While the Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education movements often lean on rhetoric around social justice, equity, and the democratization of knowledge, in many ways, the movements continue to marginalize underrepresented scholars and students. Mainstream efforts to advance Open centre digital solutions and dominant (often Western) ways of knowing. At the same time, they fail to acknowledge issues salient to marginalized social and geographical contexts, such as the digital divide, non-Western ways of knowing, and the colonization of information. This OpenCon panel session aims to prompt critical discussions around the ways in which the Open movements have replicated some of the same systems of power and oppression in higher education that they were originally meant to address. Audience members should leave with a more critical view of openness, and be encouraged to reflect on the following questions:
- How do the solutions put forth by the Open movements reinforce Western dominance, colonialism, as well as barriers on the basis of race, class, gender, ability, etc...?
- How does exclusion and a lack of diversity impact their own Open advocacy work in their communities and/or institutions?
- How might they begin to address this in their own communities?
Denisse Albornoz will speak about The Knowledge GAP — a new volunteer-run research collective questioning the geopolitics of academic knowledge production. She will discus how structures of power and inequality are embedded in narratives of openness, by critically analyzing discourse used in Open Science policies.
Tara Robertson will use the question "Who is missing?" to explore 3 different examples in open education as a practical way to think concretely about diversity and inclusion.
Thomas Mboa will speak about Open Access as a tool of neocolonialism. Based on the evidence gathered by the SOHA Project, he will discuss how Open Access contributes to reproducing the domination of the North over the South. He will discuss the consequences of this domination within the African university community.
Siko Bouterse will ask "Whose Knowledge is Reliable?" She will discuss how the vast majority of open knowledge online today still skews towards the powerful and privileged. Asking who we’re sharing knowledge on open projects from, with, about, and for, helps begin to recenter marginalized knowledge.
