Juliana Mestre
PhD Candidate (ABD), Rutgers University
Communication, Information, and Media
Library and Information Science Concentration
PhD Candidate (ABD), Rutgers University
Communication, Information, and Media
Library and Information Science Concentration
My research interests lie at the intersection of Philosophy of Information and Library and Information Science. In my writing, I use post-structural and deconstructive theory to challenge foundational assumptions, deepen philosophical roots, and construct ethical scaffolding around questions of information. I am advised by Dr. Marija Dalbello.
In my dissertation, ”A Post-Structuralist Approach to Informational Being, Knowing, and Caring,” I establish a generative tension between Luciano Floridi’s structuralist approach to Philosophy of Information and Jacques Derrida’s post-structuralist theorizing. Central to this tension are themes of totalization; structuralist information theory establishes reality as the totality of information, while post-structuralism warns of a violence inherent to such totalitarianism. I use this tension as an entry point into information ontology, ultimately constructing, deconstructing, and reconstructing my own post-structuralist ontology of information. This ontology contains within it epistemological commitments to unknowability. I then unpack these commitments, providing a further construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction of unknowability and knowability in the context of information epistemology. I conclude my dissertation by turning to information ethics, arguing for the connectivity and importance of hospitality and privacy in navigating informational-being-in-the-world. This theoretical and philosophical dissertation disrupts foundations in philosophy of information, providing a post-structuralist and deconstructive alternative to what is traditionally considered a structuralist and constructionist field of study.