ELP Seminar Series 2021-22

 

Dr Mia Perry, University of Glasgow

Pluriversal literacies: Towards a literacy education that can sustain the world

Literacies refer to the meaning-making practices we use to access and interact with the world, through texts, materials, and sign systems. Much more than reading and writing words, literacies are the practices with which we navigate all information and thus, they inform all our actions. Everything in the world is communicative after all; and all things draw upon signs.  The concept of pluriversal foregrounds diversity and the multiplicity of ways of knowing and being, in contrast to notions of universality.

 ‘Schooled’ literacy education assumes one way of being literate: via the printed word. Although outdated in educational research terms, this notion of literacy predominates most contemporary educational practice and policy contexts worldwide, where reading and writing remain the universal mode. This presentation presents a critique of current literacy norms, by exploring the extent to which this educational model determines and erases ways of being and relating to the world.

From here, the presentation will introduce alternative perspectives and possible approaches to literacy that shift what it means to be literate in the many places and practices of our vulnerable world. As a mainstay of education and tool of social change, literacy is inseparable from policy and practices of sustainability and equity – at local and international levels. This session asks is grounded in the question, what literacies do our learners need today?

 

About the speaker

Dr Mia Perry is Senior Lecturer in Literacies and Arts Education for Sustainability at the University of Glasgow. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and co-Director of the Sustainable Futures Global Research Network. She specialises in literacies and learning, arts and cultural production, and postcritical methodologies of research and teaching across disciplinary, sectoral, and geographical boundaries. Mia’s work in education spans school, community, public, and digital contexts. She is particularly interested in the interplay of humans and environments, the role of creativity and play in learning, and perspectives in research that account for decolonial and plural views and ways of inquiry and meaning making.

 

First published: 5 October 2021

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