The new literacies as placed resources

Abstract

I develop the argument in this paper that the new literacies of screen-based and internet communication work in particular ways in low technology and socially distinctive African contexts. I claim that study of the new literacies in such contexts illuminates the ways that they work more generally, which is often obscured by much that is taken for granted in discussions of the new literacies in ‘technology-rich ’ contexts. I examine data from a restructured, high technology workplace in Cape Town, and from examples of young children’s school encounters with computers in Khayelitsha Cape Town, to develop and illustrate my argument. I examine how one can take account of the impact of the new technologies associated with the new literacies in ways that do not revert to a decontextualised and deterministic analysis. I argue, that despite their global impact, the new literacies are best studied as resources situated by social practices that have local effect. I conclude that the new literacies don’t have an intrinsic resourcefulness. Whether they offer opportunities for particular users is something that has to be established by located research, not assumed, in contrast with research models that start from concerns around digital divides and offer solutions along the lines of technology transfer.

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