Meanings of literacy in the intersection of religious and secular practices: examining local and global changes in a Brazilian bairro

Abstract

Abstract This article contrasts data from two ethnographic studies carried out at different points in time with working class families in Trombetas, a bairro on the outskirts of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The first study was conducted from 1988 to 1991, and the second in 2009. We develop two main themes: (1) the changing meanings of literacy in relation to the shift from Catholicism to Neo-Pentecostalism; and (2) the growing use of new technologies and multimodal means of communication in association with religious secular and commercial practices. For the first theme, we employ the notion of indexicality as a way of analyzing the changes taking place in this context. We point to the significant presence of Evangelical churches in Trombetas in 2009, and to the specific ways in which the reading and writing practices of some members of two families were bound up with religious beliefs and identities. In addressing the second theme, we draw attention to the meanings associated with the new technologies and the multimodal resources drawn upon by different family members in 2009. The article foregrounds the advantages that accrue from adopting a Literacy Studies perspective – one that focuses on the ways in which research participants, of different generations, actively pursue their own purposes (religious, secular or commercial), drawing on the modes of communication available to them and one that reveals the diversity and complexity of actual practices on the ground in local settings such as that of Trombetas.