Information Poverty Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This paper explores the role of libraries in the eradication of poverty and the empowerment of women and girls in Namibia. It is based on my doctoral research that was conducted in South Africa and explored the role that libraries play in community development through the identification and alleviation of information inequality and poverty. From this research, a new integrative approach to information inequality and poverty was created to provide guidelines for libraries wishing to investigate and alleviate information inequality within their communities. This paper will explain the original study and its findings as well as describe the integrative approach to information inequality. It will also apply the research to the alleviation of information inequality among women and girls in Namibia.

- by
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- Information Poverty, Women, Libraries, Namibia

"Library and Information Science (LIS) professionals frequently demonstrate
interest in work toward a more just, equitable world. However, while information professionals constantly scrutinize the implications of language in everything from reference interviews to archival description, we seem far less inclined to such self-reflection in our interventions in global inequality, drawing uncritically on the language of traditional international development work, with all its attendant assumptions, limitations, and erasures of non-Western histories and knowledges. Mobilizing critical development theory, this paper elaborates a broad textual critique of the discourse of global “information inequality” within LIS and advocates a more critical discourse around global justice."

- by David James Hudson
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- Critical Theory, Information Science, Digital Divide, Development Studies
- by Gover Barja Daza
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- Latin American Studies, Information Technology, Information Policy, ICT4D