Literacy Inequalities: The Power to Name and Define

1
Literacy Inequalities The Power to Name and
Define

• UEA Seminar Oct 1st 2008Brian V Street (Kings
  College London)

2
Contribution of Ethnographic Perspectives to
Literacy Inequalities Debate

• What is Ethnography?
• Ethnographic perspectives on Literacy
• The power to name and define
• Literacy Inequalities Debates Capabilities
• Data Hidden Literacies in Pakistan
• Benefits of literacy in Bangladesh
• 3 literacies in rural Iran
• Capabilities and Ethnography building bridges?

3
The Turtle and the Fish

• To illustrate the error of ethnocentrism
  Buddhists relate the story of the turtle and the
  fish. There was once a turtle who lived in a lake
  with a group of fish. One day the turtle went for
  a walk on dry land. He was away from the lake for
  a few weeks. When he returned he met some of the
  fish. The fish asked him, "Mister turtle, hello!
  How are you? We have not seen you for a few
  weeks. Where have you been? The turtle said, "I
  was up on the land, I have been spending some
  time on dry land." The fish were a little puzzled
  and they said, "Up on dry land? What are you
  talking about? What is this dry land? Is it wet?"
  The turtle said "No, it is not," "Is it cool and
  refreshing?" "No it is not", "Does it have waves
  and ripples?" "No, it does not have waves and
  ripples." "Can you swim in it?" "No you can't" So
  the fish said, "it is not wet, it is not cool
  there are no waves, you cant swim in it. So this
  dry land of yours must be completely
  non-existent, just an imaginary thing, nothing
  real at all." The turtle said that "Well may be
  so" and he left the fish and went for another
  walk on dry land.
• In another version the fish said Dont tell us
  what it isnt, tell us what it is. I cant
  said the turtle, I dont have any language to
  describe it.
• This is the version that can help us understand
  what is involved in ethnography. If we go to
  another place, our first inclination is to
  describe it in terms of what it does not have
  that we are used to wet land, waves, for the
  fish maybe science, or coca cola for westerners
  travelling in the East religion or rice for
  Easterners travelling in Europe etc. An
  Ethnographic perspective shifts us out of this
  mind set and helps us firstly to imagine things
  that do not exist in our own world and then to
  understand them in their own terms rather than to
  see them, in our terms, just as deficits.
  Ethnography helps us untie the (k)not

4
What is Ethnography?

• The Turtle and the Fish
• Epistemology and Reflexivity
• Proximity and Distance
• Green and Bloome ethnographic perspective
• Mitchell Case Studies

5
Ethnographic perspectives on Literacy

• Illiteracy / Literacy
• Ideological vs autonomous models
• Events and Practices
• Cultural meanings, varied thresholds

6
The Power to Name and Define eg Culture as a
Verb

• Part of the problem that besets our current
  efforts to understand culture is the desire to
  define it, to say clearly what it is. To define
  something means to specify its meaning clearly
  enough so that things which are like it can be
  clearly distinguished from it. Clear definitions
  are an essential part of any successful science,
  or of good speech and clear thought'. (Thornton,
  198826). However, the problem is that we tend
  then to believe the categories and definitions we
  construct in an essentialist way, as though we
  had thereby found out what culture is. In fact
  'there is not much point in trying to say what
  culture is... What can be done, however, is to
  say what culture does'. For what culture does is
  precisely the work of 'defining words, ideas,
  things and groups We all live our lives in terms
  of definitions, names and categories that culture
  creates'. The job of studying culture is not of
  finding and then accepting its definitions but of
  'discovering how and what definitions are made,
  under what circumstances and for what reasons'.
  These definitions are used, change and sometimes
  fall into disuse'. Indeed, the very term
  'culture' itself, like these other ideas and
  definitions, changes its meanings and serves
  different often competing purposes at different
  times. Culture is an active process of meaning
  making and contest over definition, including its
  own definition. This, then, is what I mean by
  arguing that we should treat Culture as a verb.
  (Street, B 1993)

7
The Power to Name and Define Literacy and
Inequality

• Similar arguments can be made with regard to the
  definitions of literacy. Those who hold an
  autonomous model of literacy, for instance,
  might claim that it is not a cultural perspective
  they are adopting but rather a natural, known
  or even objective account. When they compare
  their own literacy practices with those of, for
  instance, Indian villagers or working class
  youths in the US, they can claim that they are
  not being ethnocentric, they are not simply being
  fish demanding that everything look like it does
  from their own wet environment, but rather that
  this is how it is the others are in deficit,
  they lack literacy or proper literacy, or
  functional literacy or other labels that
  qualify the term but retain its narrow focus on
  one way of doing things. This autonomous view
  that literacy in itself, autonomously, defined
  independently of cultural context and meaning,
  will have effects, creating inequality for those
  who lack it and advantages for those who gain
  it is, of course, itself deeply ideological.
  One of the most powerful mechanisms available to
  ideology is to disguise itself (Street, 1993).
  People are rightly suspicious if someone claims
  we should define a phenomenon or act towards it
  in policy terms because it conforms to their own
  cherished customs and beliefs. But if they can
  claim that it is nothing to do with their own
  preconceptions but is instead a natural,
  objective account, then others can be encouraged
  to act upon it, to provide funds to develop this
  view, to agree policy. With respect to literacy
  this means that the power to define and name what
  counts as literacy and illiteracy also leads to
  the power to determine policy, to fund and
  develop literacy programmes in international
  contexts, to prescribe ways of teaching,
  development of educational materials, texts
  books, assessment (cf Campbell, 2008) etc.

8

• The autonomous model of literacy is in fact an
  ideological model, precisely using the power to
  disguise its own ideology, its own ethnocentrism.
  The ideological model of literacy (Street, 1984)
  seeks to make explicit such underlying
  conceptions and assumptions. Ethnographies of
  literacy drawing upon the ideological model have
  recognised the variety and complexity of what
  counts as literacy, both for the observer and for
  the participant. From this perspective, just as
  'there is not much point in trying to say what
  culture is... What can be done, however, is to
  say what culture does', so, it may be less
  important to say what literacy is than what it
  does. Literacy, like culture, then, is an active
  process of meaning making and contest over
  definition, including its own definition. But
  international agencies and, I would argue, those
  in the Inequalities and the Capabilities
  field, try to define what literacy is, not just
  what it does, in order to be able to then say
  what are the benefits of having it and to argue
  for the deficit in the lives of those who dont
  have it. In terms of universal values, as
  Nussbaum would have it, equality depends upon
  having first defined what it is that is unequal.
  What counts as inequality in this case,
  however, depends crucially on who has the power
  to name and define what counts as literacy and
  what theoretical and conceptual frames they draw
  upon. So, from this perspective, inequality is
  not simply a given that we, as moral and
  committed reformers need to respond to, but a
  construct that needs careful analysis and
  justification. Practitioners, policy makers and
  researchers alike, then, need to address, both
  the construct of literacy and the construct of
  inequality. I will argue that if the
  Inequalities proponents were to shift perspective
  from what literacy is to what literacy does there
  may be more scope for such a questioning and for
  a meeting of the two fields that of Literacy
  Inequality and that of Ethnographies of literacy.

9
Hidden Literacies case studies from Pakistan

• .. several of the case study respondents assert
  strongly that they are illiterate, perhaps
  because they have never been to school or adult
  literacy class. I am not educated and cannot
  read and write, says Amen the vegetable seller,
  and he repeats it I am not educated and cannot
  read and write but that does not mean that I am a
  fool and have no wisdom. Zia the plumber is
  stronger in his self-identification I told
  you, I have never been to school, so how can I
  read and write? was his answer to the
  researchers question, Can you read and write?
  He was even more assertive when challenged by
  the researcher
• You can write very well, why did you say you
  are Jahil illiterate?
• I do not have any certificate or paper to show
  that I am literate, which means I am illiterate.
  People who are educated like you call me
  illiterate. Educated people's decision about me
  perhaps is right, I am illiterate.
• I said, Illiterates cannot read and write but
  you can, so you are literate.
• He said, Bibi, I feel good. when you say I am
  literate.
• (Rafat Nabi (forthcoming) Hidden Literacies)

10

• Shazia the domestic servant too asserts that she
  is uneducated when asked to show something she
  had written, she replied, You are highly
  educated and I have not even attended a school,
  you will laugh at me. And Amen repeats himself,
  as so often I did not see the inside of a
  school. So people regard me as illiterate.
  Their lack of literacy skills is perceived as a
  stigma and a disadvantage. And yet they all
  write and read many things.
• And Zia said, When people ask me, I give them
  a receipt, and I write down all the names of the
  parts which I purchased, their cost and my labour
  charges. I am no longer handicapped. I can do
  my job very well. With on-the-job practice, I am
  able to read and write.
• Shazia read the schedule in the kitchen on which
  the family members had indicated their breakfast
  preferences and the spice container labels she
  wrote a brief message about a phone call and a
  shopping list of ingredients for a meal, and she
  kept a notebook of the items taken by the
  cleaner. But if the researcher had asked her
  what she was doing on each occasion, she would
  not have said reading or writing but simply
  preparing breakfast, answering the telephone
  or dealing with the cleaner. The literacy
  practices were so deeply embedded that they had
  become unconscious.

11

• Likewise, the experience of Rozina, a dyer who
  learned the literacy practices necessary for her
  trade from colleagues not from a formal class,
  leads Rafat to reflect on the ways in which
  literacy programmes, including her own, have been
  defined and implemented
• How can a literacy course be developed keeping
  the local knowledge and practices in mind? Can
  one type of literacy be effective for the entire
  nation? How can literacy courses preserve
  indigenous knowledge and transfer this knowledge
  to the next generation? Is a literacy centre
  necessary or are there other alternative ways of
  learning, as Rozina learned from her colleagues?
• Are policy makers whole heartedly learning the
  lessons from Rozina, that literacy can go beyond
  centres and beyond primers and attendance
  registers? A profound question to ponder. Where
  does this example of social literacy fit into the
  broader literacy scenario?

12
Literacy Inequalities

• Cf Maddox, Nussbaum, Sen
• Inequalities approaches Returns rights
  capabilities
• The capabilities approach is fully universal
  the capabilities in question are held to be
  important for each and every citizen, in each and
  every nation, and each is to be treated as an
  end (Nussbaum, 2006, p. 78).
• Sen also notes the incompatibility of
  inequalities in basic capabilities with effective
  human development (Maddox, 2008,p. 189).

13
Reconciling Capabilities and Ethnographic
Perspectives

• Maddox field work in Bangladesh two field sites
  where local people Kamrul a rickshaw driver
  and Halima a married woman - both struggle with
  poverty and attain some literacy to try to
  overcome it. In both cases they made some gains,
  such as confidence and engagement with
  shopkeepers credit systems, although they were
  both living in poverty still when he revisited
  them some years after his initial fieldwork. He
  uses this evidence to try to link ethnographic
  perspectives with the Capabilities approach.
• For Kamrul, for instance, despite remaining
  vulnerable to accidents and ill health
  Nevertheless as a threshold of capability,
  literacy had contributed to his well being and
  that of his family. Some of the changes were
  linked to doing literacy, instrumental
  functionings and their benefits. Other benefits
  were less tangible, namely those related to
  self-confidence and social status (Maddox, 2008,
  p. 199). For Maddox, then, there may be more than
  one threshold for literacy

14
Bridging?

• Whilst welcoming Maddoxs attempt to bridge the
  divide between the Capabilities approach and
  Ethnography, I wonder how far Nussbaum and Sen
  would be willing to make a similar move in his
  direction, to accept multiple literacies and
  multiple thresholds for instance.
• The people Maddox describes in Bangladesh and
  those in Rafat Nabis account of Pakistan, would
  I suspect be unlikely to count in their single
  threshold definition of literacy capabilities.
• Their accounts depend on literacy rates which are
  already pre-defined as a particular kind. The
  very local and often minimal uses of literacy
  described by Maddox and Nabi would not pass the
  tests set by agencies assessing peoples
  literacy skills.
• As Campbell notes in Measures of Success
  (2007), the Types of Assessment Tools used in
  one size fits all standard measurements can be
  characterised as standardised, diagnostic,
  competence and performance.
• The importance of statistically normed
  definitions of universal literacy are not at all
  the same as ethnographic accounts of the uses and
  meanings of literacy in different contexts, of
  the kind described by Maddox for Bangladesh and
  Nabi for Pakistan. If for Nussbaum adult
  literacy rates indicate the number of people who
  have (or have not) been able to achieve the
  minimum threshold of capability (p. 201), and
  Sens accounts describe the intrinsic and
  instrumental benefits of literacy, then where
  would they and others in the international field
  locate these people?

15
Questions

• Where do Kamrul and Halima in Bangladesh or Amen
  and Zia in Pakistan figure in the debates about
  literacy inequalities?
• Do they fit claims about literacy and its
  impact?
• Do they have the capabilities defined by
  Nussbaum and Sen?
• Do they pass the threshold defined for
  universal good?
• Are the ethnographers being relativist
• Should policy and programmes start from local
  meanings or universal definitions?
• Does the literacy debate signal issues that need
  addressing with regard to other capabilities
  poverty, gender, power?

16
Literacy Inequalities Some References

• Barton,D Hamilton,M (Eds.) 2000 Situated
  Literacies Reading And Writing In Context
  Routledge London
• Barton, D, Ivanic, R, Appleby, Y, Hodge,R And
  Tusting, K 2007 Literacy, Lives And Learning
  Routledge London
• Blommaert, J 2004 Writing As A Problem African
  Grassroots Writing, Economies Of Literacy, And
  Globalization Language In Society 33, 643-671
• Brandt,D Clinton,K 2002 'Limits Of The Local
  Expanding Perspectives On Literacy As A Social
  Practice' In Journal Of Literacy Research Vol 34
  No 3 Pp 337-356
• Campbell, P. 2007 Measures Of Success
  Assessment And Accountability In Adult Basic
  Education Ed. Grass Roots Press Edmonton,
  Alberta
• Doronilla,M.L 1996 Landscapes of Literacy an
  ethnographic study of functional literacy in
  marginal Philippine communities UIE Hamburg
• EFA 2006 Literacy for Life Global Monitoring
  Report Unesco Paris
• Heath,S.B. 1983 Ways with Words CUP Cambridge
  
• Maddox, B 2008 What good is literacy? Insights
  and Implications of the Capabilities Approach
  Journal of Human Development Vol. 9 No. 2 pp.
  185-206
• Nussbaum, M 2006 Frontiers of Justice
  Disability, Nationality, Species Membership.
  Belknap, Harvard MA
• Pahl,K And Rowsell, J (2006) eds Travel Notes
  from the New Literacy Studies Case Studies in
  Practice. Clevedon Multilingual Matters
• Parkin,D (1984) 'Political Language', Annual
  Review of Anthropology, 13345-65
• Petersen, C 2004 Report on Uppingham Seminar
  Measuring Literacy Meeting in Collision November
  2003 UppSem http//www.uppinghamseminars.org/repor
  t_2003.htm
• Prinsloo, M Baynham, M 2008 Literacies, Global
  and Local J Benjamins Amsterdam
• Robinson-Pant, A 2004 ed. Women, Literacy and
  Development Alternative Perspectives Routledge,
  London
• Rogers Alan 2002 Teaching Adults Buckingham
  Open University Press
• Rogers Alan 2004 Non-formal Education flexible
  schooling or participatory education? Dordrecht
  Kluwer and Hong Kong Hong Kong University Press
  
• Rogers, A and Street, B (forthcoming)
  Practitioners As Researchers Adult Literacy
  Facilitators In Developing Societies And The
  Letter Project Studies in the Education of
  Adults
• Sen, A.K. 2002 Rationality and Freedom Harvard
  UP Cambridge MA

17
Ethnographic Accounts of Literacy

• Aikman,S 1999 Intercultural education and
  literacy an ethnographic study of indigenous
  knowledge and learning in the Peruvian Amazon
  Benjamins Amsterdam
• Besnier,N 1995 Literacy, emotion and authority
  reading and writing on a Polynesian atoll
  Cambridge University Press Cambridge
• Collins,J 1998 Understanding Tolowa Histories
  western hegemonies and Native American response
  Routledge NY
• Doronilla,M.L 1996 Landscapes of Literacy an
  ethnographic study of funcitonal literacy in
  marginal Philippine communities UIE Hamburg
• Hornberger,N (ed.) 1998 Language Planning from
  the Bottom up Indigenous Literacies in the
  Americas, Mouton de Gruyter Berlin
• Kalman,J 1999 Writing on the Plaza mediated
  literacy practices among scribes and clients in
  Mexico city Hampton Press Cresskill NJ
• King,L 1994 Roots of Identity language and
  literacy in Mexico Stanford University Press
  Stanford
• Maddox,B 2001 Literacy and the market the
  economic uses of literacy among the peasantry in
  north-west Bangladesh in Street,B ed. Literacy
  and development ed. 2001 Routledge London pp.
  137-151
• Nabi, R (with Rogers, A and Street, B)
  (forthcoming) Hidden Literacies ethnographic
  studies of literacy and numeracy practices in
  Pakistan.
• Nirantar 2007 Exploring the Everyday
  ethnographic approaches to literacy and numeracy
  Delhi Nirantar/ ASPBAE http//uppinghamseminars.c
  om/page2.htm
• Prinsloo,M Breier,M 1996 The Social Uses of
  Literacy Benjamins/Sacched
• Robinson-Pant, A ed. 2004 Women, Literacy and
  Development Alternative Perspectives (Routledge,
  London)
• Robinson-Pant,A 1997 Why Eat green Cucumbers at
  the Time of Dying? The Link between Womens
  Literacy and Development Unesco Hamburg
• Rogers, A ed 2005 Urban Literacy communication,
  identity and learning in Development Contexts
  UIE Hamburg
• Street, B, Baker, D. ,Rogers, A 2006  Adult
  teachers as researchers ethnographic approaches
  to numeracy and literacy as social practices in
  South Asia Convergence  Vol XXXIX (1) pp. 31-44
• Wagner,D 1993 Literacy, Culture and Development
  becoming literate in Morocco Cambridge University
  Press Cambridge
• Wagner D.A 2004 Literacy(ies), culture(s), and
  development(s) The ethnographic challenge
• Reading Research Quarterly, 1 April 2004, vol.
  39, no. 2, pp. 234-241(8)