Abstract
A personally reflective review of Avtar Brah’s Decolonial Imaginings: Intersectional Conversations and Contestations
Marilyn Clarke (UK)
Marilyn (MSc, Race and Ethnic Relations, Birkbeck—she/her) works at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London (UoL), the National Research Library for Law. At UoL, she is a member of the Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment team and the Libraries Inclusivity Group. Her work focuses on delivering inclusive services to all library users as well as leading on decoloniality and anti-racist approaches towards social justice. Marilyn is an established author and has presented on the theme of decolonization of library collections and professional practices at several sector conferences, including A Local Information System for Scotland (ALISS), North West Academic Libraries (NoWAL), Business Librarians Association (BLA), Internet Librarian International (ILI), Art Libraries Society/UK & Ireland (ARLIS), Librarians’ Information Literacy Annual Conference (LILAC), Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals-Scotland (CILIPS), and British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL).
Cultural Heritage Re-search: Reimagining the Collective Memory of Copándaro de Galeana, Michoacán
Edith Méndez (US)
Edith (she/hers) is a researcher and educator exploring identity through Mexican culture and family stories. Her work focuses on cultural reclamation and advocacy for Copándaro de Galeana, Michoacán, Mexico. As a mother, she aims to create a culturally rich environment for her son, maintaining family traditions and teaching Mexican rituals. Her research combines Chicano/a and Mexican studies, Cultural Heritage and Archival studies, and oral storytelling. Edith holds a BFA in Art Education from the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) and is pursuing an MLIS with a certificate in Archives and Cultural Heritage Resources at Dominican University.
Archival Practices and Indigenous Perspectives: Yarning with Dr. Rose Barrowcliffe
Ramona Naicker (Australia)
Ramona (she/her) is a Librarian at Deakin University in Naarm (Melbourne), having recently moved to Australia from the UK. Specializing in critically appraising research for racial bias, she has shared her findings with institutions like ALIA, NIHR, and the NHS. Ramona authored the entry for Racial Bias in Oxford’s CEBM Catalogue of Bias and led the creation of a health equity eLearning module for Health Education England. As a member of the Critical Race Theory collective, Ramona remains dedicated to advocating for equality and inclusion in her professional journey and recently spoke about this topic at the Libraries and Performance Management Conference (LibPMC), Librarians’ Information Literacy Annual Conference (LILAC), and VALA (Libraries, Technology and the Future Inc) conferences.
Ancestral Calls: What if Learning is Bearing Witness? and other Derivativities of June Beer
Shawn(TA) Smith-Cruz (US)
Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz co-edited Grabbing Tea Queer Conversations in Libraries and Grabbing Tea Queer Conversations in Archives published by Litwin Books. She is an associate dean for Teaching, Learning, and Engagement at NYU Libraries, adjunct assistant professor at Pratt School of Information, and volunteer archivist at the Lesbian Herstory Archives. Shawn is also the co-curator of the Gender and Sexuality Information Studies Colloquium, the Critical Pedagogy Symposium, and Case Studies in Critical Pedagogy series and the Fridays in May: Queer BIPOC Peer-Networking Program. Her MFA is in Fiction and MLS focuses on Archiving from Queens College. Read more at shawntasmithcruz.com.
Information and Intersectionality in the Digital Millennium
Mondo Vaden (US)
Mondo (He/They) is a Deaf BlackTrans Intersectional librarian, artist, and activist. He is fortunate to have a Master’s in Library and Information Science, an Advanced Certificate in Strategic Management of Digital Assets, and his BS in Biology. Mondo has 10+ years of experience with tech, data, libraries, and connecting people with information and resources! He is always looking for creative ways to support mutual aid and his various communities, while motivating others to do the same. Making complex subjects accessible is a passion of his, and he looks forward to helping people find the information they need.
Learning settler colonialism in my K-12 education: A re-search counterstory
Isabella Zou (US/CHINA)
Isabella is a Chinese-American educator, writer, dancer, and scholar whose ancestors are from 湖南 (Hunan), 辽宁 (Liaoning), and 江苏 (Jiangsu). She received a B.A. in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration from Yale University and is currently a Yale-China Fellow based in 长沙 (Changsha). Her research interests include Indigeneity and decolonization, Black feminist theory, queer performance, movement improvisation, and liberation pedagogies. She previously worked at the Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning Collective, and her public-facing writing on race and justice has been published in Slate, Teen Vogue, The Texas Tribune, and The Connecticut Mirror.
Resistant Knowledges External Reviewers
Acknowledging the Resistant Knowledges External Reviewers
One of our goals as a collective when we initially organized to engage in collaborative scholarly editorial work was to provide honorariums to external reviews. Honoring our external reviewers along with making our EFI editorial work freely accessible remains quite important to the CRTc. In the 38:4 (2022) CRT Special Issue through the support of the EFI managing editor, Fidelia Ibekwe, we are able to provide free access. Yet, we were not able to modestly compensate our external reviewers for our initial effort. For this 2024 (40:4) Resistant Knowledges Special Issue, we were able to achieve both our goals: honorariums for reviewers and free access to the special issue content.
Sumayya Ahmed, PhD
Sumayya is the Executive Director of the Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) at the University of Chicago. Prior to this appointment, she taught as an Assistant Professor at the Simmons University School of Library and Information Science and at University College London’s global campus in Doha, Qatar. Her published research has focused on documentary heritage, societal provenance, archival history, oral history, and the politics of cultural heritage preservation in North Africa and the region called the Middle East. Dr. Ahmed has also published on racism in the university and responses to calls for social justice in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museum(GLAM) workplaces.
Lorena Camargo Gonzalez, PhD
Lorena [she/her/ella] is an Assistant Professor of Undergraduate Studies in Education and Gender Equity at Sacramento State University. Dr. Camargo Gonzalez earned her Ph.D. from UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies with a specialization in Race and Ethnic Studies. Her educational experiences as an immigrant and first-generation college student inform her interdisciplinary approach in drawing from Critical Race theories, Chicana/LatinaFeminist theories, and historical methods such as oral histories and archival research to address the following areas: (1) the activism of Latina/o/x librarians, (2) racial justice within library services, and (3) the history of Latina/o/x children’s literature.
Sujin Huggins, PhD
Sujin is a Professor in the School of Information Studies at Dominican University, River Forest, IL. Dr. Huggins teaches in the areas of youth services, reference, and community informatics. Among many professional associations, she is a member of the American Library Association (ALA), the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL), and the United States Board of Books for Young People (USBBY). Her research interests include children’s literature of the African Diaspora, with a specialization in Caribbean children’s literature, critical pedagogy, and community-based participatory projects.
Vanessa Irvin, EdD
Vanessa is an associate professor with the Master of Library Science Program at East Carolina University (USA). Dr. Irvin has authored three books, over 60 peer-reviewed publications and presentations, and has been an invited speaker to over 30 panels and events. She has also led grant-funded research projects exploring how heritage-based knowledge systems impact information-seeking behaviors and literacy practices in daily life. Irvin’s work investigates libraries as collaborative communities for literacy justice for diverse and local/Indigenous populations. Dr. Irvin is equally interested in the social informatics of informal learning and the evolution of librarian professional practices with reference services and emerging technologies. Irvin serves as the Co-Editor of the open-access peer-reviewed journal, The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion (IJIDI), where she manages an editorial team of 20 librarians and an editorial board of 35 LIS scholars worldwide. For 2024–2025, Dr. Irvin will be President of the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE).
Cecilia Salvatore, PhD
Cecila is a Professor in the School of Information Studies (SOIS) at Dominican University (DU), River Forest, IL. Dr. Salvatore is SOIS’ Archives/Cultural Heritage Certificate Program Coordinator. She has an international reputation for critical compassion and consciousness related to cultural heritage. Cecilia is a member of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) and active in its Institutions Local History and Genealogy Collections Section. She is also a founding board member of the Indigenous Pacific Islands Knowledge United as well as an editorial board member for the journal Libraries: Culture, History, and Society, which is the official peer-reviewed journal of the Library History Round Table of the American Library Association. Dr. Salvatore is one of the Co-Principal Investigators for DU SOIS’ portion ($750,000) of a multi-institutional collaborative faculty Mellon Foundation Public Knowledge Program grant ($5,967,700): Faculty Organizing for Community Archives Support (FOCAS).
Kenjus Watson, PhD
Kenjus (he/him) is a father, partner, brother, uncle, and son who is passionate about reaching back to grounded wisdom, seeding into present challenges, and bridging towards more loving and sustainable futures. Kenjus is also an Assistant Professor of Urban Education at American University where he teaches courses in the EdD Educational Policy and Leadership Program within the School of Education. Additionally, Kenjus works as a research lead, educator, and co-founder of the Institute for Regenerative Futures in the College of Education at San Jose State University. His research has focused on the biopsychosocial impact of every day anti-blackness and colonization (i.e., racial microaggressions) on Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color, as well as the promise of school abolition and apocalyptic education to bring about healing and wellness for people and the planet. Kenjus earned his PhD in Education with an emphasis in Race and Ethnic Studies at UCLA.
2023–2024 Critical Race Theory collective Community
Stephanie Birch
Jon E. Cawthorne, PhD
Vanessa (Chacha) Centeno
Marilyn Clarke
Alice R. Corble, PhD
Rebekah Cumpsty, PhD
Amanda DeSimone-Shabrack
Anthony W. Dunbar (Tony), PhD
Elizabeth (Liz) Grauel
Alison Hicks, PhD
Natasha Howard
Aisha Johnson, PhD
Edith Mendez
Ramona Naicker
Ana Ndumu, PhD
Fezile (Fez) Sibanda
Mikaela Slade
Angela D. R. Smith, PhD
Evangeline (Vann) Stanford.