The IRDL Scholars Speaker Series is designed to shine a spotlight on voices and ideas that challenge traditional ways of conducting research. It surveys various topics, including specific research methods and critiques of processes associated with western social science approaches, with the intention of inspiring research explicitly rooted in social justice. As librarians, educators, and researchers, we welcome this opportunity to reflect and incorporate what we learn from these speakers into our own research efforts, so that our methodologies integrate anti-racist and anti-colonial practices.
The series is coordinated by a working group of IRDL Scholars. Each speaker session is free to attend via Zoom; anyone interested is welcome. Please see below for the speakers and the dates of their presentations, to register. The hashtag for the events will be #IRDLSpeakers.
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services RE-40-16-0120-16.
Standing With and Speaking as Faith
January 27, 2021, 1:00-2:30 p.m. PST
Moderated by IRDL Scholars Hailley Fargo and Jamillah R. Gabriel.
Recommended reading: TallBear, K. (2014). Standing With and Speaking as Faith: A Feminist-Indigenous Approach to Inquiry. Journal of Research Practice, 10(2).

Kim TallBear
Associate Professor, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta, and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience & EnvironmentFrom Story to Research: Storying Human Experience Narratives
February 4, 2021, 12:00-1:00 p.m. PST
Moderated by IRDL Scholars Nicole Branch and Sophie Rondeau.
Recommended reading:
- McCormack, C. (2004). Storying stories: a narrative approach to in-depth interview conversations. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 7(April), 219–236.
- Ford, E. (2020). Tell Me Your Story: Narrative Inquiry in LIS Research. College & Research Libraries, 81(2).

Emily Ford
Associate Professor and Urban & Public Affairs Librarian, Portland State UniversityDe/colonizing Qualitative Research: For Whom is the Work?
February 12, 2021, 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. PST
Moderated by IRDL Scholars Lorelei Rutledge and Eamon Tewell.
Recommended reading: Bhattacharya, K. (2009). Othering Research, Researching the Other: De/Colonizing Approaches to Qualitative Inquiry. In J. Smart (Ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory of Research (pp. 105-150).

Kakali Bhattacharya
Professor, University of FloridaCritical Race Spatial Analysis: Exploring New Possibilities for Mapping Racial (In)justice
February 18, 2021, 12:00-1:30 p.m. PST
Moderated by IRDL Scholars Michael Flierl and Rosalinda Linares.
Recommended reading: Vélez, V. & Solorzano, D. (2017). Critical race spatial analysis: Conceptualizing GIS as a tool for critical race research in education. In D. Morrison, S.A. Annamma & D. Jackson (Eds.), Critical Race Spatial Analysis: Mapping to Understand and Address Educational Inequity (pp. 8-31).

Verónica N. Vélez
Associate Professor and Founding Director of the Education and Social Justice Program at Western Washington UniversityErasure and Essentialism: Situating Black Immigrants in LIS Research and Practice
February 24, 2021, 12:00-1:30 p.m. PST
Moderated by IRDL Scholars Tatiana Bryant and Kai Alexis Smith.
Recommended reading:
- Ndumu, A. (2020). Disrupting Digital Divide Narratives: Exploring the US Black Diasporic Immigrant Context. Open Information Science, 4(1), 75-84.
- Ndumu, A. (2020). Toward a new understanding of immigrant information behavior: A survey study on information access and information overload among US Black diasporic immigrants. Journal of Documentation, 76(4), 869-891.
