An information literacy lens on community representation for participatory budgeting in Brazil

Abstract

This paper presents an evaluation of the information literacies used by community representatives when engaging with participatory budgeting in São Paulo City, Brazil. Using questions established from context-setting interviews with stakeholders, a focus group was held in 2019 with eight participative councillors, with in situ interpretation, resulting in a translated transcript of the discussion. Thematic analysis was used to understand information issues faced by community representatives in relation to past research. It was found that the community representatives face informational barriers to their engagement with participatory budgeting, in (a) learning about their role (b) understanding the information needs of the communities served and (c) gathering and sharing information about local issues with stakeholders. These findings allow the refining of CILIP’s definition of information literacy (IL) for citizenship and provide the basis for proposing a model for the IL of community representatives. It is also proposed that future IL research could further develop the role of digitally-enabled place and community in shaping the landscape of literacy and the role of hyperlocal representation. Additionally, the role of translation in cross-lingual IL research is considered.