2 - Information Literacy and the Social: Applying a Practice Theory View to Information Literacy

Summary

Introduction

Multiple perspectives have been employed to conceptualise information literacy since the emergence of the concept in the 1970s. Each perspective (functional, skills-based and ideological) and its discourses articulate how information literacy is understood and practised (Lloyd, 2010). However, up until recently, few articles have sought to provide a deeper explanation of the inherent complexity of this social practice or how and in what ways information literacy and its internal and external practices emerge and travel.

This chapter is influenced by a suite of theories collectively described as practice theory, in particular the site ontology conception (Schatzki, 2002) and epistemological approaches, which locate the body as a central feature of doing practice. The power of the practice theory approach is that it opens up and draws attention to new analytical possibilities for thinking about and researching the connection and interplay between information literacy, sociality and materiality – the site where social life occurs (Schatzki, 2002, xi). It does this by emphasising the analytical role of context in shaping the discursive relationships between people, information and the materiality of practice (Lloyd, 2005).

It then locates practice theory ontologically and epistemologically in relation to the practice of information literacy and connects these theories to the concept of information landscapes, which forms the core of the theory of information literacy (ToIL) (Lloyd, 2017). The theory of information literacy (also described as the theory of information literacy landscapes (Lloyd, 2017), positions information literacy as a practice that is enacted within a social setting. It is composed of a suite and pattern of activities and skills and ways of communicating and understanding that reference structures and embodied knowledge and ways of knowing relevant to the context. Information literacy is a way of knowing (Lloyd, 2017, 2).

In the practice of information literacy, people connect not only with text but with the materialities linked to their settings; they draw from the social, epistemic and the physical/corporeal modalities of information and, through that connection, they form and shape their information landscapes.

The theory of information literacy (ToIL) (Lloyd, 2017) therefore advocates a broader understanding of information literacy as a social practice which, when enacted, connects people with information through the signs, symbols, materiality and embodiment associated with the sayings and doings of practising. Information literacy is a practice which is also a constituent part of other practices in everyday life.