2026 ALISE Annual Conference

This poster analyzes how movement of human subjects is treated in the Library of Congress Subject Headings. Drawing on a list of authorized subject headings, we interrogate patterns across terms like physical migration or shifting identities and develop a holistic understanding of the social, political, and cultural contexts in which movement becomes fixed. This project builds on a history of resistance focused on individual or small groups of outdated, offensive, and/or inaccurate subject headings (e.g., Adler, 2017; Broadley & Baron, 2019; Watson, 2020) and contributes to an understanding of the power inherent in naming.