Abstract
Calls to decolonize higher education have intensified across global contexts, with educators needing to confront Eurocentric and white supremacist assumptions that are embedded in academic research and teaching (Battiste, 2018; Behari-Leak et al., 2019; Marsh, 2022). Within this movement, librarians are increasingly examining how our instructional practices can perpetuate epistemic injustice –or, the marginalization and silencing of certain knowers and knowledge systems (Patin et al., 2020; Leung, 2022).
This long presentation will introduce an emerging curriculum developed at Western University (Canada) to reframe information literacy through knowledge justice (2022): an understanding that all people have the capacity to be knowledgeable, yet some are denied this right due to systemic biases and artificial hierarchies (Leibowitz, 2017; Campbell et al, 2025). Along with providing access to a new open educational resource and curriculum, presenters will share practical teaching examples from their contexts as a librarian, faculty member, and educational developer. Participants will gain insight into how shifting information literacy instruction –to thinking about voices, rather than sources– fosters critical awareness of whose epistemologies are valued by society, how evidence is defined, and where librarians can intervene pedagogically to challenge systemic inequities.
By the end of the presentation, attendees will:
• Define epistemic injustice and recognize how it manifests in information literacy teaching.
• Identify how dominant epistemologies shape concepts such as authority, objectivity, and evidence in library instruction.
• Describe the core principles of a knowledge justice approach and its relationship to critical and decolonial information literacy.
• Reflect on how their own teaching practices might reproduce or resist epistemic exclusion.
• Consider how to adapt components of Knowledge Justice in the Helping Professions: From Theory to Practice (2025) for use in their local institutional context.
Presentation Outline
1. Introduction and Context (10 min)
- Introduce presenters and institutional background, including situating our work within the context of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action
- Provide Western Libraries’ learning outcomes and definition of knowledge justice, and their connections to global movements toward decolonizing and Indigenizing library instruction
2. Understanding Epistemic Injustice (12 min)
- Briefly define epistemic injustice
- Share examples of epistemic injustice from various contexts, including social media, research, and library instruction
3. From Epistemic to Knowledge Justice (5 min)
- Introduce the OER Knowledge Justice in the Helping Professions and its design goals.
4. Teaching Examples from the OER (13 min)
- Demonstrate excerpts from three lessons: positionality, inclusive searching, and critical evaluation.
- Show how each lesson reframes standard IL learning outcomes through a justice-oriented lens.
5. Conclusion (5 minutes)
- Share brief evidence of student engagement and feedback.
5. Discussion and Application (15 min)
- Open Q&A focused on adapting these approaches across disciplines.
References
Battiste, M. (2017). Cognitive Imperialism. In M. A. Peters (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory (pp. 183–188). Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-588-4_501
Behari-Leak, K. (2019). Decolonial Turns, Postcolonial Shifts, and Cultural Connections:Are We There Yet? English Academy Review, 36(1), 58–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/10131752.2019.1579881
Campbell, H., McKeown, A., Sansom, L., Holmes, K., Lengyell, M., Dilkes, D., Leyland, Z., & Glasgow-Osment, B. (2025). Knowledge Justice in the Helping Professions. Instructional Technology Resource Centre (ITRC). https://doi.org/10.5206/TTYQ9415
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198237907.001.0001
Leibowitz, B. (2017). Cognitive justice and the higher education curriculum. Journal of Education, 68, 93–111.
Leung, S. (2022). The Futility of Information Literacy & EDI: Toward What? College & Research Libraries, 83(5). https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.83.5.751
Patin, B., Sebastian, M., Yeon, J., & Bertolini, D. (2020). Toward epistemic justice: An approach for conceptualizing epistemicide in the information professions. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 57(1), e242. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.242
Marsh, F. (2022). Unsettling information literacy: Exploring critical approaches with academic researchers for decolonising the university. Journal of Information Literacy, 16(1), 4–29. https://doi.org/10.11645/16.1.3136
Western Libraries. (2022). Library Curriculum. Western University. http://www.lib.uwo.ca/teaching/curriculum.html
