Thompson, Sally ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0534-9394 (2026) Literacy mediation: care, power and solidarity. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 45 (2). pp. 127-142. ISSN 0260-1370

Abstract

This article is based on a critical ethnographic study of literacy mediation practices in a small rural community in Australia. Literacy mediation is a social practice in which a person reads and writes for and with people with lower literacy to allow them to achieve a social purpose. Literacy mediation emerged as an affective, relational practice that was motivated by feelings of compassion and solidarity towards people rendered vulnerable through low literacy. The gendered and affective nature of literacy mediation accounted for its invisibility as a form of professional practice within education and community services systems based on individualistic ontologies of literacy. The study found that community organisations played a vital role in providing literacy mediation for marginalised members of the community, who might otherwise struggle to achieve social purposes that are increasingly textually dense and technologically enabled. This article draws on practice theory and feminist care ethics. It suggests that recognising literacy as a form of sophisticated care labour could be emancipatory for people who lack the literacy skills to participate in work, civic and social life and also for those who surround and support them.

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