(Im)materializing Literacy: Making Sense of New Contexts for Research

Session Submission Type: Symposium

Abstract

Central to a sociocultural perspective on literacies is the notion that literacies vary in different domains and that they are socially and culturally situated. Defining the context in which literacy is situated can imply a certain boundedness. Individuals’ lived literacy practices however often span different domains or evoke a variety of contexts that intersect in multiple ways. This is particularly apparent in practices that span online/offline spaces. As four researchers, we will present four propositions for conceptualizing meaning-making in such hybrid spaces. These propositions combine to offer an account of relationships between the material and immaterial. Together they provide a language for describing movements between the online and offline.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Writing and Literacies

Chair

• Cathy Burnett, Sheffield Hallam University

Papers

• The Significance of Relationships Between Material and Immaterial Dimensions of Space to Meaning-Making - Cathy Burnett, Sheffield Hallam University

• Materializing Literacies in Homes and Communities: How Literacies Are Materialized in Things - Kate Heron Pahl, The University of Sheffield

• Screen-Based Texts Mediate Reality in Ways That Prompt Shifting Relationships Between the Material and Immaterial - Guy Merchant, Sheffield Hallam University

• The Embodiment of Meaning-Making: Investigating Embodied Experiences of Online and Offline Texts - Jennifer Rowsell, Brock University

Discussant

• Julia Davies, The University of Sheffield