How to write if you cannot write: collaborative literacy in a Gambian village

Abstract

"According to the Department of State for Education of Africa’s smallest mainland country, ‘The Gambia has a low literacy rate, estimated at 46% overall and only 28% for women’ (DoSE 2006: 44). In this paper, I attempt to reveal certain aspects of the social, cultural and economic complexity behind these numbers by presenting an ethnographic analysis of a small telephone booklet in use by a low-literate rural young man, named L. I want to problematise the binary distinction between literates and illiterates, and argue that ‘illiterates’ like L often meaningfully engage in literacy practices in their daily lives