Knowing and learning in everyday spaces (KALiEds): Mapping the information landscape of refugee youth learning in everyday spaces

Refugee youth are faced with complex information needs that require them to identify and map the everyday spaces that can contribute to their learning outside the formal schooling system. The use of everyday spaces by refugee youth aged 16–25 was investigated using photovoice and interview data collection methods. The findings of the study suggest that the information needs and information literacy practices of this cohort arise from the desire to connect with a new community, to learn new social rules and to become established, while at the same time supporting the information needs of other family members and dealing with the social challenges that arise from cultural expectations. These challenges require them to connect with a wide range of everyday spaces to support their learning needs

The Information Mapping Board Game: a Collaborative Investigation of Asylum Seekers and Refugees’ Information Practices in England, UK

Introduction. This paper discusses the use of an information mapping board game for collaboratively identifying information practices of a small group of asylum seekers and refugees in the North East of England, UK. Method. Drawing on participatory visual methods, an original information mapping board game was designed. Analysis. Qualitative results are discussed and analysed using grounded theory, constant comparative analysis, and situational mapping. Results. The use of an information mapping board game allows participants going through the asylum process to become actively involved in mapping and sharing their own information practices, sources and barriers within a playful collaborative environment. It enables participants to become aware of their acquired information literacy by sharing knowledge, and to adapt the game to reflect their needs and knowledge. Conclusion. This study indicates that participatory techniques such as the information mapping board game have the potential to engage hard to reach populations in the research process, to foster their agency, confidence, and capacities, and to inform actions at a local level

Information: interactions and impact (i3) conference 2015.

The Information: Interactions and Impact (i3) conference was established in 2007 at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, as an international forum to bring together academic and practitioner researchers interested in exploring the quality and effectiveness of the interactions between people and information and how these can bring about change. This biennial conference provides an opportunity for exchange of research findings and a chance to identify key questions and issues for future research. It aims to be relevant to all those involved in researching, developing or delivering information and knowledge services in any sector, as well as those concerned with the development of skills for a knowledge society

Tapping in to the information landscape: Refugee enactment of information literacy in everyday spaces

The development of information literacy and learning practices in everyday spaces is explored. Data for the study was collected using photo voice technique. Data analysis was conducted using photos and analysis of group transcripts. Participants describe how they tapped into social, physical and digital sites to draw information in the process of (re) forming their information landscapes, building bridges into new communities and maintaining links with family overseas. Media formats were identified according to their appropriateness as fit for purpose, suggesting that the enactment of information literacy was agile and responsive to need at the moment of practice. The results indicate that everyday spaces provide opportunities to develop information literacy practices, which support informal learning. Findings of the study conclude that information literacy is played out in a series of digital, vernacular and visual enactments, which shape the information landscape

Seeing information: Visual methods as entry points to information practices

Recognising the importance of exploring multimodal experiences of information, this paper provides a detailed examination of the scope of visual research methods within information practices research. More specifically, the paper will use the examples from one completed study (Lloyd and Wilkinson, 2017) and one ongoing study (Hicks, in progress) to discuss and provide a detailed examination of the use, affordances and limitations of two research methods that centre upon participant-created photographs: photo-elicitation and photovoice. Demonstrating that the use of photographs helps to evoke and communicate complex meaning as well as to mediate between linguistic, temporal and spatial constraints, this study highlights the continuing need to develop research methods that privilege participants’ understandings and perspectives

The remaking of fractured landscapes : supporting refugees in transition (SpiRiT)

Introduction.How refugees learn to reshape their fractured information landscape and re-establish ways of knowing to support their resettlement into a host society is explored. Of particular interest is how refugees access, use and share information to support information needs which emerge during the resettlement process.  Method. Face-to-face interviews were conducted in the language selected by the participant. Photo-voice technique was also employed and culminated in a focus group in which participants discussed the photos. The first phase of the qualitative analysis is reported in this paper.  Analysis. Data from interviews, focus groups and images captured by photo-voice technique were coded thematically, focusing on the similarities and differences in perspective. Results.In the resettlement process refugees strive to regain a sense of place. Information is a critical resource for resettlement, but access to information and trust in that information pose challenges in moving from the liminal zone of marginality towards social integration. The digital environment threads through refugees’ information experiences and represents a significant social ground.  Conclusions. Findings from the first phase of this study have provided us with new concepts and ways of describing the impacts of resettlement from an information perspective. It also affords an opportunity to consider how information resilience is shaped and emerges

Researching fractured (information) landscapes: Implications for library and information science researchers undertaking research with refugees and forced migration studies

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce a range of sensitising themes that may help to frame the emerging concept of fractured landscapes. / Design/methodology/approach: Key concepts are drawn from the forced migration field, from social theory and from Library and information science research to frame the concept of fractured landscape research. Methodological and ethical aspects that influence research are also introduced. / Findings: The importance of nomenclature is identified in relation to designations of refugee and migrant. The concept of a fractured landscape provides a suitable way of describing the disruption that is caused to refugees’ information landscapes in the process of transition and resettlement. The sensitising themes such as the exilic journey, liminality, integration, bonding and bridging capital are introduced to provide a way of framing a deeper analysis of the information experience of people who must reconcile previously established ways of knowing with the new landscapes related to transition and resettlement. / Originality/value: Original paper that introduces an emerging conceptual framework and a range of questions that may be useful to library and information science researchers who wish to pursue research that contributes to the humanitarian area or library services

Information literacy and literacies of information: a mid-range theory and model

Information literacy (IL) research tends to fall into one of two spaces. In the conceptual space the research concern rests with understanding the experience and core elements of the practice and how it emerges. In the practical space the execution and outcome of the practice as markers of successful teaching and learning are the focus. The division between these spaces and the lack of researcher/practitioner convergence create a conundrum that limits our ability to theorise IL, to adequately situate IL in library and information science research, to champion its benefits outside the library and information science field, or to promote to funding bodies the impact of IL. To address this conundrum a theory and foundational model of IL is described which attempts to reconstruct the IL space and its enactments without privileging research or practice

Information Milieu and Play in Lockdown: The Cute, the Ugly, and the…

his study is an investigation of young children’s information needs and their seeking and discovery behaviors in the context of playing the popular Nintendo Switch life simulation game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons (AC:NH). The children in this study perceived AC:NH as an ideal escape from the challenges of the COVID-19 lockdown, and effectively utilized the affordances of AC:NH and other related platforms to play, interact, and learn. The appealing AC:NH kawaii design, coupled with the anthropomorphized behaviors, minds, and emotions of the animal characters, encouraged the children to interweave perceptions and expectations, which led them to play out scenarios relevant to their own experiences and lives