What is meant by local literacies?

Abstract

This paper addresses some of the problems that arise when literacy education is brought from national and international centres to groups of people whose primary identity is with local languages and literacies. There is often a tension between these two dimensions of literacy practice—the local and the national/international. The paper aims to put these issues on the agenda and to consider some of the key questions under a number of headings. Noticing Local Literacies raises the question how far do national and international literacy campaigns fail even to notice that the people to whom they are bringing literacy do already practice some form of reading and writing? Recently researchers and practitioners have begun to take a less ethnocentric and less top‐down approach and some of that literature is reviewed here. Researchers as well as practitioners now refer to ’multiple literacies’ and ask ‘which literacies’ it is intended to bring to the recipients. The policy and practical questions this raises are reviewed. The concept of ’local literacies’ is developed, with reference to three areas: (1) Different Languages and Writing Systems, (2) Invented Local Literacies and (3) Vernacular Literacies. Finally the implications for Literacy Policy of the theoretical debates and practical knowledge are considered.