Reflection Klarissa

I did not post a reflection last week- I’m sorry! Punishment will be severe and forthcoming, suggestions being taken.

The quarter goes by so fast, but I am excited by how much progress we have done on this endeavor! I really enjoyed discussion yesterday around the definition of “digital literacy” and the meanings behind different definitions. One of the classes I am taking this quarter is “Indigenous Worldviews” and I am realizing how much is behind such a simple seeming concept of defining a term. There is a host of assumptions about what is important, what is normal, how the world is and how we should be in it. I was particularly struck by Lisa’s comment about “knowing quality sources of information.” [This is not a personal critique, Lisa, you are wonderful!] The idea of quality sources is kind of hammered into us, at least I feel in my experience. Scholarly articles, reputable websites, no Wikipedia. As I mentioned in class, though, scholarly articles are not without bias. It might be blasphemy to say, but even natural science, quantitative, empirical studies are not neutral. I think “quality sources” are more in line with, sources which are based on and will uphold the Western worldview. Why is traditional or community knowledge, or something written by somebody without a degree less legitimate? Why are feelings less legitimate than statistics? Why are we encouraged to cite everything, using official/ published data? (at least I often feel the need to include citations for every fact)

In anthropology, we have the term “authoritative knowledge,” a concept maybe not created by, but developed and explained by one of my sheroes, Brigitte Jordan. It basically comes down to the “knowledge that counts,” facts that matter. She describes it in one article as “considered legitimate, consequential, official, worthy of discussion, and appropriate for justifying particular actions by people engaged in accomplishing the tasks at hand.” (Jordan, 1997). In defining digital literacy, we are deciding what kind of knowledge “counts.”  I’m not sure there’s a way around this, it may be inescapable. We are definitely deciding what is “legitimate, consequential, official, and worthy of discussion” when we define digital literacy, discuss it and create our lesson plans, though we are including the women we are serving in this discussion. Out of theory and in reality, it does matter what is consequential and worthy of discussion tothem. And most certainly, we are using our definitions of digital literacy to “justify particular actions” – this whole project is based on convincing the city of Seattle that they should fund workshops for Latinas on digital literacy. In doing so, we must rely on what is considered legitimate- in our grant application and evaluations which are statistics, data, studies, surveys and definitions.

Jordan, Brigitte. 1997. “Authoritative Knowledge and Its Construction.” In Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Davis-Floyd, Robbie and Carolyn Sargent, Eds., University of California, Berkley.