networked literacies and agency - an exploration
TRANSCRIPT
Networked literacies & agency: a
(personal) explorationBy Paul Prinsloo (University of South Africa)
Presentation at Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT), University of Cape Town, Thursday 9 April 2015
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The presenter owns the copyright of some of the images in this presentation (indicated as CC Paul Prinsloo). All other images have been sourced from Google labeled for non-commercial reuse.
This work (excluding the images) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Overview of the presentation• Positioning myself• Literacy/ies in context• Critical literacy as point of departure• A personal narrative – the importance of context/field• Literacy through a social cognitive theory lens
(Bandura)• Literacy and field theory (Bourdieu)• Functionings, capabilities, well-being and critical
agency (Sen)• A personal note on literacy-as-agentic identity as
researcher• (In)conclusions
Disclaimer: Positioning myself
There are many possible ways to approach and think about the notion of ‘literacy.’ I approach/reflect upon ‘literacy’• Acknowledging the influence of the work of Zygmunt Bauman, Albert Bandura
and a personal understanding of Actor Network Theory
• From a “critical literacy” perspective (eg Apple, 1992; Bishop, 2014; Behrman, 2006; Lankshear & McClaren, 1993; Morrell, 2004, 2007)
• Work on intersectionality and literacy as critical, situated, “boundary work” (Bishop, 2014; Budd & Lloyd, 2014; Nicholson, 2014)
What does it mean to be (il)literate? How do we define
(il)literacy?
What does it mean to be literate and agentic (literacy-as-networked-agency) when…
Who I am and the literacies and agency I have - were shaped by
• My circumstances, race, gender, context, historical-moment-in-time?
• My socio-material conditions• The choices I made• The choices that were made for me• Other people – known and unknown• Material conditions and technologies as actors• Chance, matterings and happenings?
What does it mean to be literate and agentic (literacy-as-networked-agency)…
What does it mean to “live a fully human dignified life [and] what education contributes to this, and how [do] we assess its contribution?”
(Walker, 2012, p. 384)
What does it mean to be literate (enough?) to make informed, embodied and entangled choices on a playing field that is uneven and formed and maintained by socio-material power relations?
A deluge of literacies
Information literacy
Media literacy
Digital literacy
Cyber
literacy
Information
fluency
Fluencies for a global
digital citizen
Competencies for media and digital literacy
Multiple intelligences
Five minds of the future
And the latest kid on the block - Metaliteracy (Mackey & Jacobson, 2011)
Image credit: http://metaliteracy.cdlprojects.com/what.htm
Understand format type and delivery
mode
Evaluate user feedback as active
researcher
Create a context for user-generated
information
Evaluate dynamic content critically
Produce original content in multiple
media formats
Understand personal privacy, information
ethics and intellectual property
issues
Share information in participatory environmentsMackey, T.P., & Jacobson, T.E. (2011). Reframing
information literacy as metaliteracy. College & Research Libraries, 72(1), 62-78.
Our taxonomies and typologies of literacies depend on our lens…
• The ‘digital age’ (Bawden2001; Littlejohn, Beetham, & Mcgill 2012; Knobel & Lankshear 2007)
• ‘employability’ (Fugate, Kinicki, & Ashforth 2004)
• ‘sustainability’ (Krosnick et al
2000; Major & Atwood, 2004;
Rowe, 2002; Weingart et al, 2000)
Image credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hand_showing_lens_demonstration.jpg
The range of individual autonomy is expanding, increasingly being “burdened with the functions that were once viewed as the responsibility of the state” (Bauman, 2011, p. 16). Individuals are increasingly faced to respond to socially produced problems…
At no other time has the necessity to make choices been so deeply felt and has choosing become so poignantly self-conscious, conducted under conditions of painful yet incurable uncertainty, of a constant threat of ‘being left behind’ and of being excluded from the game, with return barred for failure to live up to the new demands” (Bauman, 2012, p. 21)
Why do ‘literacies’ (and our lists and definitions) matter?
htt
p:/
/id
erel
elib
rary
.wee
bly
.co
m/t
he-
tru
e-st
ory
-of-
the-
3-l
ittl
e-p
igs.
htm
l
Looking for a centre that holds
“…we no longer possess a home; we are repeatedly called upon to build and then rebuild one, like the three little pigs of the fairy tale, or we have to carry it along with us on our backs like snails”
(Melucci in Bauman, 2012, p. 22)
Lists as Noah’s ark…
Image credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Noah%27s_Ark_on_Mount_Ararat_by_Simon_de_Myle.jpg
Possibly underlying our anxious search for definitions of “literacy” is an unease that the knowledge maps of the past have, to a large extent, been proven to be fragile (Barnett, 2000) and (possibly) the illegitimate offspring of unsavory liaisons between ideology, context and humanity’s gullibility in believing in promises of unconstrained scientific progress… (Prinsloo, in
press)(also seeGray, 2004; 2014).
Literacy has become our hope for creating a center that holds… As such we experience a “crisis of proposals and a crisis of utopias” (Max-Neef, Elizalde, & Hopenhayn, 1991, p. 1) when “the old is dying and the new cannot be born” (Gramsci, 1971, p. 110).
• “Literacy is a political battleground” (Bishop, 2014, p. 51)
• Critical literacy, then, is learning to read and write as part of the process of becoming conscious of one’s experience as historically constructed within specific power-relations” (Anderson & Irvine, 1993, p. 82)
Literacy through a critical lens
Critical consciousness –“to read the world”
Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactome
I am here…Beginning date: unsureUp to present: 2015Future?
Understanding literacy as embodied, entangled, relational, networked, mediated and mediating context-specific capabilities and choices: A personal journey…
My story of becoming and being
(il)literate*…1948 – eleven years before I was born, the National Party came into power
Image credit: http://espressostalinist.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/europeans-only.jpg
Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid
* Adapted from Prinsloo, O. (2014). Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin : researcher identity and performance. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14415
[(habitus)(capital)]
1956 – the Bantu Education Act of 1955
"There is no place for [the Bantu] in the European community above the level of certain forms of labor ... What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics when it (sic) cannot use it in practice?“ (Hendrik Verwoerd, Minister of Native Affairs)
19
Three years before I was born…
When I was two years old…
Image credit: http://ificould.co.za/human-rights-day-2013-commemorating-the-sharpeville-massacre/
• 69 Black South Africans murdered
• 187 people wounded• African National
Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress banned
When was born in 1959 and classified as
“white” and “European”
Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid
In a town with a siren that went of at 9 pm at night after which everyone who was non-White had to be outside of the boundaries of the town.
In 1961 – South Africa became a Republic – with the
majority of its population not being citizens
In 1965 – I started school – two years earlier than Black
children of the same age. White and Black children had
different syllabi – Black children were taught gardening and
music…
From 1966-1971 – 3 million South Africans resettled in
reserves
Copyright: Paul Prinsloo
I matriculated in 1976
… with Soweto burning with 575 people killed
Image credit: http://kgothatsomanale.blogspot.com/2013/06/soweto-uprising-16-june-1976.html
1976 was also the year my dad died, and I started to waiter and be a petrol attendant to make ends meet…
In 1977 I enrolled …
Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Logo_University_of_Pretoria.PNG
As Afrikaans speaker, I had 19 universities to choose (of which six had Afrikaans as language of tuition) from compared to 2 universities dedicated to colored students, 2 for the exclusive enrollment of Indian students and 6 for the exclusive use of Black students…
25
Acknowledging white privilege and the way it shaped my education and provided me with opportunities is not surrendering to the notion of victimhood and suffering that is prevalent in the much of the current white, Afrikaner discourse. There is a vast difference between recognising the “historic burden of whiteness” and self-abasement or lame apologies (O’Hehir, 2014). Personally, it is impossible and disingenuous to ignore how my race and gender shaped my opportunities, and provided me with social, cultural and economic capital. My race and gender, and the socioeconomic circumstances of my family allowed me to play on a field while many others were excluded from playing. (Also see Bowler, 2014; Crosley-Corcoran, 2014; Gedye, 2014)
Prinsloo (2014)
Literacies
Knowledge
Resources
Tools
Capabilities
Capital
Literacy, agency, & structure – two approaches
Choices
Being agentic as an embodied, entangled, relational, networked, mediated and mediating context-specific capability and choice
The
au
ton
om
ou
s in
div
idu
al
Acting and responding to the world
Literacy through a social cognitive theory lens
“People do not operate as autonomous agents. Nor is their behaviour wholly determined by situational influences. Rather, human functioning is a product of a reciprocal interplay of intrapersonal, behavioural, and environmental determinants.. This triadic interaction includes the exercise of self-influence as part of the causal structure” (Bandura, 2006, p. 165; emphasis added).
Human agency Structural arrangements in a particular context
Human agency Structural arrangements in a particular context
Three modes of agency (Bandura, 2006)
Three modes of agency namely individual, proxy and collective. These three modes do not function separately or independently, but “everyday functioning requires an agentic blend of these three forms of agency” (Bandura, 2006, p. 165)
Proxy agency as being required when “people do not have direct control over conditions that affect their lives… They do so by influencing others who have the resources, knowledge, and means to act on their behalf to secure the outcomes they desire” (Bandura, p. 165; emphasis added)
Individual agency in fluid times…
“Given that individuals are producers as well as products of their life circumstances, they are partial authors of the past conditions that developed them, as well as the future courses their lives take” (p. 165).
Agentic management of fortuity - “People are often inaugurated into new life trajectories, marriages, and careers through fortuitous circumstances” (p. 166)
“They can make chance happen by pursuing an active life that increases the number and type of fortuitous encounters they will experience” (p. 166)
Image credit: http://www.allstaractivities.com/images/soccer-positions.gif
In order to be literate/ a player in the 21st century I need to understand the field, the game, and my position, and
my skills
• Boundaried site• Players have set/
predetermined positions• Rules are predetermined• Written and unwritten
rules• Players have different
skills• What players can do is
determined by their position on the field
• The physical condition of the field impacts play
CAPITAL: What type of “capital” I
have or don’t have • Economic• Cultural• Social• Symbolic
HABITUS: Who and how my past shaped/shapes me:• Genetic makeup• Gender• Race• Socio-economic circumstances• Parental background• Geopolitical location• Educational experiences• Health• The choices I made in the past…• My dispositions• Etc.
These are durable and transposable (Maton, 2012)
In order to be literate in a networked and (un)flat world I need to know…
THE FIELD:How does the field in which I find myself in, shape me?
What/who shapes the field?
Who are the (other) players in the field:• Who are they?• How come they are
shapers?• What are the rules?• Who are the referees?
Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_soccer
Looking at metaliteracy from a field theory (Bourdieu) perspective
The “field” is not a benign, pastoral space, but rather le champ – a battle field, where players have set positions, predetermined paces, specific rules which novice players must learn together with basic skills.
“What players can do, and where they can go during the game, depends on their field position. The actual physical condition of the field (whether it is wet, dry, well grassed or full of potholes), also has an effect on what players can do and this how the game is played” (Thompson, 2012, p. 66)
[(habitus)(capital)] + field = practice/agency
(Maton, 2012, p. 50)
A field theory perspective on agency
My dispositions - how my past and present (and my understanding thereof) shaped and still shape me
The capital that I have acquired in the process (or not)
The field – the context in which I find myself in. This is not a neutral space, but is, itself, shaped by various structures, and agencies of individuals and collectives
My practice/agency and my understanding thereof…
We are not “pre-programmed automatons acting out the implications of our upbringings” (Maton, 2012, p. 50).
Functionings: Things over which I have command –literacies, skills, shaped by choice, habitus, context, need
Capabilities: A selection of functionalities in a particular context, need
Well-being:Being able to make choices (in recognition that choices are constrained by others, values and context)
Critical agency:The freedom to act but also the freedom to question and reassess
A personal understanding: Literacies, agency, well-being – Amartya Sen
Functionings: Things over which I have command –literacies, skills, shaped by choice, habitus, context, need
Capabilities: A selection of functionalities in a particular context, need
Well-being:Being able to make choices (in recognition that choices are constrained by others, values and context)
Critical agency:The freedom to act but also the freedom to question and reassess
A personal understanding: Literacies…
Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactome
I am here…Beginning date: unsureUp to present: 2015
Understanding my researcher literacy as embodied, entangled, relational, networked, mediated and mediating context-specific capabilities and choices: A personal journey…
Understanding the field of becoming and being a researcher
1.The broader higher education context2.The move to digital and networked
identities3.The (changing) rules of performing
research
37
The field: The broader higher education context
Image credit: http://www.socialmediasmarketing.com/
The field: The move to digital and networked identities
I am (somewhere) here…
The field: The rules of performing research• The Unisa context• My performance agreement• Other rules: Not all journals are created equalConcerns about the quality in ‘A’ rated
journalsThe minefield of choosing a journalBreaking into the global North…
Understanding the field of becoming and being a researcher: [(habitus)(capital)] + field = agency
Agentic researcher identity & as plural, dynamic construct…
Researcher identity
How we measure/what we value and who values…
AgeHome language
Researcher performanceRace
Gender
Researcher identity as performance
Location
Health
Culture
THANK YOU
Paul Prinsloo (Prof)Research Professor in Open Distance Learning (ODL)College of Economic and Management Sciences, Office number 3-15, Club 1, Hazelwood, P O Box 392Unisa, 0003, Republic of South Africa
T: +27 (0) 12 433 4719 (office)T: +27 (0) 82 3954 113 (mobile)
[email protected]: paul.prinsloo59
Personal blog: http://opendistanceteachingandlearning.wordpress.com
Twitter profile: @14prinsp