Dr John Postill

Knowledge, literacy and media among the Iban of Sarawak: a reply to Maurice Bloch

Published as Postill, J . (2003) ‘Knowledge, literacy, and media among the Iban of Sarawak: a reply to Maurice Bloch', Social Anthropology (11) 1: 79-100.

NB: for citations and quotes please refer to published version's pagination.

Abstract

Maurice Bloch has rejected Jack Goody's ‘autonomous' theory of literacy for being deterministic and Eurocentric. The Merina of Madagascar , says Bloch, have adapted literacy to local purposes. Rather than altering their (oral) knowledge system, bringing it closer to European models, literacy has actually extended this system. In this article I apply Bloch's insight to another Austronesian people: the Iban of Sarawak. While agreeing that his indigenist, ‘ideological' approach is helpful in some cases (e.g. Christian prayer books that extend pagan notions of ancestry), it can also blind us to the wider realities of developing countries where literacy is both a ubiquitous ideal and an unevenly distributed resource. To overcome the ideological-autonomous impasse, I suggest (a) closer cooperation between literacy and media anthropology and (b) more geopolitical rigour when comparing social units.

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