Book Review: Narrative Expansions: Interpreting Decolonisation in Academic Libraries

Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law.

Narrative Expansions: Interpreting Decolonisation in Academic Libraries. Edited by Jess Crilly & Regina Everitt. London, U.K.: Facet, 2022. xxxii, 290 p. Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 9781783304974 (softcover) US$78.99; ISBN 9781783305216 (ePUB) US$92.00.

Reviewed by Sonia Smith 
Law Librarian
Nahum Gelber Law Library, McGill University

Narrative Expansions: Interpreting Decolonisation in Academic Libraries aims to present how academic libraries interpret and enact decolonisation. The editors have assembled a diverse selection of essays on work initiatives in academic libraries as part of the decolonising movement in higher education.

The book includes contributions from authors with different backgrounds: students, librarians, anthropologists, researchers, curators, and academics. While it’s international in scope, it includes authors mainly from the U.K., Canada, and the United States. Part 1: Contexts and Experiences includes chapters on libraries’ circumstances and settings, and Part 2: In Practice focuses on projects undertaken in libraries where the theory and practice of decolonisation intersect. Each chapter includes extensive references. Although there is an index, the online version doesn’t include pagination or links, which is not helpful.

It is useful to understand some of the definitions of the term “decolonisation” to have context for these essays. The first chapter, “Decolonising the Library: From Personal Experience to Collective Action” by Hillary Gyebi-Ababio, offers two definitions of the term. One of the earliest texts to define it is Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, first published in 2004. Fanon speaks of decolonisation as “the need to thoroughly challenge the colonial situation.” In more recent interpretations, M.A. Ghillar defined decolonisation as “a political process and vital internalization of the rejection of colonialist mindsets and ‘norms’” (p. 3).

It is only in Chapter 3, “Decolonising Research Methodologies,” that Sara Ewing, citing Michael Baker of the University of Rochester, offers a workable definition of the term in relation to academia. Ewing states that

[d]ecolonisation can be understood in myriad ways, but in higher education it can be defined as “an expression of the changing geopolitics of knowledge whereby the modern epistemological framework for knowing and understanding the world is no longer interpreted as universal and unbound by geo-historical and biographical contexts.” (p. 114)

Many of the articles dwell on personal experiences, childhood memories of segregation, issues of structural racism, and colonization. Some of the writers share their feelings regarding being part of a minority group and the effect on their employment relations. Many libraries fail to have workforces that reflect the communities they serve. This situation is not endemic to academic libraries and is typical of many workplaces. Thus, the lack of diversity perpetuates the feeling of outsider for staff members and students.

Decolonising work, defined as activities that specifically address the multiple impacts on the library and knowledge production that result from imperial histories and colonialism, is starting to be done in libraries. The essays in the second part of the book aim to discuss library initiatives regarding the Indigenization of the curriculum; professional development coursework to sensitize staff on equity, diversity, and inclusion; journal article discussion groups; and shifts in the curriculum of LIS programs.

Narrative Expansions: Interpreting Decolonisation in Academic Libraries would be of interest to academic libraries more than law firm libraries. Concrete suggestions discussed by the book are the need to diversify the library collections to offer alternative perspectives, a collection of resources representing a wide range of geographical and cultural perspectives, and a revision of classification schemes and cataloguing vocabularies. All these recommendations and suggestions are useful for addressing decolonisation.