Decolonial studies related to ict in information science: an overview from Brapci

Abstract

Research in Information Science (IC) progressively incorporates critical perspectives in its theoretical, epistemological, methodological and pragmatic scope, in order to broaden the perspectives from which the investigated phenomena are understood. The social phenomena addressed by scientific research are admittedly influenced by historical, political and sociocultural factors that involve aspects such as gender, race and social classes. Informational phenomena, while belonging to this scope, are equally influenced by such aspects. Likewise, cultural facilities - libraries, archives and museums - present initiatives based on such perspectives in their activities. Within the scope of critical theories in IC, studies and initiatives with decolonial perspectives in cultural devices and in the informational issues addressed by the area stand out. The decolonial perspective seeks to question the vestiges of North-South domination relations that persist in ideological and epistemological spheres, based on imposed subjectivation processes. Considering that communication and information technologies (ICT) are equally affected by biases from a colonial perspective and that a decolonial perspective is, therefore, desirable in studies focused on related themes, this work aims to answer the following research question: what is the overview of research related to ICT with a decolonial perspective in the scope of Brazilian Information Science? In this context, the purpose of this work is to draw an overview of research trends related to the decolonial perspective focused on topics related to ICT in the scope of Information Science, in order to observe the state of the theme and possible gaps to be addressed in the Brazilian context. The hypothesis raised is that, although the production of research related to the decolonial perspective in Information Science is increasing, the number of productions focused on ICT is still scarce in the Brazilian context. It was possible to observe that publications on or with a decolonial/postcolonial/decolonial/anticolonial perspective were mostly focused on epistemological studies. The scarce number of publications focused on topics related to ICT points to a growing demand for studies in this area with a decolonial perspective, considering the importance of this perspective demonstrated in the number and quality of publications retrieved. The realization that technologies, as products created and administered by human beings equally affected by structural racism and other opressions, reinforces the need to develop more studies on the subject in order to contribute to overcoming this social problem.