CRITICAL INFORMATION LITERACY AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

THE ROLE OF INDIGENOUS INFORMATION ACTORS IN THE AFFIRMATION OF DECOLONIAL AND COUNTERCOLONIAL PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

Centuries of colonial domination imposed regimes of power and knowledge upon Indigenous peoples in Brazil, contributing to the marginalization of their knowledge systems. In response to this process, indigenous information actors have played a fundamental role in challenging colonial logics and affirming their own knowledge projects. critical information literacy emerges as a political, social, and cultural strategy that enables the questioning of hegemonic narratives while valuing plural epistemologies. This study aims to analyze the role of indigenous information actors in mobilizing critical information literacy as a strategy for affirming decolonial and countercolonial perspectives of resistance. This is a qualitative and descriptive study based on bibliographic and documentary research, derived from the results of a doctoral dissertation. The analysis focused on the performance of indigenous information actors and their contributions to the construction of decolonial and countercolonial perspectives. The findings reveal that these actors mobilize their own knowledge, experiences, and informational practices to strengthen processes of informational autonomy, epistemic resistance, and cognitive justice, challenging the structures of coloniality. The study also shows that critical information literacy contributes to unveiling mechanisms of domination embedded in information systems, fostering critical interpretation, resignification, and the production of situated knowledge. It is concluded that critical information literacy constitutes an important strategy of resistance, capable of strengthening the informational and epistemic sovereignty of Indigenous peoples.