143004 SE Anti-Racist Practices in the University Library (2022W)

Libraries process and manage knowledge. Libraries are spaces for people. What happens when all this is based on the colonial past? Racism and colonial traces in a collection are an obstacle and imposition for library users. From the perspective of racism critique in the African studies, the decolonial view of collections brings added value to the institution:
It provides a stimulus to change perspective, to think about inclusion and socio-political statement. Consequently, if staff members are familiar with forms of racism and colonial power relations that are transported via the books, strategies and new pathways can be discussed constructively.

Based on the endeavor to detect racisms and colonial patterns of thought in different institutional knowledge systems, we have been working over three semesters on a decolonial approach to analyse libraries. At the same time, the role of libraries as places of encounter, debate and interaction was of central interest.

In the spirit of transformative learning and teaching, this seminar course will not only trace the complexity of colonial discourses, but also explore encounters with experiences of difference, limits of one's own perception, and irritation on the side of all participants. In the course, the library space at the University of Vienna (or other Universities) is used for a self-critical examination of structural racisms. With its different areas of activity and actors, it serves as a field of investigation and at the same time as a place of critical learning.

The goal is to practice a critical examination of knowledge productions. mechanisms of exclusion and the creation of differences are analyzed on the basis of concrete examples of discourse. Furthermore, options for action (and utopias) are to be discussed together, how ordering mechanisms of power discourses can be broken through and epistemic violence in public institutions can be addressed.

Students decide in the first four weeks to work on a topic based on a case study of their choice. For the individual elaboration of the topic and processing of the case studies, qualitative social and cultural science research methods are in the foreground, complemented by joint discussions of key texts, excursions to museums and exchange with anti-racist projects and academic lectures.