On the 26th of July, I was able
to attend the 2026 Knowledge Futures Symposium at Leeds University. I attended
this conference through being awarded the student bursary as part of my
position as a MA Library and Information Management student at Manchester
Metropolitan University (MMU).
This event was something that
caught my interest when it was mentioned by one of the librarians at MMU during
a student placement I was taking part in. As a student that is passionate about
information and communities, I had already been taking any chance I could to be
involved in conversations in the wider library sector as I am in a position to
be slightly more flexible and agile than those already working as I have more
time on my hands and the freedom to explore different discussions.
As a result, before having
researched anything on the symposium, I immediately saw this as an opportunity
that I took no chance jumping on and this was then the start of a wonderful
journey of learning, questioning and critical thinking.
Upon reading more about the
symposium and applying, I realised quickly that the discussions within this
symposium and its values resonated deeply with my own. Knowledge equity in
particular, was a desire that I had been striving towards unknowingly ever
since I had done my undergraduate. I have been acutely aware of the inequity
within spaces of knowledge particularly within educational environments.
From secondary schools failing to portray any significant global south narratives to now where there are whole sector ecosystems where there is still clearly a divide in what knowledge gets shared and who gets to indulge in the knowledge, this symposium aimed to highlight and deconstruct these issues that I have observed and experienced first-hand through different dimensions and leading sector voices.
Moving onto the actual symposium
itself, it was slightly unfortunate that the symposium was on the hottest
weekend of the year however it was as if the Symposium organiser team had
anticipated this as the student bursary included travel and accommodation. This
meant ease of access and comfortability during the symposium and not to mention
some very much needed air conditioning that I have only the Symposium
organising team to thank for. As the bursary included accommodation for the
evening before the symposium, I was able to grab the opportunity to explore
Leeds city centre for the first time which was lovely to see the history of
global migration etched within the community and architecture. It also meant
that I was able to grab some lovely dinner, the expense of which was also
kindly given by the Symposium organising team where I was able to reheat some
poor Spanish over a tapas diner.
The symposium itself carried
immense power from the very introduction. Dr. Khadijah Ibrahim stylishly and
poignantly ushered in the tone of decolonising and decentralising knowledge
through her poetic vision that she would be curating by listening to all the
discussions that would come out of the symposium.
The first keynotes were delivered
by Rashik Parmar MBE, Tony Ageh and Helen Shelton. All of them provided poignant
statements to shape our reflections on key areas such as AI, Language and the
future of custodianship. Parmar made a particularly hard-hitting point that AI
does not create the future as it is merely reading the history and this made me
wonder who is this supposed future even serving, as Parmar mentioned that 37%
of the world’s population are not digitally present. Tony Ageh went further by
exploring the notion that language determines how information assigned and gave
some really nice examples:
Readers – Users
Custodians – Services
Arts and Humanities – Content
Knowledge – Content
Trust – Engagement
Responsibility – Entertainment
The change in this language is
something that has caused an unnoticed but seismic shift in the way that
knowledge and research is perceived and talked about and has transformed
knowledge into something that is passive and synthetic. This was hard-hitting
for me as these changes are something that upon reflection have entirely
characterised my vocabulary as a student that listens and talks about the
knowledge sector. Helen Shenton showcased the huge project that is undergoing
at Trinity College Dublin and alluded to the advocating for spaces of knowledge
to be seen as the epicentre of cultural diplomacy and a space for cross
fertilisation of other activities and discussions with the library serving as
the front room for these conversations. This to me is very important as this
summarises the need for universities to become a place that is ever present in
graduates’ lives, and that librarians must situate themselves as the last
bastions for democracy.
There was then plenty of time for networking and refuelling through coffee and snacks in time for a panel discussion about the future of knowledge production in relation to technology and AI. The speakers Rosayln Metz, Dr. H. Titola Olojede and Dr. Dibyadyuti Roy provided some really insightful comments into this minefield of a topic. A statement was made in this discussion that highlighted that 95% of AI infrastructure does not have an ROI. This to me completely eradicated the binary that I had constructed in my head of AI. To me this signalled a complete deflation of AI in terms of its strength and monopoly as it simply is a business venture that is trying to get its users to treat AI as a public library in their pursuit of knowledge. Are these capitalists succeeding in usage, yes but for how long can they continue this? This talk also made me realise that there is nothing truthfully artificial about artificial intelligence as it is a result of human innovation and a copious and disturbing amount of labour that is invisible to us users. Having listened to this panel, I certainly did walk away with more questions about the true potential, or at least the notion of potential, that we believe AI can give to us and about how AI is simply tokenising knowledge rather than creating it.
The panel discussion surrounding Knowledge Equity through global perspectives and Knowledge outside of the academy was something that for me was the highlight of the symposium. Dr. Mac-Anthony Cobblah, Ry Moran and Dr. Mandana Seyfeddinpur all advocated for the growing need to preserve oral narratives and tacit knowledge and to prevent them from becoming digitally colonised. Dr. Cobblah mentioned a fantastic anecdote about a village elder remarking to him that there was going to be rain despite Dr. Cobblah checking his weather app and it showing no rain. It did end up raining that evening and it made him question the narrative that western forms of knowledge are omniscient. Coming from a Punjabi household and visiting Punjab every summer as a child, I was often subject to the wonders of homemade remedies that have been passed down through generations and would simply never be recognised as ‘scientific’ upon returning home to the United Kingdom. This panel discussion definitely resounded with my own personal experiences with the notion that indigenous knowledge that was birthed through lived experience was and still is being eradicated through neo-orientalism, with digital and scientific knowledge being favoured in knowledge exchange spaces and therefore to keep this deep history of knowledge recorded and sustainably transmittable is vital for true knowledge equity.
After lunch and a closing keynote
given by Professor Dawn Freshwater, the symposium was concluded by Masud
Khokhar who encouraged activism collectivism in a time of digital inertia. A
drinks and networking opportunity was given to us all after that gave me the
opportunity for me to talk to other attendees as well as a few of the speakers,
with some fantastic advice and encouragement given to me as a future
information professional who wants to make an impact and contribute to
knowledge equity.
I can therefore say for certain
that I have since walked away from this symposium with a much more enhanced
notion of knowledge and the different dimensions and factors at play, and more
importantly, what role do we as information professionals play in ensuring that
we are at the centre of these conversations and change. I am extremely grateful
for having been able to attend through the student bursary and can only thank the
team for having given me the chance that many information professionals in this
sector simply do not get. I hope in the meantime between this symposium and the
next that I can reflect upon the many questions asked and upon securing my next
steps into this profession can begin to advocate to others the necessity of
knowledge equity to our profession and to the world we live in.