Pluriversal Literacies Hub

Relational sense-making for now and future worlds

Institutions forming the hub:

University of Glasgow
University of Sheffield
Monash University
UNESCO UIL
GalGael
University of Indiana, Bloomington
Brock University
Universidad de Los Andes
University of Malawi

Hub Members:

Mia Perry
Myf Doughty
Lisa Bradley
Marcela Ramos
Diane R. Collier
Sharifa Abdulla
Lisa Grocott
Jennifer Rowsell
Gehan Macleod
Rakhat Zholdoshalieva
Carmen Medina
Nancy Palacios

Hub’s interests and Background

The whole world is communicating: From water movements to leaf patterns; from social organisations to spiritual sensations. And the whole world is intricately connected: What happens in one place affects what happens in another. However, most people and educational systems do not learn the literacies to engage with, decode, or make sense from these relations. 

Recognising these relationships as critical to the work of developing sustainable futures, this thematic hub explores pluriversal literacies as a path that shapes our collective capacity to take action.  

The Pluriversal Literacies hub brings together experts and learners from across geographies and disciplines to identify and share urgent practices of “reading” and making sense with our world. We work from the understanding of sharing a pluriverse; in other words, a world in which there are many “universals”. Although we share a common earth, our relationships and ways of being in and with the world are not singular, and do not assume a common goal, value system, or set of truths.

We work through three interdependent perspectives on what it would take to forge more sustainable human-world relationships:

Literacies

Extending beyond print literacy to engage with the sign-systems relevant to the context of learning. This could include the land, water, sky, body, materials, faith, among others.

Co-Design

Collaborating with materials, imagination, and each other by being in conversation with ideas, senses, emotions, place, and possible futures.

Geography

Geography: Harnessing knowledges and practices directly addressing the earth’s systems and our human patterns and practices that relate to it.

Hub Projects

BOOK

Towards pluriversal literacies: When words are not enough for sustainable futures

by Professor Mia Perry

This book represents a key text in Pluriversal Literacies. It traces the geopolitical history of literacies studies to foreground both the current dominance of print text as well as the urgency and potential of a pluriversal literacies approach. The book lays out a theoretical foundation for literacies as fundamental semiotic practices that enable humans to engage, interact with, and make meaning with the world. And finally, the book introduces and explores specific literacies (including print, faith, bodes, land, water, and materials) and positions them in relation to a broad pluriversal approach to literacies education.

Drawing together research that spans the global north and south, this book connects the disciplines of literacies studies with semiotics, philosophy, sustainability studies, and geopolitics. The book critiques the prevailing norm of print (“schooled”) literacy as insufficient for an equitable and sustainable world. But more importantly, it lays out an alternative vision and framework for literacies education that shifts what it means to be literate in the many places and practices of our world.

Read more

Co-design workshop about individuals sense-making their lived experience. “The Worlds we Live in” Workshop designed by Wendy Ellerman, Kate McEntee, Hannah Korsmeyer and Lisa Grocott. Image courtesy WonderLab, Monash University.

Metaphoric Thinking “What would be the Trojan Horse to get people to care about X…?” designed by Mai Kobori and Lisa Grocott. Image courtesy WonderLab, Monash University.

Surfacing emotions to direct future actions. Climate Crisis Workshop designed by Alli Edwards, Ilya Fridman and Lisa Grocott. Image courtesy WonderLab, Monash University.

Co-design workshop about working together differently. Intrinsic Motivation Workshop designed by Hannah Korsmeyer and Lisa Grocott. Image courtesy WonderLab, Monash University.

Members