Whiteness from the top down: systemic change as antiracist action in LIS

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is two-fold. The first is to inform the readers of the racist origins of libraries in America. Readers will learn about historic instances of systemic racism in libraries and those that persist today. The second purpose is to give readers examples of antiracist actions they can take on an individual level, in concert with library administration, and on the institutional level.Design/methodology/approachThis paper gives an overview of systemic racism in librarianship. Part I outlines the history of libraries and their institutional oppression origins in America. Part II reviews some of the current racial issues in Libraries and Information Science (LIS). Part III gives the author's viewpoint on how to incorporate antiracist action within libraries and how to decenter whiteness at the national level.FindingsThe authors found that libraries were established on institutional oppression and systemic racism, which continue to this day to center whiteness and disadvantage BIPOC. Having said that, now is the time to make changes, decenter whiteness and remove systemic barriers through antiracist actions. These actions will help increase the number of BIPOC working in libraries and improve the retention and promotion of those BIPOC too. If the American Library Association (ALA) heeds this call to action, Critical Race Theory (CRT) will become part of the Master's of Library and Information Science (MLIS), BIPOC will be better funded and supported, and the credentialing stigma will be removed.Originality/valueThis article highlights concrete action that should be taken beyond individual bias awareness and into systemic changes. It advocates for more critical awareness and daily antiracist action within the LIS field.

Trauma and Transgender Space in Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Social space largely decides the role of the human and the extent to which she controls or affects the physical environment. Any form of justice advocates and contends that instances of injustice are not simply arbitrary realities which occur in varying contexts. Rather, instances of injustice are the outcome of an institutional oppression and isolation which have set up an inevitable and sometimes invisible framework of colonization and the resultant anxiety and trauma by creating heterogenous spaces outside the accepted social space. More often than not, it is the effect of the gaze on the subject. In her novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness(2017) Arundhati Roy, along with other stories, narrates the trauma of Anjum, a transgender, who was born a male, which forms one of the central threads of the narrative. Anjum, born Aftab, subsequently leaves her home to live with nine other transgenders who are ‘othered’ by the gaze and form a world of their own in a secluded, closely guarded and dilapidated home, the “Khwabgah” or “Palace of Dreams,” in the lap of sophisticated New Delhi. Roy raises certain critical questions in this novel. One of them hitherto unexplored is the cultural trauma experienced by the transgender individual and the people associated with them. This paper attempts to bring to focus and analyse, with the tools of psychoanalysis, the effects of trauma in the construction of identity, specifically, with regard to the violated transgender psyche and their isolation in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, with special focus on Anjum as a case in point, so that the readers can connect, understand and sympathize the homonormative individuals. This study draws on various theories of trauma like Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection and Lacan’s theory of gaze.

De/coloniality, disabled sexualities, and anti-oppressive education: a review of Southern African literature

This review seeks to establish the current body of knowledge on the intersection of de/coloniality and the sexuality of disabled individuals. It suggests that few studies problematise the lack of such intersections in Southern Africa. The review locates this dearth of knowledge within the recent rollout of comprehensive sexuality education in schools, which remains silent to intersections of de/coloniality, disability, and sexuality. This analysis builds on the recommendation of Kumashiro to consider marginalised and post-structural theories in developing anti-oppressive education for disabled groups in terms of their sexualities. This becomes relevant as the sexuality of disabled individuals has been subject to institutional oppression based on colonial ideologies of health, beauty, and sexuality, since socio-medical discourses portray disabled individuals as infertile, non-sexual, and degendered. Given the shortage of relevant studies, the review uses the available local and international literature to locate the complex, interconnected structures and actors that perpetuate repressive colonial systems such as ableism, compulsory able-bodiedness, and heteronormativity within sexuality education. It suggests alternative ways of looking at these intersections within the diverse scope of comprehensive sexuality education. It does not claim that decoloniality is the panacea to erase the consequences of coloniality towards disabled sexualities, but suggests that it is one of the modalities that can redress the complex, interconnected systems of post-colonial oppression. The review recommends that future authors consider other marginalised and post-structural theories in conceptualising anti-oppressive education, like Foucauldian theories.

Peterloo, Ambivalence and Commemorative Culture

This chapter demonstrates that material culture responses to Peterloo (prints, textiles, ceramics, metalwork) were far more ambivalent about the consequences for civil and institutional reform than were most conventional print responses, which often advocated violent retaliation. Close examination of several examples reveals deep pessimism about the relative ineffectiveness of individual or even collective action and resistance to the superior and often deadly forces of physical, social, legal and institutional oppression wielded against even peaceful reformers. Caricature prints by Marks, Cruikshank and others, like other commemorative objects produced after Peterloo, emphasize the grotesquely disproportionate violence inflicted on orderly reformist citizens and leaders. These artifacts collectively imply that present active resistance, whether militant or non-violent, is largely futile and that the only genuinely tenable option lies in resigned but hopeful optimism about the prospect of a more enlightened future redress of social and political oppression.

Performance as Intervention

This article presents a study on the punk phenomenon in China, with a focus on how the punk musicians create new spaces within music production and performances. More importantly, it will examine how these spaces and acts of performance engage with political structures in contemporary China. By analyzing the impact that the political and economic changes of recent decades have had on the nature of Chinese society and culture, the article will first set out to understand the social context in which the punk phenomenon emerged and developed in China. Drawing on interviews with Chinese punk musicians, a discussion of the politics of place will show how a Chinese punk band has challenged a dominated space by performing in the Tiananmen Square. Informed by Attali’s theoretical discussion on “noise”, the next focus will be on an exploration of the process of power negotiation in performing punk music and seeking punk authenticity through non-conforming practices at government/institution-sponsored events. Overall, it is argued that punk performance can carve out a space for alternative political aspirations through interaction with authoritative figures (e.g. in resisting the existing powers), thus challenging state power and institutional oppression in China.