Local Literacies: Reading and Writing in One Community by David Barton and Mary Hamilton (review)

“Literacy is primarily something people do.” This clause is no less profound today than when David Barton and Mary Hamilton used it to open Local Literacies: Reading and Writing in One Community in 1998. Routledge re-published the text in 2012 as part of the Routledge Linguistics Classics, and rightly so. As Deborah Brandt notes in the new foreword for the text, Local Literacies “changed the direction of literacy research, providing overwhelming material evidence of how local contexts matter to the achievement of literacy and how cultural practices give literacy its point and meaning” (xiii). Barton and Hamilton were clear in their purpose “of challenging discourses of literacy that are dominant and simplifying” (xiv) and in explicating their ethnographic methods. Barton and Hamilton had three goals in this research project: to describe literacy practices in a particular community, explore literacy as a method of sense-making, and examine literacy’s relationship to quality of life. The intentional ethnographic methods they employed allowed them to achieve each of these goals.

The text contains fourteen chapters plus an afterword, divided among three sections. Part I, which holds chapters one through four, establishes the parameters and underlying theory that guides this foray into literacy. Chapter One: Understanding Literacy as Social Practice has become something of a mainstay in literacy research for the six propositions that Barton and Hamilton aver as foundational to their approach to literacy. First, literacy means social practices: “Literacy practices are the general cultural ways of utilizing written language which people draw upon in their lives” (6). Second, literacy is context dependent, meaning that different contexts or “domains” require or hold or perhaps generate different literacies and literacy expectations. Power is key to literacies, which ones are practiced, privileged, visible, and dominant. Fourth, literacy practices are richly layered in that they are “purposeful and embedded in broader social goals and cultural practices” (6). History is part of the layering of literacy practice. Traditions, ideology, and culture feed the literacy practices of any community, and such practices “are as fluid, dynamic and changing as the lives of the societies of which they are a part” (12). Finally because societies are not static, literacy practices must be dynamic. New literacy practices must be learned “through processes of informal learning and sense making as well as formal education and training” (12). These six propositions guide Barton and Hamilton’s framework for exploring and interpreting the literacy practices of a particular community in Lancaster, England, in 1990.

Chapters two and three are devoted exclusively to preparing the reader to understand and appreciate the literacy practices of the Lancaster community. In adhering to the carefully defined propositions of literacy, Barton and Hamilton devote considerable effort to explaining how literacy has developed in Lancaster, the kinds of influences that have shaped literacy practices since the Romans ruled the area (Chapter 2) and the state of literacy practices, to the extent there is moment of stasis, in Lancaster, 1990 (Chapter 3). The descriptions, photos, and maps from Lancaster, 1990, document a time prior to mass use of computers and portable computing devices, but the lessons learned continue to resonate. Information in these two chapters is frequently referenced in subsequent chapters.

In addition to detailing a rich description of literacy, Barton and Hamilton’s Local Literacies is known for its exemplary ethnographic methods, which are carefully outlined in Chapter 4. This particular chapter is a must read for any student or researcher interested in learning ethnography. Ethnographies take place in “real-world settings” and offer authentic and “holistic” descriptions of the events and practices found in those settings. Ethnographers employ various methods; in this study, Barton and Hamilton interviewed adults at a local college, surveyed the “Springside” (pseudonym) community in Lancaster, used case studies of a number of individuals, and collaborated with community members to review interview data, observations, and interpretations. Interpretation is central to ethnographic research, and Barton and Hamilton...