The Impossible Decision: Social Tagging and Derrida’s Deconstructed Hospitality

Authors

  • Melodie Fox University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Information Studies
  • Austin Reece Marquette University Department of Philosophy

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7152/nasko.v4i1.14645

Abstract

Social tagging has been lauded for providing a voice of the user community, free of restrictions dictated by knowledge organization standards for subject access. Tagging allows many perspectives to be represented, but at what cost? Using deconstruction, Derrida argues that absolute hospitality is required to ensure justice for access and inclusiveness; however, the consequence becomes that the host becomes hostage to the other. In this ongoing research, we explore the Derridean concept of hospitality as it relates to social tagging, examining the consequences of unconditional inclusiveness, the process of discerning constraints to hospitality in order to interpret different kinds of "otherness"—or what Derrida (2000, 75) calls the "impossible" decision—and what mitigation means, using the social tagging environment to illustrate.

Author Biographies

Melodie Fox, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Information Studies

Melodie J. Fox is a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee’s School of Information Studies, where she also earned an MLIS, and is a member of the Information Organization Research Group there. She also holds a Master’s in English from the University of Illinois-Chicago. Her research interests include the relationship between epistemology and subject access, with a particular interest in the categorization of race and gender.

Austin Reece, Marquette University Department of Philosophy

Austin Reece is currently a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at Marquette University. He holds a Master's in contemporary European philosophy from University College Dublin and a Bachelor's in philosophy from Boston College. His research interests include philosophy of religion and ethics.

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Published

2013-10-31

Issue

Vol. 4 (2013): Proceedings from North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization

Section

Papers

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