Colonized Literacies

Why might some smart students struggle with, or even resist the writerly role? How true is that question of students from postcolonial backgrounds? How distinct is this population of non-native English Language learners? This book examines the postcolonial condition as an interpretive framework for interrogating the writing challenges of students from formerly colonized countries studying in U.S. institutions. The book argues that experiencing literacy as domination contributes to stifled creativity and reduced overall composing confidence, resulting in the incidence of writing struggle and resistance. Using an interdisciplinary approach that draws on literacy theory, composition pedagogy, colonial history, and postcolonial theory, the book demonstrates how Enlightenment ideas about literacy converged with colonialist ideologies of knowledge and power to install restrictive institutional literacies in colonized spaces. In arguing this way, the book does not seek to pathologize students from this background. Instead, the aim is to draw attention to background as a powerful context that should inform workable instructional strategies with this population.