Literacy in the In-Between: A postcolonial re-reading of early literacies in Bangladesh

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 11:45 am - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Connecting the past, present, and future: Reclaiming play and literacy for all children

Abstract

This study explores how early literacy unfolds within the liminal spaces of a Bangladeshi classroom. Literacy is considered embodied, fluid, and dynamic, and it emerges as human and nonhuman entanglements creating an event. Using ethnographic methods and influenced by posthumanist perspectives, this study highlights how children’s literacy emerges in interactions with people, objects, and spaces, and how these are taken up by both children and their teachers. Set in Bangladesh’s postcolonial context, the research critiques conventional, Western-centric literacy and calls for rethinking literacy as a hybrid, emergent practice shaped by power, identity, and the interplay of human and nonhuman forces.

Author

• Moutushi Mahreen, Pennsylvania State University