Braiding Knowledge Systems: A Grounded Theory-Informed Literature Review of Information Behaviours among Māori and Pasifika Visual Artists

Visual arts within Indigenous communities function as sites of cultural continuity, identity formation, and intergenerational knowledge transmission. Yet within information science, research examining the information behaviours of Māori and Pasifika visual artists remains absent. This study identifies and analyses that absence through a structured literature review approach informed by grounded theory principles. Initial iterative searches combining ‘Māori visual artists’ and ‘Pasifika visual artists’ with ‘information behaviour’ yielded no results across major academic databases. Rather than concluding at that point, the scope was broadened to examine scholarship on visual artists and information behaviour. Through iterative searching, screening, and grounded coding of twelve sources, four thematic categories emerged: media and resources; art as inquiry; relational collaboration; and personal reflection and experience. Browsing appeared as the most distributed and frequently referenced information behaviour, challenging deficit framings that privilege linear, database-centred retrieval. Recurring evaluative codes, including ‘illiterate’ and expectations regarding the ‘correct’ use of libraries, revealed institutional hierarchies within Library and Information Science (LIS) discourse. By documenting structural absence and analysing scholarship, this review contributes to information behaviour theory by supporting nonlinear, relational, and generative epistemologies. It establishes a conceptual foundation for future research centring Māori and Pasifika visual artists within culturally grounded frameworks.