Critical Literacies in Indonesia

• In Event: A Critical Perspective on Multi-Literacies With a Focus on Marginalized Students.

Abstract

By providing a comparative context to Singapore, my presentation focuses on critical literacies in post-authoritarian Indonesia. To define what counts as critical literacies, I focus on the contested notion of “literacy” as defined by the government and as negotiated by grassroot literacy communities. I will highlight the dynamic relationship between the state’s formalized definition of literacy or ‘formal literacy’ and rising local literacies as enacted/practiced by grassroot communities.

The study takes a critical standpoint by viewing literacy as a site of struggle and contestation that is filled with identity politics. Therefore, New Literacy Studies (NLS) perspective is deemed most suitable in interrogating this matter. Proponents of NLS (Heath, 1985; Street, 1995; Barton & Hamilton, 2000) view literacy as social practice, in which literacy is socially and historically situated, shaped by power relationships, and is practiced for different purposes, with different practices in different domains (Barton & Hamilton, 2000).

The research employs a mini-ethnographic method as the research design that involves local literacy activists, teachers and student teachers as participants. Interviews, focus group discussions, and observation were used for data collection. In line with the NLS perspective, the data will be analyzed in three stages: firstly, the documentation of the visual environment will be examined to reveal what literacy events take place.

Data will be gathered from interviews and focus group discussions involving local literacy activists, teachers and student teachers in West Java and Central Java will be used to disclose the literacy practices involved. In the NLS perspective, a literacy event is observable, while literacy practice involves values, feelings, emotions, perceptions and beliefs of the people involved in the events.

Indonesia’s case on the contested notion of literacy offers insights of how critical literacies could potentially liberate a range of important subjugated knowledge in any post-authoritarian context, irrespective of geographical location and local cultures. The historical trajectories of literacies in post-authoritarian Indonesia and the work of researchers and practitioners have highlighted the importance of linking literacy with social practices. To make formal literacy more meaningful, it cannot be divorced from vernacular grassroot literacies (Barton & Hamilton, 2012).
This study adds to the discussion on critical literacies by providing a specific context on post-authoritarian Indonesia and argues that critical literacies are central to the efforts of moving away from authoritarian shadow. Unlike the more cognitive formal literacy imposed by the authoritarian administration, grassroots literacies have provided spaces in which people can truly engage in literacy practices as meaningful social practices.

Author

• Zulfa Sakhiyya, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta