INCLUSIONS AND EXCLUSIONS in Social Community & Organizational Informatics is a reading group based in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Everyone is welcome to join us, whether you are on campus or not.
Key goals in the 2012-13 academic year are to share and refine concrete tools broadly related to informatics for constructive discussions about racism and diversity. We want to ensure that policies are not substituted for action, as Sara Ahmed notes in her new book. In addition to reading excerpts from Ahmed’s On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life and other publications, we will evaluate websites, watch videos, critique diversity plans, and engage in other activities recommended by participants.

CONTACTS: Kathryn LaBarre, klabarre (at) illinois (dot) edu; Nicole Cooke, nacooke (at) illinois (dot) edu; and RaShauna Brannon, rbranno2 (at) illinois (dot) edu; Graduate School of Library and Information Science

Tentative meeting time: Second and Fourth Thursdays, noon-one at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 501 E. Daniel St., Champaign, IL; Second Thursdays informally organized around a short reading; Fourth Thursdays will feature research broadly related to digital inclusion.

Readings may include excerpts from Sara Ahmed, On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life (Duke University Press, 2012); M. Jacqui Alexander, Pedagogies of Crossing (Duke, 2005); Dorothy E. Smith, ed., Institutional Ethnography as Practice (Rowman/Littlefield, 2006); María Lugones, Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes (Rowman/Littlefield, 2003)

Research may include presentations by LIS students working on digital inclusion and SCOI issues, such as broadband adoption; Dr. Will Patterson on Hip Hop and Community Informatics; campus scholarship on engaged learning