetterquist 2008). Information literacy researchers need to become more familiar with feminist epistemologies to understand better why or how these positions could be useful in our field. To this end, the ensuing section discusses in more detail critical feminism, feminisms of colour and postcolonial feminism, and proposes research questions and problems that could be considered by information literacy researchers.

Critical feminism

Eschle and Maiguashca define critical theorists as having at their ontological and political bases a compulsion to ‘illuminate relations of domination and oppression and the concrete social struggles that seek to overturn them. In other words, critical theory is a theory about the “politics of resistance’” (Eschle & Maiguashca 2007, p. 285) and this necessarily involves having an emancipatory foundation from the perspective of the oppressed and not being distant from subject matter. Critical feminist theories have two essential goals:

Eschle and Maiguashca assert that feminist scholars highlight gender as a form of oppression and suggest that, for most feminist scholars, there remains an assumption that gender categories are in some way relational, gaining their meaning from an implied opposition to each other, and that they are hierarchically arranged with man/masculine tending to be privileged over female/feminine. Critical feminist scholars also pay attention to the vastly differing, context-specific ways in which gender hierarchies play themselves out and to the intersections of gender with other forms of power and oppression. (Eschle & Maiguashca 2007, pp. 286-7).

Kinzie highlights the need for critical feminist perspectives as forms of inquiry that share a commitment to investigate power relationships, examine lived experiences, expose oppression, and address inequalities (Kinzie 2007, p. 89). Her study focused on women’s study choices and results in science fields from high school through to tertiary education, in order to see if women did indeed have equitable opportunities to participate in science-related disciplines.

In terms of information literacy research, critical feminist theories could offer a great deal to the field in areas that have not been explored. It was mentioned earlier, for example, that we have yet to tackle the thorny and perhaps uncomfortable area of power bases and we certainly have not interrogated information literacy enough from the dimension of power.

The dimension of power has been extensively explored in other disciplines, but in information literacy research some of the issues mentioned already—hierarchical structures of information, the organization of knowledge, access to information, and freedoms to use such information—seem worthy of exploration. This would also demonstrate some progress in moving beyond the focus on individual behaviour to more social constructivist perspectives that have been advocated more recently.

Earlier Aiyepeku, Atinmo and Aderinoye (2002) were referred to as highlighting the need for promoting a functional information literacy campaign for Africa as a matter of urgency to assist in Africa’s socioeconomic emancipation. Further attention to the special needs of women in African states is also needed and this, together with Aiyepeku, Atinmo and Aderinoye’s argument about needing to conceptualize information literacy more broadly to include a relationship to basic survival, is most certainly a classic example of where critical, feminist scholarship could be useful in our field. They are not alone in stressing the significance of indigenous or oral information systems in Africa. (For further expression of the significance see Adjaye (2008) and Raseroka (2008).) Such approaches demand the reconsideration of the very text-focused ANZIIL framework.

The dominant discourses within information literacy assume that, if you are information-literate, you will be personally empowered. Yet we really do not understand what empowerment entails in localized contexts. Critical feminists, in particular, have a mandate to study situated agency and localized practices. As pointed out by Gouthro (2005), the significance of site—especially as referred to in critical Habermasian theory—is paramount, as external effects alter localized sites and, therefore, unique situated knowledge can be lost.

Unfortunately, as Schuurman (2009) points out, critical research, in relation to development in Third World countries especially, is increasingly difficult to undertake. This is especially the case in areas that are not related to direct, measurable frameworks such as the Millennium Development Goals (United Nations 2009) which guide funding and other United Nations support to developing countries. This makes studying situated agency and localized practices very difficult, even though they are obviously very important and we need to know about these practices if we are to understand how information literacy operates across a range of sites.

An early finding of my study (Lipu, PhD in progress) is that there appears to be a perception of individual agency when educated Papua New Guinean women considered their own information literacy. Information literacy was not predefined for the informants, but the study focused rather on questions about their experiences with information—in childhood, in the workplace, and as a woman in their own cultures. It is important to note that the participants in the study, although they are all from Papua New Guinea, do not represent a homogenous group. Women from other countries or cultural groups within a country may not have similar perspectives about what constitutes information literacy or what personal empowerment means; they may not identify that information literacy and personal empowerment are connected. To challenge this one aspect of the dominant discourse—the concept of personal empowerment and information literacy being linked—we will need many more studies from a range of sites. Moreover, we could learn whether personal empowerment is a tool for political and social activism to improve conditions for the oppressed—which essentially represents a shift in thinking from focussing on gender to taking a feminist position.

Such discussions are seen on the agendas of many global women’s forums. For example, Griffen from the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) talks about women from a small range of Pacific countries, including Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, getting together to discuss local issues of relevance to women. In this discussion, the need for a more coordinated rights approach to deal with issues such as domestic violence, land rights and education, and for greater political representation was recognized. She also noted the need for research and information and for women’s participation in governmental policy decision-making (Griffen 2006, p. 110). Herein lie huge opportunities to explore the lack of women’s leadership in some of these countries. If being able to understand, access and use information is critical to personal agency, how does that influence social change? Or maybe it does not.

Men in some of these Pacific countries are also identifying the need to focus on women, with a view to overcoming oppression and inequality. For example, Deklin (2008) talked about the rights of Papua New Guinean women to have the same level of access to educational opportunities as men and discussed at length how this was not only legally binding (locally and internationally) but also essential to building their nation and state. Writing from within a ‘women’s rights as human rights’ perspective, he lamented that this equality has not been achieved even today. He also outlined a view of education as ‘learning how to learn, how to analyse, how to synthesize and understand, how to take what you see in front of you and use it sensibly’ (Deklin 2008, p. 9). This overlaps with what many of us attribute to being information-literate, of course. Although information literacy research originally began in the educational context and although there have been ongoing studies about the relationship between information literacy and effective learning, whether we really understand the distinctions and overlaps between the two is still questionable. How do people in localized contexts distinguish between the two, and does it matter? What are the implications for information literacy educationalists?

Feminist theory: Different perspectives

Feminists of colour, black feminism, Asian feminism, indigenous feminism and Pacific feminism are just some of the perspectives that take into account race and ethnicity (and racisms) within the feminist spectrum. Each represents a specific perspective, at the heart of which is a focus on and a respect for specific identities and agendas. Each also presents feminist researchers with many challenges. For example, many feminists of colour have argued that, for many years, the feminist movement and resulting research had focused on the rights that were desired by white women in the Western world and that, in doing so, had not only neglected to take into account the diversity of perspectives but were in some ways replicating some of the injustices perpetuated by men by enforcing a specific and sometimes irrelevant agenda upon those who did not necessarily share the same ideals.

Writing of black feminism, prominent researcher bell hooks (2000, p. 19) asks: ‘Do women share a common vision of what equality means? Implicit in this simplistic definition of women’s liberation is the dismissal of race and class as factors that, in conjunction with sexism, determine the extent to which an individual will be discriminated against, exploited, or oppressed’, hooks and other black feminists, such as Patricia Hill Collins in Black Feminist Thought (1990), advocated for white feminists, in particular, to think about their own biases and racisms, and to consider viewpoints of women of colour and their interpretations of knowledge, empowerment and discrimination—viewpoints that not all women shared or understood just because they were the same gender. As recognized in Olesen’s review (2005), these feminists were amongst the first to shift away from the idea of a universal experience for women to approaches that recognized, acknowledged and made explicit differences of many kinds. She urges feminist researchers to build on the work done by earlier feminists and says that they offer ‘strategies to lay foundations for action on critical projects, large and small, to realize social justice in different feminist versions, a challenge that thoughtful feminists must accept and carry forward. The range of problems is too great and the issues are too urgent to do otherwise’ (Olesen 2005, p. 344).

Renowned Australian aboriginal activist and feminist, Jackie Huggins (1998) adds to these concerns and agrees with bell hooks, advocating that white researchers need to interrogate their own racial biases before engaging in research with black women. Huggins adds that, in performing feminist research, white researchers should not become neo-colonists and should be wary of approaching the research with missionary zeal. The white feminist, therefore, cannot presume to understand what inequalities need addressing without authentic collaboration with women of colour or, at the very least, having a deep understanding of their concerns.

There are also intersectional interests within black feminism, such as women from First World countries exploring women’s issues within Third World countries. They must, for example, consider issues such as those pointed out by Rao and Robinson-Pant (2006, p. 220):

As one discovers when one peels an onion, there are layers beyond colour that are also integral and must be considered and black feminism is one of those layers. For instance, Papua New Guinean women represent a specific group of women, but they are not a homogenous group because of the colour of their skin. Papua New Guinea is one of the world’s most linguistically diverse countries, with over 850 languages known to exist. There are countless cultural groups within the country, each of which has diverse customs and people with unique and varied life experiences. Reymer (1999) clarifies this by saying that, in Papua New Guinea, there are many factors, including polygamy, alcohol, mismanagement of family finances, inadequate water, food and fuel supplies, marketing problems, marital breakdown, and increasing violence and sexual crimes, which affect women’s position in society.

These layers make up what many feminist scholars now refer to as intersectionality—a concept that emerged initially when feminists of colour challenged the ideals of feminism as being Western, white ideals that did not consider difference such as colour. Davis says the concept of intersectionality is now much more entrenched in feminist scholarship across a range of disciplines. She even goes as far as to say:

Most importantly. Davis points out that intersectionality not only addresses, at least in part, the mistakes of early Western feminists to recognize difference in terms of women of colour; it is also an inclusive term that recognizes a range of differences. As Davis acknowledges, intersectionality may not solve all the issues of the past, or be the answer to further complexities that feminist scholars encounter. But it does remind us that studying women is not as simple as just taking a gendered approach in any type of research, and it promotes reflexivity and accountability in feminist research.

Definition by sex or gender, including here the relationship between the impact of society on cultural behavioural norms and vice versa, will only give us a snippet of the picture. When we probe the layers mentioned by Rao and Robinson-Pant (2006), we will get a deeper understanding of how information literacy is understood and/or evolves in practice. This involves working across colour and the challenges, even for those researchers assumed to be insiders within the studied culture, are not small. Coloma (2008), for example, gives a first-hand account of being an American Filipino who had resided in the United States all of her life and was returning to the Philippines to conduct research. She found herself embroiled in discussions and reflections about whether her cultural background and colour instantly made her an ‘insider’—an assumption many people made on her behalf. The assumption did not sit well with her initially. Rather, she experienced discomfort at not having a ‘home’ identity and moving subjectivities throughout the research project. Ultimately, she discovered that her position was ‘multidimensional and dynamic’ (Coloma 2008, p 24).

This position indicates the enormous significance of things like experiential learning and cultural norms. Undertaking information literacy research necessarily requires consideration of difference, including difference that is more than just difference in language and colour.

Postcolonial feminism

Postcolonial feminism is discussed here primarily because of its focus and concern with developing, or Third World, countries. As aptly pointed out by Olesen (2005), one challenge for feminists is to look at research issues through a feminist framework that also considers social justice.

Many areas in the world have been colonized by others. From the viewpoint of postcolonial feminism, underdeveloped countries are countries that have been colonized in the past by imperialists and have been left with deep-seated influences, such as inherited legal and education systems, that reinforce the power of a few over the lives of many, subjugating the voices and power of disadvantaged groups, particularly of women. Many of these areas have also experienced the disappearance or, more appropriately, the suppression of indigenous information, communication and knowledge systems as a result of colonization. Researching these areas seeks to re-ignite previously silenced or marginalized knowledge which could profoundly affect the way we think.

Postcolonial feminist scholarship began with the interrogation of issues such as representation, or ‘othering’, as it is often referred to. Gandhi says that postcolonial and feminist theory began as an attempt to simply invert prevailing hierarchies of gender, culture and race (Gandhi 1998, p. 83). She asserts, however, that there are three main areas of controversy between postcolonialism and feminism. When experiences of Third World women are studied by researchers from outside the Third World, there is a danger of marginalizing or ‘othering’ the Third World woman and reinforcing the notion that she cannot speak for herself, thus repeating history. An external researcher may perpetuate the silencing of the ‘subaltem’ and feminism can be seen as an excuse for the ‘civilizing mission’ over the real need for feminist or cultural emancipation (p. 93).

One can see that, in some of the issues raised by feminists who are concerned with difference, such as feminists of colour, some ideals are not recognized and that some voices are silenced or suppressed. Gandhi argues that a productive area of collaboration between postcolonialism and feminism presents itself’in the possibility of a combined offensive against the aggressive myth of both imperial and nationalist masculinity’ (Gandhi 1998, p. 98).

Khan and her associates (2007) also argue that postcolonial researchers can highlight the way some cultures, ethnicity and race have been constructed as ‘other’, often inferior and subordinate. Postcolonial researchers can also highlight the existence of cultures within cultures and the fact that cultures are fluid and subject to political and other processes. As they put it: ‘A central tenet of postcolonial theory is thus to create alternative discourses that challenge established, dominant discourses by giving voice to those who have been marginalized by history and viewed as Other’ (Khan et al. 2007, pp. 230-1).

Postcolonial feminist researchers could potentially have a significant role to play in bringing these marginalized voices to the fore. In Australia, for instance, there is still much to be known about different indigenous knowledge groups and how they conceive and use information and knowledge.

Conclusion

This chapter has sought to advocate the application feminist research perspectives in information literacy research and to point out that it would be remiss to ignore the challenges that such scholarship entails. Olesen (2005, p. 313) calls these ‘the demands posed by new experimental approaches in the real representation of voice, text, and ethical issues’. To these challenges, 1 add the dilemmas that Sultana (2007) refers to as those of conducting research internationally and cross- culturally, which are to do with reflexivity, positionality and participatory ethics. Other feminist researchers have raised similar issues (for example, Seibold 2000).

These, and other challenges discussed in this chapter, could explain why there is such a dearth of feminist research on information literacy. Perhaps it is because the potential for opening the information literacy field up to feminist exploration is too daunting. On the other hand, this could be because the field is still in its infancy. This author hopes it is the latter and that we will not continue to ignore feminist approaches. This chapter has offered suggestions about how feminist epistemologies could substantially benefit our understanding of information literacy issues and develop information literacy research further.

One of the research needs in information literacy is to look at the traditions our field has inherited. As mentioned earlier, in adopting a set of information literacy standards from the United States for application in the Australian environment, it was assumed that they would suffice in this context. Their origin or relevance to the Australian context was not challenged, yet just a few years after their publication, there was wide recognition that some things did not sit well and needed adapting, resulting in the publication of a second edition (Bundy 2004). In the preparation of both versions, there was no feminist voice or indigenous participation to any large degree. Yet, information literacy educators in most Australian universities and other institutions rely on the second edition of the Australian and New Zealand Information Literacy Framework to guide them in their work.

Other questions remain unanswered, such as:

To really advocate the centrality of information literacy to personal empowerment, we need to understand better the relationship between information literacy and personal empowerment, from a range of perspectives. Feminist epistemologies can help us to do that. To focus on information literacy from a gender-based perspective is not enough. We need to understand better the relationship between information and power, not just from an economic perspective, but from the perspective of localized studies of the personal and the social. We need to understand, from a range of feminist perspectives, how central information is to the lives of women and whether and how it can help women overcome the inequality and oppression they face, in their own world and contexts.

The role of context cannot be stressed enough. The centrality of community-as- context in information literacy research is still in its infancy but is now being considered more widely (Lloyd 2006; Harris 2008); community needs to become a much more central focus in our research. Information literacy research has traditionally focused on individuals and there is a need to look at people as members of communities that ‘constitute the context of their mundane activities’ (Savolainen 2008, p. 120). The immense diversity of contexts should not deter us from exploring their potential for giving us not only a deeper understanding of the information practices of different groups, but also a broader understanding of information literacy and what it means in practice.

References