More grappling in the mix

Today I attended the OU Academic Literacies group – an informally arranged group of academics and PhD students who see their research work as being broadly located under the academic literacies research perspective agenda. We were discussing the role, purpose and function of writing in HE. It’s a question I proposed and one that I don’t really understand and I wanted to use the expertise in the room (aka Mary Lea and Theresa Lillis) to illuminate my dull brain on this issue. I came prepared – with my spanking new digital voice recorder, to help with the failing memory and concentration brought about by middle age creeping up on me, and SA treats, springbok biltong, fruit flakes and a vuvuzela for my supervisor (hopefully to act as a mediating tool should the conversation get too rowdy). I came away from the meeting aware that in this context i.e. a British research focused academic environment, asking a simple question like, “What role does writing play in an HE academic context” will not generate a simple response. Maybe I was naïve in my thinking that I would get an articulate and detailed response of how these esteemed academics viewed this topic, one that I believed was fundamental to their core work. Instead our conversation revealed the layers, upon layers of various vantage points that construct how writing is understood in HE. I was reminded of ‘position’ – staking out a position in relation to the theoretical, ideological, or identity (i.e. researcher or practitioner) stance that informs how you approach the question or the lens you select to engage with the topic. I wondered if I really understood what it meant to take an academic literacies perspective on learning, writing and communication practice in HE? I wondered if I had made up my mind about whether I identified as a researcher or practitioner and how my South African identity and history impacted on how I theorised and conceptualised the broader issues associated with my research project. Interestingly and probably rather profoundly – both Theresa and Mary felt that it was very hard for research to be ‘translated’ seamlessly into pedagogic practice and that what is valued or accepted say within an academic literacies perspective is often strongly contested outside of that realm, exposing the ideological and power dynamics always at play. This is an accepted position within the ac lits field, and one pioneered by theorist like Brian Street, which argues and accounts for why one kind of literacy invariably attracts more value and status than another. This isn’t a very comforting conclusion to the imagined ideal I have been cultivating, that my academic literacies research is going to help me make curriculum and pedagogic practices more responsive to student needs. Thanks to my fancy new digital recorder I will be able to reflect retrospectively on the discussion and possibly gain a more refined ‘reading’ of the discussion and maybe, just maybe pinpoint my ‘position’ lurking in the background and waiting to emerge in all its glory.