Primitive peoples, civilized peoples : Ideologies underlying documental languages

Abstract

Documental languages constitute controlled terms ensembles, which allow to describe the content of different information holders. They categorize the reality, by selecting from it some relevant aspects which may facilitate the knowledge management. Their descriptors –highly representative- allow to organize and recover the human intellectual product. The possibility of deciding the inclusion or exclusion of elements which describe some aspects of human life lead to consider that the building process of these tools is not neutral, being exposed to the influence of dominant ideologies. Even if this fact represents a natural condition of intellectual human work, and may not render in a problematic situation, some ideological positions perpetuate attitudes of discrimination, exclusion, pressure or power, affecting several social sectors, and being reflected in many documental languages. Through the analysis of an specific example –found in UDC auxiliar tables- this article alerts and opens the debate on the importance of such influences and on the need of building control instruments and permanent evaluation forums, in order to obtain a high level of neutrality and ethical engagement in the contents of the tools of documental work.