Cultivating Equitable Literacies: Transnational Literacy Autobiographies as Critical Artifacts

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring Postsecondary Writing and Literacies

Abstract

Inspired by their transnational experiences, three authors focus on how personal, historical, and contextual factors shape what is and what should be recognized as literacy. This paper analyzes three transnational literacy autobiographies (Canagarajah, 2020) by each author that center artifacts (Pahl & Rowsell, 2010; 2011) to learn how experiences within transnational contact zones have shaped their trajectories as literacies scholars. Merging transnational and critical artifactual literacies as conceptual frameworks for reading their autobiographies, they identify colonial legacy, emotion, and identity as predominant themes. Finally, the authors suggest literacy autobiographical writing in teacher education as a means to center transnational literacies and pedagogies, develop a transnational ethic of care, and reimagine current systems of inequity within literacy instruction.

Authors

• Suha Gangopadhyay, Michigan State University

• Stephie Minjung Kang, Michigan State University

• Lindsey Allene Hall, Michigan State University