Literacy as Cross-cultural Communication in Colonial and Contemporary South African ContextsMastin Prinsloo, Department of Adult Education and Extra-Mural Studies, University of Capetown, South Africa. AbstractThe paper focuses on literacy as cross-cultural communication and draws on two studies: one of 19th century mission station literacy practices and their impact on indigenous people in South Africa, and the other a contemporary study of the literacies of unschooled people in contemporary urban contexts in South Africa. The first study is used to highlight features of the cross-cultural dynamics in the contemporary context of the second study. The teaching of reading and writing to indigenous people in 19th century South Africa was shaped by the larger discursive frame of the 'civilizing mission' which constructed indigenous cultures as the negative 'other' of British culture. The results included the production of a 'loyal' elite, mission-trained class of Africans whose hybridized identities included a passionate commitment to 'progress' and schooling. Assumptions of cultural and cognitive deficit as characteristics of unschooled people in contemporary South Africa repeat some of the assumptions of the 'civilizing mission' and encounter a diversified population which belies the charactersitics assigned to it. |
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