Anthropology of Reading and Writing Final

Case Study 1

The Kaluli people are indigenous to Papua New Guinea.

From what did the Kaluli people develop their religious beliefs around writing

The WW2 airplanes that passed over Papua New Guinea would drop shipments. Some items contained writing that no one could interpret. The Kaluli believed these were gifts from the Gods and started to respect writing.

What are evidentials and who used them

The Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea used evidentials in gaining literacy.

Evidentials are a grammatical category that English does not have.

In some languages this is an obligatory form of marking and you can’t have a verb without an evidential.

It is usually a suffix that marks the source of your knowledge and what you are saying.

(Anything that you say has to be backed by and show the source of your information)

What is Language socialization

When you gain literacy you don't just learn grammar and spelling but you learn a way of life.

Not just learning how to speak, but learning ideas about the world and its values.

The Kaluli exprienced this and in their language socialization they were taught they had little power and were uncivilized.

What are Language Ideologies

Shared beliefs and assumptions about languages, often justifying inequality.

Recognition that language is a social construct that is culturally constructed.

Grammar is not unpolitical

How did Christianity play a role in the language socialization of the Kaluli

Christian Missionaries pushed their supremacy ideology through patterns in vocabulary.

ex. The missionaries introduced versions of their verbs such as “pray'“, and introduced words for “God” and “Adam” to the Kaluli vocabulary

How did literacy impact linguistic practices for the Kaluli

There were changes in interactions

Pre Missionaries: conversations included turn-taking, collective participation, and mutual respect

Post Missionaries: Christian speaking has a single speaker who controls the floor and has all the relevant and correct information

How do the Kaluli people view books

As powerful and authoritative sources of information that can shape the behaviour of others

Since Kalulis put much weight behind them, early colonial contact used books as instruments of control and authority

What did Schieffelin focus on with the Kalulis

new communicative practices that emerged as a result of interactions between Kaluli people and missionaries

What ideas were challenged for the Kalulis

Their ideas about truth, knowledge, and authority were challenged and changed, affecting their social structures

What did the Christian mission emphasize

They wanted the Kalulis to rethink their past and distance themselves from it (Become more modern, or Western)

Example: The missionaries posed the term “before” to be systematically opposed to "today, now", creating a contrast

This was also a gendered practice (women's beliefs and activities were connected with the past, while men's beliefs and actions are seen as forward and progressive)

What did the Kalulis originally believe about truth and knowledge

They were very concerned with the source and truth of what they and what others know.

Truth is always proven and linguistically marked.

Before missionaries, what the "fathers" said was known and true

What was The Bosavi Mission

A Christian mission in the Bosavi region of Papua New Guinea.

They established primary schools.

How did Kaluli villages change post-missionaries

Kaluli people eventually gave up traditional ceremonies and practices

New roles were established such as pastor and deacon.

(Power was given to those Kaluli who participated in the mission, maybe taking these jobs)

What is Tok Pisin

an English-based creole used as a commercial and administrative language in Papua New Guinea

Kaluli who learned Tok Pisin could work as interpreters for the mission

Kaluli Booklets

Those who became literate in Tok Pisin and Kaluli, and were part of the mission effort, created printed booklets in a new variety of the language

ex. A booklet on malaria was produced

What was a common motif in the Kaluli Booklets

1. the past versus the present/future

(depicted Kaluli life as backwards and wrong, putting it in constrast with European ways which were new and good)

What are 4 examples what evidentials mark

(used by speakers to formally mark the source or evidence for the basis of their assertions)

Learned by:

1. direct experience

2. speech reported to them

3. common knowledge

4. inference made from other secondary evidence

What were the literacy primers developed by the missionaries

The literacy primers were texts designed to teach basic reading and writing skills.

They reconstructed social identities by contrasting traditional Kaluli activities with new ways of life organized around the mission.

Produced by Norma Briggs

The mission produced a total of five primers.

What did the primers contain

Each page contained one letter and usually two pictures of animals, objects, and actions.

Primers featured gardening, hunting, and house building but lacked any mention of traditional ceremonies important to the Kaluli (because they were viewed by the mission as counter to Christian life)

Case Study 2

The Salasaca people are indigenous to Ecuador

Their language is called Quichua (which can be considered an ethnicity and a language)

What is one conflict with the Salasacas

Whites from neighboring cities resent the Salasacas for holding the nation back from allegedly higher, European/North American ideals of progress and civility.

For that reason, many stories are circulated that the Salasacas are murderers and “savages”

What is the first ethnographic example that Wogan uses

San Gonzalo and witchcraft

The Salasacas take San Gonzalo’s witchcraft very seriously.

Who is San Gonzalo

A Catholic saint with a frightening appearance

A martyr who died while preaching the Christian faith

The Salasacas believed San Gonzalo’s book has the power of life and death.

What is San Gonzalo’s book

The Salasacas believe that the book can form reality.

A client hires the holder of the book to write in another name (victim). In belief, San Gonzalo haunts the victim and causes them misfortune, or they could die.

The victim can pay to get their name cut out of the book.

Why do the Salasacas put stock in San Gonzalo’s book

Because the Salasacas understand that documentation is intimately connected with power.

Some think that the Salasaca’s can’t grasp writing’s “real” nature, but beliefs in witchcraft did not disappear with the gain of literacy.

Who held all of the Salasacas documents

The church kept all documentation (birth and marriage certificates, land titles etc.)

The church controlled whether someone exists.

What is Wogan’s second ethnographic example

Weaving pamphlet

Why did the Salasacas consider weaving and writing to be similar

They are both difficult to learn and require repetitive hand movements.

Who is Alonso

Wogan stayed with Alonso during his ethnography.

Alonso did weavings.

Tourists often referred to Alonso’s weaving as a type of writing.

What is Weaving to the Salasacas

Both weaving and writing offer important information and narratives—a type of archive in cloth.

What do the Salasacas believe about writing and speaking

Writing is ephemeral, speaking is permanent.

What is Wogan’s weaving pamphlet

Wogan created a pamphlet about Alonso’s weavings to generate publicity because Alonso was trying to sell his weavings.

It included typed up summaries of Alonso’s designs.

Why was Wogan’s weaving pamphlet sucessful

1. Offered a way to remember the meaning of each design

2. Lent anthropological validation to Alonso's weaving

3. It is a way to understand the weaving if you don’t speak Spanish

Case Study 3

The Magar people of Nepal

Water and electricity are sparse

The ethinic group is known as Magars

Their first language is a dialect of Nepali

They fit into the Hindu caste system

What was the state of Education for the Magars

Very few underwent schooling, but some sons did, not daughters.

Some men learned to read and write after enlisting in the military.

During the 1960s, a national education program was instituted, and they got their first school.

The first school was for boys only.

Women have significantly lower levels of education.

In the 1980s, informal female literacy classes were offered in the evenings.

What are two examples of gender ideologies for the Magars

Menstruating women and girls were considered “untouchable” and could not go inside the main house, touch males, or go near the temple.

Women were also once expected to wash their husbands’ feet every morning and drink the water as a sign of respect and worship.

What is one example of social transformation within the Magars

Between 1980 and 2000, more and more villagers could afford battery-operated radios and began listening to programs on "rural women's development”, challenging gender roles

What is Ahearn’s main ethnographic example

Love letters sent between people in the Magar village

(the correspondence of Shila and Vajra)

What did writing love letters allow people to do

Negotiate power and agency in their relationship

Share views on life and love

Express emotions they could not express verbally

What did sending and receiving of love letters marked someone as

A “developed” person as opposed to a "backward" individual.

What was a key trope in love letters in Nepal

Young men attempt to persuade their sweethearts to consent to their proposals of marriage.

(According to established gender ideologies, men had the power to initiate actions or make suggestions, while women could only consent or object to them)

What is Ahearn’s main interest

The social effects of literacy and how the Magar people went under a social transition, especially women.

What are two examples of gendered practices of literacy for the Magars

Men were literate, so they

1. Were able to participate in social processes surrounding documents like birth, death, or citizenship papers

2. Were the only villagers involved in the military (they would send letters home)

What helped education rates for the Magar people

As Nepal escaped oppressive rule, the government began to accept aid from the US and Europe, much of it was for setting up an educational system.

In 1983, the school in the village became free, so families began to send their daughters as well.

Challenges to female literacy classes in the Magar school

Ahearn taught female literacy classes, numeracy and english.

Challenges:

1. Attendance was sporadic

2. There was an extremely wide range of abilities in the class

3. The kerosene lamp often malfunctioned and was never bright enough

4. Many men would not allow their daughters to leave the house at night

What was the youth club in Nepal

The temporary closure of universities led young Magar men to form a youth club.

It became an important new social space for literacy development.

Reading material like magazines were circulated.

These practices eventually moved to local tea shops whcih were more open to women.

Case Study 4

The Tamil region of South India

(Tamil Nadu) One of the poorest parts of India.

They gained independence from British Rule in 1947

The population is close to 1.5 billion people.

Who was Karuppiah

An activist who led study groups of women.

What ethnographic example does Cody first offer

The Dalit community of Katrampatti (untouchables, lowest of the castes) had nowhere to cremate their dead.

Karuppiah thought literacy could make a different in the dispute over land.

He helped them petition the state.

What is the Arivoli Iyakkam

A mass literacy campaign in southern India, aimed to empower marginalized villagers.

The “Light of Knowledge,” or “Enlightenment,” movement

Literacy activists worked for the Arivoli Iyakkam in the name of enlightenment, citizenship, and development.

Literacy activists believed teaching everyone to read and write would lead to India’s “true independence”.

What did Arivoli Iyakkam activists say literacy would do

Give people social and political power and allow them to participate in their own citizenship.

Literacy helps to solve problems.

Illiteracy was seen as an undesirable social identity.

What does the thumbprint represent in South India

The thumbprint notes illiteracy, carrying connotations of ignorance and even criminality

Seen as a sign of a person who is living in the past.

What is the example of The Neighbour from Cody

Cody’s neighbour during the ethnography wanted to apply for a ration card.

He was illiterate and could not fill out a form on his own.

He had to pay fifty rupees to have an out-of-town vendor fill out the form.

He was then essentially scammed by the guy he paid, and had to get another form and pay again, asking a favour of an acquaintance to fill it out for him.

The whole process ended up taking a very long time.

Who are still illiterate in South India today

The most socially depressed, the more poor, and rates tend to be gendered.

Lower castes.

Citizenship and South India

Illiteracy was placed as in the past and outside of citizenship.

Now to be a modern person in India, you should be literate, and that makes you a citizen.

The act of literacy gives you the rights that a citizen gains as part of the Indian state, and gives you a sense of agency.

Why is the Arivoli Iyakkam called the “second independence struggle”

The first struggle was liberating Indians from British rule.

Now Indians can be liberated from the oppression of the caste system through literacy.

Why is the idea of literacy in South India supported by some and hated by others

Literacy can be used to escape the fate of being at the bottom of the caste hierarchy.

So, the idea is very attractive to those at the bottom of the pyramid.

And, the idea is refuted by those at the top because it threatens their superiority.

What was translated into Tamil to be performed

Plays were translated into the language and performed

1. King Lear

2. A Doll’s House

3. Les Miserables

Translating was hard because many works were outside of their cultural context (ex. for a rural Indian farmer).

How were play performances translated in Tamil (South India)

Works for the performances were initially translated into High Tamil but eventually translated into low Tamil.

The people attending these performances never learned high Tamil because that would have been taught in formal schools, which many rural farmers never went to.

Then, transformed into a spoken form of Tamil that was more casual (Written down in a way where you can tell it is meant to be read).

How is Tamil a diglossia situation

Because of the existence of High Tamil and low Tamil.

What you speak is stigmatized and judged negatively (low Tamil).

What is the Makkal Vacippu Iyakkam

the People's Reading Movement

(an outgrowth of the broader Arivoli Iyakkam “Enlightenment Movement)

What did the Makkal Vacippu Iyakkam produce

Activists collected and translated literature from around the world (folk tales and proverbs). Texts were published as pamphlets for reading in villages. Pamphlets were designed for people who had limited or no formal education.

They also held public readings, like a dramatic performance, where volunteers would animate a text and an audience would listen.