Join METRO’s Reference and Instruction Interest Group for A Conversation in Decolonial Perspectives: A Case Studies in Critical Pedagogy Event on Friday, December 13th from 1:00pm to 2:30pm.

Since 2021, the Case Studies series precedes the Critical Pedagogy Symposium to develop theoretical tools and foundations in Critical Pedagogy. The Case Studies series is formatted as one primer of a theoretical overview of the topic and two to three Case Studies that present practice-based cases. 

For the upcoming 2025 Critical Pedagogy Symposium on Decentering the West, this call identifies case studies and a primer for learning about and thinking about anti-colonial theory and pedagogy together.  

We’d like to think together, now more specifically, about how decolonial perspectives inform our pedagogy and our practice. We continue to be mindful that our work exists in spaces that are  structured by corporate educational technologies and taking place at a time when the fault lines of inequality, access, and vulnerability are so pronounced. 

We invite you to consider how we can integrate criticalities of race to our approaches to teaching and/or reference practice. How are we reifying power structures of racial inequity in library services, school, and staffing models? How do we continue to support ourselves, faculty, students, patrons, and the public? What do we need to keep doing? Start? Stop? 

We are seeking proposals for brief 10-15 minute case study presentations to help ground our discussion. If you have been able to approach teaching and learning from a perspective that incorporates decolonial practices or from decolonial frameworks – either through reference service or instruction face-to-face and/or online (whether synchronous or asynchronous), or if you have engaged with decolonial perspectives in your own research, and would like to share with the wider library services community, please complete this form. Proposals are due by November 15th, 2024. 

The 2025 Critical Pedagogy Symposium, taking place the week of June 9th through June 13th, 2025, is also currently accepting proposals. Find more information here.