Rethinking Literacy during the Nahda

Abstract

Abstract This chapter uses methodological approaches from the field of literacy studies to explore nahda texts and literacies as situated, contextual practices engaged in by a wide variety of Egyptians during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This approach stems from the notion that literacies (in the plural) are practices—some oral, some written—that could be pursued by anyone, regardless of a person’s ability to read or write. Likewise, textual sources themselves had “many lives” as one locale within larger networks of textual interactions that served diverse audiences. From this vantage point, this chapter uses handwritten petitions as a case study to trace how texts were deployed throughout Egyptian society, well beyond the literate elite. Sources such as these petitions—which sat at the nexus of the oral and written—can be particularly helpful as we investigate the complex negotiations underway in the modern period, as more people became interested in social reforms, economic advancement, and political movements. When we also incorporate an awareness of the roles that women, working classes, and rural communities played in textual practices, we can trace how ideas not only filtered through society but also were adapted to new uses along the way.