Article

Defending DEI and the Politics of Inclusion by Engaging Them:  Postcards from the Edge of Someone Else’s Dream

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Abstract

This article posits that the most important endeavor library and information science (LIS) community members can undertake to defend DEI and the politics of inclusion is to continue to engage them. I use autoethnographic reflection and analysis to conceptualize strategies for how library stakeholders can grow collective DEI engagement. The result of these processes is the development of five snapshots, or “postcards,” from my identity as a gay man and my work as a pre-tenure faculty member to illustrate the DEI engagement opportunities in the field. These opportunities include: 1) considering the positionality from which we do our work, 2) imagining how our unique combinations of identities, perspectives, and experiences can contribute to DEI efforts, 3) undertaking the various activities which support these efforts, 4) empathetically and authentically growing the coalition of DEI supporters, and 5) recognizing that outcomes of success or failure do not represent the end but the continuation of the journey toward social justice for all in society. Taken together, these strategies represent one model for how DEI engagement can continue to expand in the LIS field. I hope my examples will encourage others to consider a new or reinforced commitment to DEI in the LIS field and beyond, in part by examining their own journeys, sharing their own postcards, and developing their own strategies for supporting the politics of inclusion that every supporter can use and build on.

Keywords: DEI, Politics, Trump, IMLS, Postcards, Autoethnography

How to Cite:

Winberry, J., (2025) “Defending DEI and the Politics of Inclusion by Engaging Them:  Postcards from the Edge of Someone Else’s Dream”, The Political Librarian 8(2), 174-189.