Black Librarians and Racial and Informational Justice for the Brazilian Black Population

Abstract

This chapter historicizes the social construction of racism in Brazilian society and its relation to the development of the library and information science (LIS) field. It is a theoretical-reflective research built on the scientific literature of the field of LIS and related areas that aims at reflecting on social justice in Brazilian libraries and creating strategies to confront institutional racism. The authors develop five main points to understand Brazilian racism: the myth of racial democracy, structural and institutionalized racism, the whitening ideology, whiteness, and the epistemicide of black knowledge. The authors then discuss racism and the promotion of white supremacy in library teaching and professional action in libraries. Black US American and Black Brazilian Librarianship movements show that the activism and political action of black librarians advance the development of informational counter-narratives. Finally, the authors recommend three strategies for social, racial, and informational justice in the LIS field: including ethnic-racial studies in basic university courses curricula; building diverse, inclusive collections that account for ethnic-racial themes and authors; and considering “Pretuguese” keywords while indexing, in order to counter exclusion and promote epistemic repair. The authors conclude by advocating for these strategies to steer LIS professional and educational spheres toward contributing to forward an anti-racist society.

Citation

Garcês-da-Silva, F.C., Garcez, D.C. and da Silva, L.K.R. (2023), "Black Librarians and Racial and Informational Justice for the Brazilian Black Population", Black, K. and Mehra, B. (Ed.) Antiracist Library and Information Science: Racial Justice and Community (Advances in Librarianship, Vol. 52), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 177-194. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0065-283020230000052019