Dissertation Proposal Defense - Wan-Chen Lee
You are cordially invited to join us for the Dissertation Proposal Defense of Wan-Chen Lee, to be held on Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019, in Mary Gates Hall Room 258 from 2-4 p.m.
Title: Operationalizing Cultural Warrant in Knowledge Organization
Abstract:
Cultural influences in knowledge organization (KO) has been increasingly emphasized. Scholars recognize various ways cultural influences may manifest in KO, such as classification, categories, concepts, meanings, and subjects. Beghtol uses semantic warrants, the justifications for classificatory decisions, to discuss the rationales of the development and application of KO standards. Cultural warrant is one of the semantic warrants, and it is an approach to consciously account for culture in knowledge organization. However, despite recognizing the importance of culture and cultural warrant, the concepts are rarely defined in KO literature. The goal of this dissertation is to operationalize cultural warrant by identifying the approaches of realizing cultural warrant in KO. The dissertation is threefold. I will do a literature review on culture in the KO context, present case studies of three KO standards, and analyze ethnographic observations with fieldnotes. Through these three approaches, I will identify manifestations of cultural warrant from the perspectives of scholars, KO standard developers, and catalogers. This dissertation will present a literature review highlighting specific dimensions of culture that are relevant to cultural warrant, an inventory of sources of cultural influences in KO, and a list of manifestations of cultural warrant and an explanation of how it plays out in KO. The deliverables will provide scholars precise terms to identify, examine, and discuss cultural influences and cultural warrant in KO.
Supervisory Committee:
- Joseph T. Tennis (Chair)
- Carole Palmer
- Nicholas Weber
- Sarah W McCoy (GSR)