Literacy and illiteracy, its relational other : A key topic for collaboration between psychology and anthropology
Abstract
- Abstract
- en 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.
Subjects
People & roles
Origins & context
- Title
- Literacy and illiteracy, its relational other : A key topic for collaboration between psychology and anthropology
- Publication type
- Article
- Language
- English
- Journal
- Ethos
- Year
- 2025
- volume
- 53
- issue
- 3
- pages
- e70015
- Status
- Peer reviewed
- Relation
- Open Access Publizieren
Identifiers & sources
- ISSN
- 1548-1352
Full text
- Full text
- Ethos. 2025;53:e70015. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/etho 1 of 14 https://doi.org/10.1111/etho.70015 Received: 5 August 2024 Accepted: 5 May 2025 DOI: 10.1111/etho.70015 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Literacy and illiteracy, its relational other: A key topic for collaboration between psychology and anthropology Erdmute Alber1 Carlos Kölbl2 1Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Chair for Social Anthropology, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany 2Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Chair for Psychology, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany Correspondence Erdmute Alber, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Chair for Social Anthropology, University of Bayreuth, D 95440 Bayreuth, Germany. Email: Erdmute.alber@uni-bayreuth.de Funding information Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Abstract 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 psychol- ogy. 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 disci- plinary 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 illitera- cizing, conceptualizes both illiteracy and literacy as multiple and relational phenomena, and discusses methodologies and preliminary results from… Read the full text about 10,003 words
Records on similar topics
Records about similar topics, from anywhere in the collection and in any language. The percentage shows how closely each one matches this record.