Literacy and illiteracy, its relational other

A key topic for collaboration between psychology and anthropology

Bibliographic Data

ID2264015
AuthorsErdmute Alber (0009-0002-4078-4391, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Chair for Social Anthropology University of Bayreuth Bayreuth Germany, corresponding author), Carlos Kölbl (0000-0003-3205-2043, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Chair for Psychology University of Bayreuth Bayreuth Germany)
Year2025
Volume53
Issue3
Publication date2025-06-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthos (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0091-2131 • E-ISSN: 1548-1352
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/etho.70015
OpenAlexW4411237274
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited43

Collaborative work between anthropology and psychology on literacy and particularly on illiteracy helps to rethink general disciplinary backgrounds, concepts, and complex empirical phenomena in the field of (il)literacy. Since the formational period of the social sciences, the concept of literacy has been key to the self-understandings of anthropology and psychology. However, it was long neglected in empirical research. Nonetheless, implicit and explicit assumptions about the role, history, and distinctiveness of writing systems and their presence or absence in various societies were central to disciplinary understandings of societies, individuals, and humanity. To this day, literacy and especially its relational other-illiteracy-have not received the attention they deserve from either empirical or conceptual research. This article begins with their histories in anthropology and psychology and argues that illiteracy, in particular, has been neglected in their debates. It then offers a framework for literacizing and illiteracizing, conceptualizes both illiteracy and literacy as multiple and relational phenomena, and discusses methodologies and preliminary results from our collaborative research project on processes of literacizing and illiteracizing in urban literate environments in Benin and Bolivia. It concludes with a discussion of the potential of research on literacy and illiteracy as a model for transdisciplinary work, especially a more intensive collaboration between our disciplines

Biology · Functional illiteracy · Key (lock) · Literacy · Pedagogy · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Ecology · Educational and Social Studies · Indigenous Cultures and Socio-Education · Psychology · Social Representations and Identity

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access