Information literacy as a socially enacted practice: Sensitising themes for an emerging perspective of people-in-practice

Purpose ' This paper aims to introduce a 'people-in-practice' perspective which brings togetherprevious theorisations of information literacy landscapes and practice. This perspective provides theframework to analyse the complex practice of information literacy from a sociocultural perspective.This perspective represents a shift in focus towards information literacy as a socially enacted practice,and away from the information skills approach that has dominated information literacy research andeducation.Design/methodology/approach ' The empirical data that informs this work is drawn from aseries of studies that have been conducted by the author in the workplace and in everyday settingssince 2004. Findings from these studies have contributed to the development of the people-in-practiceperspective that is presented in this article.Findings ' Drawing from the author's empirical studies and from literature reporting socio-culturalresearch into information literacy, a people-in-practice perspective is described.Originality/value ' The value of this paper lies in the attempt to marry together the author'sprevious work resulting in the introduction of a people-in-practice perspective. This perspective drawsfrom socio-cultural and practice theory.Keywords Information literacy, Enactment, Practice theory, Socio-cultural perspectivePaper type Conceptual paper