Mass literacy campaigns: a pedagogy of hope?

Abstract

I acknowledge the Aboriginal leaders and community activists who I have been working with for many years now, who have supported the work that I will discuss here. This includes Chairperson, Pat Anderson, and the board of directors of the Lowitja Aboriginal Health Research Institute, who seed-funded this; the chairperson of our Aboriginal Adult Literacy Campaign steering committee, Donna Ah Chee, who is the CEO of the Aboriginal Medical Service in Alice Springs, the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress; and Jack Beetson, a Ngemba man from NSW who is our campaign coordinator. I also acknowledge Deborah Durnan, my wife and my colleague, who is here today, and who is the senior technical adviser on the literacy campaign. First, although I have a PhD in adult education - which I did by distance learning in the 1990s through Latrobe University in Melbourne - I do not refer to myself as an LLN practitioner, or a literacy studies expert. My field is popular education. This is the term used within the field of adult education to refer to the adult education work which is done in connection with left-wing, socially progressive political and social movements. This term, popular education, while still not widely used in Australia, is common in Latin America, Africa and Asia, and it comes originally from the idea of 'the people'. Popular education is 'peoples' education', and it has a long and proud history, though at different times it has been known by different names.