9 - Sociomateriality

Summary

Introduction

Sociomateriality as a theoretical perspective has its roots in science and technology studies (STS), organisation studies and feminist research. It is one of many traditions within a broader framework of practice-based research. Sociomateriality is a broad theoretical church and as such it encompasses a variety of different interpretations and terminologies. Nevertheless, several assumptions are commonly shared by the different thinkers and schools of thought united under the umbrella of sociomateriality, although there are nuances that are also reflected in terminological variations. In this chapter, we explain these assumptions, introduce a selection of commonly used notions and discuss how they can be applied in information literacy research.

The chapter mainly refers to sociomateriality as it was developed in the works of Karen Barad (2003; 2007), Silvia Gherardi (2017), Lucas Introna (2013; Introna and Hayes, 2011), Wanda Orlikowski (2007) together with Susan Scott (Orlikowski and Scott, 2015; Scott and Orlikowski, 2014) and Lucy Suchman (2014). In addition, we follow the reasoning of Paul Dourish (2017, 4), whose work is specifically concerned with information, when he writes: ‘… the material arrangement of information – how it is represented and how that shapes how it can be put to work – matters significantly for our experience of information and infor - mation systems’. Based on these works, we would like to present a dynamic understanding of sociomateriality that supports the analysis of information literacies within the specific infrastructural settings of contemporary society and is open to further development.

We should emphasise at the outset that the theoretical framework presented in this chapter is not just for developing an understanding of information literacy in terms of today’s commercial, digital information infrastructure. There is nothing digital built into it, so to speak. That being said, it is based on certain assumptions that we think become particularly clear when we shed light on the enormous challenges that society currently faces concerning information seeking and the evaluation of information sources in an algorithmic information infrastructure in which machine learning challenges traditional notions of, for example, trust, agency, intentions and even knowledge.

The chapter begins by contextualising sociomateriality, introducing some of the current challenges in information literacy research and explaining how sociomateriality can help us. It introduces some important questions that sociomateriality can help information literacy research to answer. This is followed by an overview of some key notions and central tenets of sociomateriality.