Mobile Literacies: Moving from the Word to the World

Abstract

In this chapter, we explore and critique the concept of ‘mobile literacies’ and consider how it has been interpreted through this book in relation to tablet use. We find that, rather than offering another definition of literacy within new digital environments, it is a paradoxical concept with flexible interpretations. While it may suggest unlimited boundaries with new technologies, it can in fact be limited by both its creators and users. Throughout the book the authors have provided grounded insights through complex research studies that allow us to problematise the term mobile literacies. The chapters explore challenges arising from theorisations of relationships between bodies, texts and devices entangled in widely varied social contexts. Each study provides a lens through which literacy practices can be viewed as ways of making meaning in a technologically mediated world.

Reading the world always precedes reading the word, and reading the word implies continually reading the world. As I suggested earlier, this movement from the word to the world is always present; even when the spoken word flows from our reading of the world. In a way, however, we can go further and say that reading the word is not preceded merely by reading the world, but by a certain form of writing it or rewriting it, that is, of transforming it by means of conscious, practical work. (Freire and Macedo 1987: 23)