D. Barton & U. Papen - Anthropology of Writing

The Anthropology of Writing
Also available from Continuum
Discourses of Endangerment, Alexandre Duchene and Monica Heller

Rethinking Idiomaticity: A Usage-based Approach, Stefanie Wulff
Understanding Textually
Mediated Worlds
Edited by
David Barton
and
Uta Papen
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David Barton and Uta Papen 2010
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Contents
List of Contributors vii

Preface ix
Part I: The Anthropology of Writing: Writing as Social and

Cultural Practice
Chapter One What Is the Anthropology of Writing? 3
David Barton and Uta Papen
Chapter Two Writing Acts: When Writing Is Doing 33
Batrice Fraenkel
Part II: Writing in the Workplace Institutional Demands

Chapter Three Updating a Biomedical Database: Writing,
Reading and Invisible Contribution 47
David Pontille
Chapter Four Eruptions of Interruptions: Managing Tensions
between Writing and Other Tasks in a Textualized
Childcare Workplace 67
Karin Tusting
Chapter Five Tracing Cows: Practical and Administrative
Logics in Tension? 90
Nathalie Joly
Part III: Writing by Individuals and Institutions

Chapter Six Vernacular Writing on the Web 109
David Barton
Chapter Seven Keeping a Notebook in Rural Mali: A Practice
in the Making 126
Assatou Mbodj-Pouye
vi Contents
Chapter Eight Writing in Healthcare Contexts: Patients,

Power and Medical Knowledge 145
Uta Papen
Part IV: Historical Perspectives

Chapter Nine Edwardian Postcards: Illuminating Ordinary
Writing 169
Julia Gillen and Nigel Hall
Chapter Ten Lawful and Unlawful Writings in Lyon in the
Seventeenth Century 190
Anne Broujon
Chapter Eleven Sexuality in Black and White: Instructions to
Write and Scientia Sexualis in the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Century 214
Philippe Artires
Afterword 226
Brian Street
Index 233
List of Contributors
Philippe Artires, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.

David Barton, Lancaster University.
Anne Broujon, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.
Batrice Fraenkel, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.
Julia Gillen, Lancaster University.
Nigel Hall, Manchester Metropolitan University.
Nathalie Joly, AgrosupDijon/French National Institute for Agronomic
Research UR, 718.
Assatou Mbodj-Pouye, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales,
Paris.
Uta Papen, Lancaster University.
David Pontille, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.
Brian Street, Kings College, London.
Karin Tusting, Lancaster University.
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Preface
This is a book about the study of writing from a cultural and social
perspective. Writing is of course not a new topic of research. Neither
is the understanding of writing as a social practice a new idea. What is
referred to Literacy Studies or New Literacy Studies (NLS) is nowadays
a well established tradition of research developed in Britain and North
America, but drawn on and further developed by researchers in many
other countries and regions. Writing research, as much as other academic
study, however, tends to develop within more or less closely connected
research communities. Such communities, as valuable as they are, can
also limit the degree of intellectual stimulation and development that is
possible. As scholars, we tend to like the familiarity gained from working
within a known field or discourse. But we also feel the need to extend
our knowledge and ideas beyond that of those whose work we know and
frequently refer to. Language, however, more often than not limits
our ability to experience research from other countries and traditions.
Academic communities are in part a result of language differences and
the limited ability we all have to read books and articles in languages
not our own.
The present book has two aims. First, it seeks to broaden the focus of
(New) Literacy Studies by reframing it as the anthropology of writing.
Secondly, it intends to break some boundaries that result from linguistic
differences and from the tendency to stay within ones known field of
experience. It brings together two research traditions on writing: the
Anthropology of Writing developed in France, and the (New) Literacy
Studies, originating in Britain and North America. Over the past
25 years, the French and the British traditions have evolved separately
with different theoretical and disciplinary traditions, and there has
been little exchange of expertise and cross-referencing of work done
within the other tradition. Francophone research on writing is virtually
unknown in Britain and Northern America and Anglophone researchers
x Preface
are barely known in the Francophone world. Beginning in 2006, a

dialogue between researchers from both countries began to develop.
The present book is one amongst other outcomes of this collaboration.
Its main goal is to foster such dialogue and to open up the work by
French researchers to the English-speaking public.
As the editors of the book, working with colleagues from France and
French-speaking Canada has been a fascinating discovery for us offering
much intellectual stimulation, which we would like to share with others.
The French tradition of writing research is similar enough to allow
for mutual understanding. Yet it is also sufficiently different from our
work to offer us many opportunities for learning. Bringing these two
traditions together, the present publication is intended to allow readers
not only to explore the similarities in both academic traditions, but to
compare cross-culturally and historically the role of writing in different
societies.
The idea for this book was born prior to a visit of five French researchers
to Lancaster in 2008. Initial contacts between the Lancaster Literacy
Research Centre, home of the editors and the English colleagues
present in the book, and French researchers of writing, go back to a
summer school on literacy practices that the Literacy Research Centre
organized in 2006 and which was attended by one of the French research-
ers. In the following year, in June 2007, the French research group
Anthropology of Writing at the Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences
Sociales in Paris, organized a conference Ecriture et literacy: the consti-
tution of a research field in Great Britain and France. The two editors
of this book presented their work at this conference. It was shortly after
this visit that we first began to play with the idea of the publication of
Francophone and Anglophone works on literacy. Our ideas became
much more concrete in the months prior to a one day meeting on
Ethnographies of Literacy: an Anglo-French dialogue organized by
the Lancaster Literacy Research Centre in May 2008. This meeting was
organized under the auspices of the Linguistic Ethnography Forum, a
Special Interest Group of the British Association of Applied Linguistics.
Five members of the Anthropology of Writing research group took part
in the event. Papers presented at the meeting provided the initial drafts
for the chapters in this book. In the months after this event, these
papers were revised and translated into French. We are grateful to the
British Association of Applied Linguistics and Lancaster University for
the support they provided to the meeting. We are particularly grateful
Preface xi
to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of Lancaster University and to

the Yves Hervouet Fund for supporting the translation of four French
papers for this book.
Funding from the British Council, as part of its Alliance Franco-
British Partnership programme allowed a series of visits between the
British and French contributors, leading to discussions which provided
the groundwork for the presentation of both traditions in Chapter
One of this book. The funding also enabled doctoral students from
both sides to present their work to the two groups. Collaboration
between the Literacy Research Centre and the Anthropology of
Writing group is ongoing. A further publication, a special issue of the
French journal Langage et Socit is in preparation, containing articles
by British researchers.
This book would not have been written had it not been for the
enthusiasm and energy of the group of people who became contribu-
tors of this volume. We shared with them many stimulating discussions
and debates. We would particularly like to thank Mary Hamilton, Carmen
Lee, Assatou Mbodj-Pouye, David Pontille and Karin Tusting for their
comments on Chapter One. We also need to thank the two translators,
Karin Vincent-Jones and Mike Hanson, for their excellent translations
of the four chapters that were originally written in French. Our special
thanks go to Jessica Abrahams, the research administrator of the Literacy
Research Centre, whose many often invisible contributions to our
work too often remains unacknowledged.
David Barton
Uta Papen
Part I
The Anthropology of Writing:

Writing as Social and
Cultural Practice
Chapter One
What Is the Anthropology of Writing?

David Barton and Uta Papen
Introduction
Writing is an everyday communicative practice which pervades our

lives, at individual as well as societal level. Given the omnipresence of
the written word, research into the role of written language in everyday
communication is at the heart of understanding contemporary forms
of social interaction, between institutions and communities as well as
between individuals. A range of new technologies have led people to
develop extensive new writing practices. These new ways of writing are
central to how we work and live, to how governments communicate
and how economies operate. Thus, writing research is essential for
understanding contemporary life and contemporary institutions.
The present book brings together two substantial research traditions
on writing: the Anthropology of Writing, developed largely in France,
and the (New) Literacy Studies, originating mainly in Britain, North
America and other English speaking countries. For the past decades,
these two traditions have developed separately from each other within
different theoretical and disciplinary traditions, and there has been
little exchange of expertise and cross-referencing of work. With notable
exceptions, francophone research on writing is virtually unknown in
the English-speaking world and anglophone researchers are little known
in the francophone world. The present book aims to change this and
to open up a dialogue between these two strands of writing researching.
Its 11 chapters offer examples of current research and provide insights
into prominent themes and key theoretical concepts of writing research
in franco- and anglophone contexts. In this first chapter, we set the
scene for the remaining sections. We start with an introduction to
the study of writing and its link to different disciplines, particularly
anthropology. This is followed by a discussion of what we mean when we
4 The Anthropology of Writing
talk about the anthropology of writing. In the third and fourth sections
of this chapter, we introduce the anglo- and francophone research
traditions. The perspective is comparative, identifying similarities and
differences in theory and research in both contexts.
The Study of Writing within Anthropology

and Other Disciplines
We are participating in broad cultural shifts in the nature of knowledge

and the nature of communication. Writing is crucial to these and its
role is changing. We live in a textually mediated world where writing is
central to society, its cultural practices and institutions. Writing also plays a
major part in peoples everyday activities, be it at home or at work.
Writing is an appropriate topic for anthropological scrutiny: It was
created by people and is passed on culturally; it has symbolic value
and material aspects; and it is crucial to interaction between people
and central to knowledge creation. However, traditional anthropology
had little interest in the study of writing and written texts. The reason
for this is simple. When the discipline of anthropology was born, its eyes
were firmly fixed on the exotic or the cultural other. In most cases
this other was a society that did not rely on writing for communication.
Anthropologists studied oral cultures. The texts they examined were
oral genres such as songs, poems and incantations. In British anthropo-
logy of the classical structural-functionalist period, as Barber (2007)
points out, even these locally produced oral texts were mostly treated
as data to provide insights into the beliefs and morals of a group of
people. Hardly ever were anthropologists interested in these oral texts
as themselves located in cultural practices. The focus in American
anthropology was also on traditional oral cultures within the Americas.
By defining the other as oral cultures, writing implicitly, and later
explicitly (in the work of Goody, 1977), provided the dividing line
between the researcher and the researched. Anthropologists of the early
to mid-twentieth century usually studied societies in isolation without
making relation to the complexity of the global relations they were
part of. They hardly acknowledged the (mostly) colonial links which
enabled them to be present in these societies and in fact sometimes to
contribute to bringing new practices, including writing, to these societies.
What Is the Anthropology of Writing? 5
Writing was something which belonged to the anthropologists and they

did not turn their gaze upon themselves and their own writing.
In contemporary anthropology, much of this has changed. Key
turning points were the demise of colonial regimes from the 1950s
onwards and later the publication of Clifford and Marcus Writing
culture (1986) and the responses to it (such as Behar & Gordon, 1996;
James, Hockey & Dawson, 1997). Since then anthropology has moved
away from a sole focus on the exotic and turned its gaze towards the
researchers own societies. With anthropology no longer necessarily
being an anthropology of the other, writing has become part of what
constitutes the disciplines subject matter. To understand contemporary
Western cultures, writing and written texts can hardly be ignored. We
live, as sociologist Dorothy Smith (1999) has suggested in a textually
mediated social world. But writing has also become a common tool of
communication in societies that were previously oral and which are part
of the exotic world that classical anthropology studied. Thus writing,
as the subject of enquiry, should be regarded as a cross-cultural and
global phenomenon.
Examining written texts is essential for understanding how societies
operate and are organized, how institutions communicate with the
public, how work is being done, how individuals and social groups
organize their lives and make sense of their experiences and how
cultures in all their variations are produced and reproduced. It has
been observed that much contemporary social change brings with it an
increasing textualisation of social interaction (as in Iedema & Scheeres,
2003). This is, for example, the case of many workplaces and work-
related policies such as the move towards global structures of quality
control in manufacturing (Folinsbee, 2004). Cultures of work and
production therefore have changed and the increased use of written
texts is a central element of these transitions. Writing is also more and
more prominently used in private and leisure-oriented contexts, where
the growing availability of digital technologies allows more and more
people to create social bonds and affinity groups (Gee, 2004) often
focussing around specific interests, such as video games. Such networks
rely on writing as their primary mode of communication, although as
the studies in this book will show, this writing is located in multimodal
meaning making. These and other studies show that written texts are
central to culture, understood here in a broad sense.
The case for studying writing from an anthropological perspective

thus is compelling. As both a key cultural practice and a product of
culture itself, writing is certainly explored in many anthropological
works. Nevertheless, there have only been a few studies where writing
has been a central concern for contemporary anthropologists, such as
the studies in Behar and Gordon (1996). Anthropologists have rarely
used literacy as an entry point or as a lens to study broader cultural
phenomena. This, however, is what in our view constitutes the anthro-
pology of writing. We will return to this in the next subsection.
As one approach, the field of linguistic anthropology, as framed in
Duranti (1997, chapter 1), brings anthropological approaches to address
language issues. Linguistic anthropology has focussed attention on
themes such as participation, indexicality and performance, but largely
in relation to spoken language. The researchers focus here has been
on spoken interaction; writing has been seen as something which
researchers do and has not been subject to academic scrutiny. Frequently,
literacy is dealt with primarily in relation to learning (as in Baquedano-
Lpez, 2004) and the general cultural uses and meaning of literacy
are not addressed. However, other work such as Foley (1997) and Duranti
(2001) provide a broader view, arguing for the study of literacy practices
to be an integral part of anthropological linguistics.
A further reason explaining the marginal role of writing as a field
of research within anthropology is that literacy has always been an inter-
disciplinary field of research. Whilst some key researchers are anthro-
pologists, much research on writing is also done by linguists, literary
theorists, historians, education researchers, sociologists and psycholo-
gists, often drawing upon ethnographic methods derived from anthro-
pology, but not identifying themselves as anthropologists. Even where
anthropologists are amongst those studying writing, as literacy research-
ers they are more likely to be affiliated to interdisciplinary teams of
researchers or to the disciplines of linguistics or education rather than
working with anthropology as their primary frame of reference.
What is the anthropology of writing?

In the previous section, we have made the case for studying writing as
a central aspect of culture and society. In doing so, we have argued for
the need to develop an anthropology of writing. What, however, is this
Anthropology of Writing and what makes it specific and distinguishable

from other research on writing? We begin to address this question by
looking at the variety of approaches to the study of literacy that exist
and how they relate to what we are doing in the present book.
There is growing interest in written language across disciplines. To
some extent these areas are converging and an anthropological
approach, although different from some of these perspectives, builds
upon them and puts them in a broader context. A major strand of
research within linguistics is the discourse analysis of texts (Fairclough,
2003; Wodak & Krzyzanowski, 2008) where the focus is on the role of
language in the reproduction and transformation of social processes and
structures. Compared to this approach, an anthropological perspective
on writing, as the chapters in this book illustrate, goes beyond analysing
the products of writing, that is, the texts that writers produce. Its core
interest is to examine the processes of production and use of texts.
A second strand of research on writing is informed by a literary
perspective. This research is focussed on highly visible and valued pieces
of writing, primarily the work of novelists. The focus is on the texts
and increasingly the practices of producing and using them, providing
a history of books and of literary reading. Examples of this important
strand of research include Altick (1957); Boyarin (1993); Eliot and Rose
(2007) and Colclough (2007). Allied to this are studies of the book as a
cultural object (as in Finkelstein & McCleery, 2002), again focussing
primarily but not exclusively on literary production. The Anthropology of
Writing includes research of a different kind. As the chapters contained
in this book show, we do not privilege literary forms of writing and we
have broad notions of authorship and creativity (as in Pontille, 2004,
and Papen & Tusting, 2008). Furthermore, the studies in this book
examine everyday acts of writing and their significance in relation
to private life and to work. Such writing may at times appear to be
mundane and routine. But it is central to how societies operate and to
the ways individuals relate to each other and to institutions. Examples
discussed in the book include writing in areas such as farming, photo-
sharing, childcare work and healthcare.
As a third approach, writing is often studied by historians. Many
historical studies of writing share a great deal with studies of contempo-
rary cultures of written texts. There are studies tracing the historical
development of practices around texts, such as those by Cressy (1980)
and Clanchy (1993). Historians of culture approach the study of writing

from a similar perspective to researchers studying writing in contempo-
rary societies. Both share the interest in the role of writing in specific
social and cultural contexts and the focus on a variety of genres and
practices. In France, the work of Roger Chartier, discussed below, is
particularly important and it is widely drawn on by those researching
contemporary writing. There are three chapters on historical writing
practices included in Part IV of the present book.
Finally, writing is of course studied from an educational perspective.
As noted above, writing is often viewed in terms of only learning and
education. This has been as true of anthropological approaches to
writing as of other disciplines, and issues of learning provided the fram-
ing for a key early call for the study of writing to take a broader view
(Szwed, 1981). The field of literacy education, populated by psycho-
logists, education researchers, linguists and others, examines how
writing is taught and learned, what forms of texts are valued by educa-
tional institutions and what writing skills children and adults need as
members of their communities and societies. From an anthropological
point of view, the forms and structures of literacy education are an
object of study in themselves. However, they are not at the centre of
what the anthropology of writing aims to achieve. Generally speaking,
we are interested in writing as more than skills (Papen, 2005). We
focus on writing as an activity or as something people do. What people
do with written texts does of course relate to the abilities they have.
But the focus here is not on measuring peoples skills levels and we
study writing in a great variety of social and cultural contexts beyond
education. Accepting the importance of this body of studies on writing
outside education, Baynham (2004) examines how ethnographers of
literacy can re-engage with education.
In summary, we can see that various approaches to the study of writing
exist, all of which to greater or lesser extent overlap with the perspective
we present here and which we will define now. Primarily, an anthro-
pological perspective on writing means to examine writing as both
cultural and social practice. Anthropologists define culture as the
abilities, notions and forms of behaviour persons have acquired as
members of society (Eriksen, 2001: 3). Culture refers to those aspects
of humanity that are not natural but which are created. Writing cer-
tainly is part of culture understood in this way. Culture is closely related
to society, and anthropology has always concerned itself with both the
cultural and the social. Society is everything that has to do with how
humans interact and organize their life. We may want to say that society
is the space, physical as well as mental, within which culture lives. It is
through individuals participation in social life, through their inter-
action with others and their relationship to others and to institutions,
that culture emerges and is played out. Drawing on the association of
culture with society, the anthropology of writing can then be defined as
the comparative study of writing as social and cultural practice.
The idea of writing as an activity and studying what people do with
texts is central to our approach. As such, writing is always located within
specific social and cultural contexts. Studying writing means examining
how different social and institutional contexts generate and shape
specific forms of writing. This includes understanding what functions
these texts serve and how different actors appropriate and make sense
of them. But writing is not only social, it also relates to culture. In order
to understand how writing and written texts are used by different peo-
ple in different contexts, we need to examine the values, beliefs and
behaviours that are associated with different forms of writing. This is
where analysis of the social and the cultural merge.
Finally, the anthropology of writing is defined by its methodology. In
order to understand writing as social and cultural practice, we need
research tools allowing us to explore the activity and contexts of writing
and the meaning their users, readers and writers, bring to these. Our
methods are ethnographic and, in some cases, historical. They have
in common an emphasis on the users and producers of texts and on
the ways they engage with the broader social practices and discourses
their actions are part of. Historical studies, while obviously relying on
a different set of methods, adopt a similar perspective and provide insights
into peoples practices. In moving from researching only the other to
including our own culture, ethnographic approaches have developed
alongside other qualitative approaches to provide more explicit methodo-
logies (Heath & Street, 2008) and to address issues of research methods
common to all the social sciences (as in Silverman, 2004; Denzin &
Lincoln, 2008; Davies, 2007).
One of the main principles of ethnography, as Latour and Woolgar
(1986: 279) point out, is that the anthropologist does not know the nature
of the society under study, nor where to draw the boundaries between
the realms of technical, social, scientific, natural and so on . . . We retain
from ethnography the working principle of uncertainty rather than the
notion of exoticism. This is also important for the anthropology of

writing. We do not presume that we know the kind of writing practices
that are used in the communities we study.
In the following section, we carry on to define the anthropology of
writing by looking at its scope of inquiry.
The scope of the anthropology of writing

An anthropological gaze on writing includes all forms and types of
writing practices. It covers a variety of areas of social and institutional
life. As the chapters in this book illustrate, such a gaze goes beyond
known genres and established views of what constitutes writing and what
writing has authority in specific contexts. We look at forms of writing
that are incipient and ordinary, often invisible and hardly known,
frequently ignored or mistakenly taken for irrelevant. Several of the
chapters in this book examine what could be called ordinary (Lyons,
2007) or vernacular (Barton, 2007) forms of writing. Vernacular, in
our understanding, may be ordinary in the sense of being mundane
and routine. It may be incidental and not recognized as valid and
valuable by dominant institutions of society. But ordinary writing is not
necessarily associated with the writing of the poor and the uneducated.
It is not necessarily a sign of an incomplete or transitional literacy, as
Lyons (2007: 29) defines it. Highly educated people produce ordinary
types of writing and something that is routine and incidental does not
necessarily neglect standard spelling and grammar. Vernacular writings
may contrast with formal genres less because of an inadequate mastery
of correct writing by those who engage with it but because of the nature
of communication and social interaction in the given context.
Ordinary or not, the types of texts that the chapters in this book
examine are all discussed in relation to events and practices that whilst
being part of peoples ordinary life, are often related to broad, complex
and at times extraordinary social events. These are discussed in relation
to issues that are at the heart of contemporary anthropology: knowledge
and power, identity, social change and the interface between local and
global spaces. These broader dimensions reveal the significance of acts
of writing or writing practices (for explanations of these two phrases
see further below) in relation to individual peoples lives as much as
they shed light on wider processes of social and cultural change.
Having discussed the nature and scope of the anthropology of

writing, the two following sections provide an overview of anglo- and
francophone research on writing.
The Anglophone Tradition of Literacy Studies Research
In the past 30 years, the anglophone field of (new) literacy studies has
developed and built up a range of studies of the role of reading and
writing in society. Its inspiration has been multidisciplinary but it is
strongly influenced by anthropological traditions, particularly in the
way that its methodology has been primarily ethnographic.
In the United States, a key foundation of literacy studies was the
work of Shirley Brice Heath (1983) researching the disjuncture between
family and school ways of using language and literacy in Appalachian
communities in the United States. This research can be located as
part of a broader tradition of using anthropological approaches to
understanding social aspects of language identified with the work
of Dell Hymes and his associates in the early 1970s, with a call to rein-
vent anthropology, partly by making ethnographic approaches central
(Hymes, 1972; 1982). This work was crucial in the development of the
fields of sociolinguistics and the ethnography of communication. These
areas focussed largely on spoken language but they provided a strong
influence on the field of literacy studies, as it developed in the Anglo-
American context. Early on, Basso (1974) referred to the ethnography
of writing. Heaths use of the concept of literacy event became central
to literacy studies and was partly developed in parallel to the idea of the
sociolinguistic notion of speech event.
The other key idea for literacy studies alongside literacy events is
that of literacy practices, that reading and writing are located in social
practices. Applying the term practices to literacy has its roots in the
work of the anthropologist Brian Street researching in Iran (1984) and
the cultural psychologists Sylvia Scribner and Michael Coles studies in
Liberia (1981). Taken together, the terms event and practice are key
units of analysis which link theory and methodology and which have
proved useful in understanding reading and writing. Literacy practices
refer to the general cultural ways of using reading and writing and a
literacy event is a particular instance of people drawing upon their cul-
tural knowledge (Barton, 2007: 3537). Researchers identify particular
configurations of literacy practices in different contexts which can then

be referred to as different literacies. The notion of event becomes
an empirical phenomenon, providing a starting point for analysing
interactions (Papen, 2005). The concept has proved useful in research
in different domains of life, although research has also identified the
complexity of events nested within events and chains of events linked
together (Barton & Hamilton, 2005; Kell, 2005). The concept of literacy
practices provides a way of bringing in broader cultural and structural
aspects and linking to issues of power. Practices can be seen as more
theoretical, providing regularities and patterns which are abstracted
from particular events (Barton, 2007).
There have now been a wide range of studies identifying the distinct
literacies in different domains of life, including studies of everyday life
(Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Gregory & Williams, 2000), multilingual
contexts (Perez, 1998; Martin-Jones & Jones, 2000); religion (Kapitske,
1995) and workplaces (Gowen, 1992; Hull, 1997; Belfiore et al., 2004).
Work covers a range of cultures including Streets work in Iran (1993);
Besniers in Tuvalu (1995), Ahearns study of the writing of love letters
in western Nepal (2001); a set of studies in South Africa (Prinsloo &
Breier, 1996). There have been studies of indigenous literacies in the
Americas (Boone & Mignolo, 1994), including the place of writing in
an indigenous community in Ecuador (Wogan, 2004) and a study of
scribes and their clients in Mexico (Kalman, 1999). Vernacular texts
and practices have been studied in Central Africa (Blommaert, 2008)
and in Namibia (Papen, 2007). Work has also begun to unpack the
dynamics of different literacies within any specific context (as in Ivanic
et al., 2009, in relation to education).
One repeated finding from literacy studies research has been the
importance of other people in a persons literacy practices. Barton and
Hamilton (1998), for instance, have shown the importance of networks
of support. Other research has referred to the scribes, mentors, brokers
and mediators of literacy practices (see Malan, 1996; Baynham & Masing,
2000; articles in Baynham & Prinsloo, 2009) and the significance of
groups, whether they be communities of practice or affinity groups
(Barton & Tusting, 2005). Deborah Brandt (1998, 2009) refers to
sponsors: she talks of the role of individuals and institutions acting
as sponsors of literacy practices and as supporters and facilitators for
people. Institutional sponsors can include businesses, governments and
religions. Such sponsors support specific views of the nature of reading
and writing and advocate on behalf of these views. The detailed work of
literacy studies also shows the ways in which written texts are detachable
from the social situation that originally produced them or from the
place where they were first used (Blommaert, 2008). Written documents
are constantly being reused and recontextualized and they move between
physical places and social spaces. Texts therefore need to be studied
in terms of what they are beyond a specific moment of use, beyond
a specific literacy event or writing act. They need to be studied in
context and in place (as in Scollon & Scollon, 2003) while also consid-
ering the fact that these contexts and spaces vary, multiply and overlap.
Researchers in literacy studies have realized that in order to under-
stand the role of writing in relation to culture they need to bring in
broader framings of other socio-cultural theories. When linking to
broader socio-cultural frameworks, two areas of research which have
been drawn upon in Anglo-American research on writing are work
on communities of practice (as in Barton & Tusting, 2005) and Actor
Network Theory (ANT) (e.g. Brandt & Clinton, 2002; Clarke, 2002;
Hamilton, 2009; Leander & Loworn, 2006, as well as French researchers
discussed below). Interestingly, the originators of both these approaches
identify the roots of their work to be in anthropology and the theories
they developed to be based upon detailed ethnographic data (Lave,
1988; Wenger, 1998; Latour & Woolgar, 1986). We would also argue that
both communities of practices researchers and ANT researchers put
written language as central, even if they dont make this explicit. Both
of these approaches talk of stable entities which are portable across
contexts: Wenger talks of reifications as a crucial aspect of communi-
ties of practice (1998: 5860) and, similarly, Latour talks of immutable
mobiles which can be used to coordinate action across distances (1987:
227229). Although in both cases they provide details of a wide range of
semiotic resources, most of their examples, and the ones they examine
in detail, are in fact literacy related. (See Barton & Hamilton, 2005:
2531 for more on this.) Researchers with similar frameworks in other
disciplines are also contributing, as with the institutional ethnography
of sociologist Dorothy Smith which draws upon feminist theory (1990,
2005) using concepts such as embodied knowledge. Elsewhere she
details ways of bringing texts into ethnographic research (Smith, 2006).
Linguist Graham Smart has examined the role of texts in financial
institutions drawing on notions of discourses and genres (Smart,
2006). Bourdieus work has also been drawn upon in literacy studies,
where researchers have utilized concepts including habitus, field,

cultural capital and symbolic activity; see, for example, the studies in
Williams and Zengler (2007), Purcell-Gates (2007), and Albright and
Luke (2008), and also the study by Collins and Slembrouck (2007).
Literacy studies can also be located in the broader developing field of
linguistic ethnography in Britain which includes literacy as a key topic
(Rampton, Maybin & Tusting, 2007; Creese, 2008; Maybin & Tusting,
2010). Other researchers locate the study of writing within multimodal
meaning making (such as Kress & van Leeuven, 1996; Jewitt, 2009), and
we do not cover the extensive literature on literacy and education here.
One final anthropological approach has been the work of Jack Goody,
an influential British anthropologist who has written extensively about
literacy and other topics, arguing that there is a great divide between
oral and literate both at the level of cultures and of individuals (Goody,
1977). A critique of this thesis from the point of view of literacy studies
has been made in detail by Street (1984), Gee (1996), Barton and
Hamilton (1996) and others. The strong rejection of the claim of a
great divide between literate and non-literate people and cultures has
been central to the development of the field of literacy studies. An
empirical ethnographic approach has been crucial in demonstrating,
for example, that people who cannot read and write and people with
low levels of literacy nevertheless participate in complex literacy prac-
tices (as in Reder, 1994, and as some of the studies in Prinsloo & Breier,
1996, amongst others, show). Literacy does not in itself have effects, but
is located in practices as Collins and Blot (2003) work through in detail
in relation to Goodys work. They show the changes in Goodys thinking
over time, so that for instance in Goody (2000) the notion of techno-
logy is broadened and seems to include social practices (see Collins &
Blot, 2003: 169170), but they remain unconvinced that Goodys more
recent work takes account of the empirical evidence of literacy studies
research. More recently, Olson and Cole (2006) have brought together
a re-evaluation of Goodys work, looking more broadly at his contribution
and we return to the importance of Goodys influence when discussing
francophone research.
Francophone Research on Writing
Writing has long been a topic of interest in francophone research.

Contemporary work is influenced by a variety of theoretical positions
and academic disciplines, including history, anthropology, sociology

and linguistics. There is, however, less of a recognizable and established
tradition of work comparable to literacy studies in the anglophone
world. Nevertheless, francophone research on writing is informed by
similar theoretical perspectives and methodologies, which can be recog-
nized if not as a tradition then as a set of studies with identifiable fea-
tures. In the following sections, we provide an overview of this body of
research. Using examples of the studies in this volume and elsewhere,
we focus in particular on the theoretical concepts which francophone
researchers draw on, comparing these with the work done by anglo-
phone researchers.
To begin with, historical studies are prominent within francophone
research on writing. Comparing British and French work, it is fair to say
that there have been more historical studies in French and that overall
the work by historians has had greater influence on studies of contem-
porary practices than is the case in the anglophone world. The act of
reading and the development of a culture of book reading, for example,
have been prominently studied (Chartier, 1994; Martin & Chartier,
1982). Chapters Ten and Eleven of this volume exemplify the strength
of historical studies. Both chapters also show the similarities in perspec-
tive and theoretical orientation between historical and contemporary
studies. This is partly a result of the influence historians, in particular
Roger Chartier, have had on the development of writing research in
France. Chartier and colleagues have not only shaped the ideas of
historians interested in writing, but their work is frequently drawn on
by sociologists, anthropologists and others studying contemporary
practices and cultures of writing (see, for example, Mbodj-Pouye, Chapter
Seven and Joly, Chapter Five in this volume). Several of the contributors
to this book acknowledge the influence of Chartier, either directly, or
indirectly via the work of French sociologist Bernard Lahire, whose
contribution will be discussed further below.
The notion of pratiques de lcrit, which Chartier was not the first one to
use, but which he developed, is used by many francophone researchers.
Pratiques de lcrit cover both reading and writing (Chartier, 1986). While
Chartier was primarily interested in the development of reading prac-
tices from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, he examined reading
in the broader contexts of how within a specific society at a given
point in time texts were being produced and used. Reading, he argues,
cannot be understood without taking account of writing practices and
of the processes of the production of books and other texts (Chartier,

1994). The French-Canadian researcher Blisle (2006) specifies that
pratiques de lcrit denotes the use of written language in the broad
sense and that written texts are not only used by those who are able to
decode them. Pratiques de lcrit include the production, dissemination,
consuming, reproduction and transformation (Blisle, 2006: 7, our
translation) of texts.
In The order of books (1994) Chartier explains what a history of
reading must capture: incorporating elements of literary analysis and
bibliographical study such a project aims to understand the specific
mechanisms that distinguish the various communities of readers and
traditions of reading (Chartier, 1994: 4). In order to understand how
people read, he argues, we need to ascertain the conventions and norms
of reading that are specific to different communities of readers, what
they deem to be legitimate uses of books and legitimate ways of reading
and understanding written texts. We could also say that we need to
identify different reading and writing practices. Talking about such prac-
tices allows Chartier to draw the researchers attention away from the
book or the text to the reader and their tactics (de Certeau, 1984) of
reading and meaning making.
We can see from the above that Chartiers pratiques de lcrit is
conceptually very similar to the English literacy practices, described
earlier. Both phrases highlight the socially situated nature of reading
and writing. Literacy practices are understood to be always embedded
in broader social practices. Chartier too talks about reading, writing
and books as anchored in the practices and the institutions of the social
world (Chartier, 1994: x). Because of the similarities of Chartiers ideas
with those in anglophone literacy studies, Mbodj-Pouye (2007: 255) and
other francophone researchers use pratiques de lcrit as a translation
for literacy practices.
When French researchers talk about pratiques [practices] references
to Bourdieus work are unavoidable. They draw on Bourdieus concept
when postulating that practices are always the result of an interaction
between a specific situation with its own circumstances on the one hand
and regularities in peoples activities, interiorized models of thinking
and behaving (habitus) and the broader social and economic structures
on the other (Mbodj-Pouye, 2007: 252). This understanding of practices
is very similar to how anglophone researchers of literacy define their
object of study. Chartier also argues that the relationship between what
is inscribed and what is received is always a dialectic one and that

reception invents, shifts about, distorts (1994: x). Written works are
open to appropriation and they can be used in different ways, not all
of which are limited to reading in the sense of decoding. Chartiers
(1987: 11, 12) reference to how in the rituals of ancient cultures written
texts were used in the middle of otherwise primarily oral ceremonies
echoes the findings of studies into the role of texts in various social
and religious contexts in, for example, South Africa (Prinsloo &
Breier, 1996).
With regard to methodology, Chartier invites researchers of reading
and writing to adopt approaches that are broader than pure text
analysis and which question explanations of differences in reading
practices that are based on known social divisions such as the elite on
the one hand or the people on the other (Chartier, 1994). In franco-
phone research as in anglophone studies ethnographic approaches
which investigate specific social contexts without starting from a priori
assumptions about how different groups of people read or write are
prominently used. Historians too, while bound by the availability of
sources, examine practices and favour contextualized approaches (see
Broujon, Chapter Ten and Artires, Chapter Eleven in this volume).
Another aspect of Chartiers work that has been taken up in franco-
phone research on writing is his interest in books and other printed
matter as objects and in how they are produced and disseminated.
Chartier himself, however, was not the first to pursue this line of research.
Amongst others he drew on the work of McKenzie (1986), which had
been translated into French. The analysis of practices, as Chartier
understands it, includes attention to the material form of texts (e.g.
books) and the processes of production and dissemination of written
matter. Text only exist through their readers (de Certeau, 1988), but
the process of actualization (Chartier, 1994: IX) while shaped by the
acts and habits of the readers and the social and cultural space they
inhabit also depends on the material form through which meaning is
received. Chartier argues that we cannot deny the effects of meaning
the material forms produce. Drawing on his ideas, Mbodj-Pouye (this
volume, Chapter Seven) shows how villagers make use of notebooks,
received as part of agricultural trainings or left by their school-attending
children, to develop a new form of personal writing. The notebook
itself, with its specific affordances (Kress, 2003; 2005) for the writer has
a bearing on what shape the authors writing takes.
Chartier also discusses the notion of culture and how it relates to the
study of writing. From an anthropological perspective, culture as we
explained above is often understood broadly as being part of any
practice and activity. While Chartier agrees with this, he also points out
that culture can, and frequently is defined more narrowly as meaning
those artefacts and practices which are deemed aesthetically or intellec-
tually pleasing and valuable (Chartier, 1992; 1998). This understanding
of culture, as Chartier points out, is close to what Bourdieu (1993) calls
a cultural field and it emphasizes that within given societies there is
competition over what is deemed to be cultural (Chartier, 1998: 263).
With regard to writing, different communities and societies, both past
and present, designate and thereby limit what forms of writing are
recognized and deemed legitimate. Chartiers thoughts on culture in
relation to writing are comparable to Streets ideological model of
literacy and to notions of dominant and vernacular literacies prevalent
in anglophone research on writing, discussed above.
Within the francophone tradition, the notion of cultures of writing as
potentially excluding is taken up in Bernard Lahires work on popular
forms of writing and in his critical analysis of dominant discourses of
illiteracy (Lahire, 1993; 1995). Lahire is a key figure in francophone
research on writing, having influenced researchers in France as well as
in French-speaking Canada (see Blisle, 2004; 2006). His views show
striking parallels with the ideas put forward by Street (see above) and
others in the anglophone tradition, an observation that has prompted
Blisle and Bourdon (2006) to note that despite not citing each other,
Street and Lahires analyses converge on many points. Lahires words
certainly echo Smiths view of the textually mediated social world. He
argues that writing is present in the whole of the social world [lcrit
marque sa prsence dans lensemble du monde social, our translation] to
which he adds that no domain of practices is without its mediation
[pas un domaine de pratiques ne sorganisent dsormais hors de sa mdiation,
our translation] (Lahire, 2006: 43). Challenging the notion of the indi-
vidual as autonomous and uniform [unicite] that underlies quantitative
studies of literacy, Lahire argues for an approach that analyses reading
and writing as context-specific practices involving individuals who are
part of different social relations (friends, family, colleagues) and networks
and whose feelings, ideas and behaviours are not always the same and
not necessarily consistent (Lahire, 2008). Lahire, as much as Street,
Barton, Gee, Papen and others in the anglophone tradition, criticizes
the notion of literacy as a uniform set of skills applicable to different

situations (Lahire, 2006: 35). Furthermore, he argues that while some
individuals may not be competent readers it is wrong to deduct from
this a necessary suffering [souffrance] or disability [handicap] (Lahire,
2006: 42). In a move similar to those in the anglophone world who
challenge the deficit discourse of literacy (Crowther, Hamilton & Tett,
2001), Lahire suggests that the dominant view of the illiterates rein-
forces their stigmatization and marginalization (2006: 38). Statistical
measurements of literacy ignore the fact that skills are frequently
acquired collectively. The same discourse that marks some as literate
and others as illiterate also fails to identify the many ways in which
people of different backgrounds and dispositions engage with written
texts. Sociological research can challenge these views by uncovering
the plurality of the worlds of writing [pluralit des mondes de lcrit, our
translation] (2006: 43). This multiplicity of everyday reading and
writing practices, Lahire argues, cannot be adequately characterized by
reducing them to identifiable skills and hierarchies of abilities, a model
of understanding borrowed from school notions of literacy. This is of
course the same critique of the autonomous model of literacy made by
Street, see above, and its implementation in national and international
surveys such as the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) that is
expressed by Hamilton and Barton (2000) and others.
In his earlier books, Lahire (1993, 1995) has studied the reading and
writing practices of working class people with limited formal education
in the region of Lyon. He was interested in their everyday reading and
writing at home or at work, including innocuous texts (Lahire, 1993: 6),
such as shopping lists or to do lists. Lahires work is comparable to
Barton and Hamiltons study of reading and writing in a working class
community of Lancaster (Barton, 1991; Barton & Hamilton, 1998). In
his analysis, Lahire emphasizes the role of literacy in relation to how
people construct their relationship with the world around them and
how they organize their lives, themes that are also discussed in Barton
and Hamiltons study. A further theme elaborated in both studies is
the gendered division of writing tasks such as dealing with letters in
families. Lahires study also examined reading and writing in his research
participants work places, typically manual employment.
Another important figure is Daniel Fabre and his notion of critures
ordinaires [ordinary writings] (Fabre, 1993) or critures quotidiennes
[everyday writings] (Fabre, 1997). Conceptually, Fabres ordinary writings
are close to what Barton and others in the anglophone tradition call
vernacular literacies. Fabre characterizes writings [crits] as belonging
to a place, a social space they emanate from but which they also help to
constitute and define (see Fraenkel, 2001). This echoes the anglophone
idea of literacy as social practice. A collection of articles edited by Fabre
in 1997 illustrates the role of writing in three different social contexts:
the domestic sphere, religion and work. Fabres intention, similar to
that of the (New) Literacy Studies, was to highlight previously neglected
forms of writing.
Fabre and Lahires ideas have also been taken up by researchers
interested in writing in social contexts where formal literacy is not
widespread, for example, in Mali (Mbodj-Pouye, 2007) and Senegal
(Humery, forthcoming). Methodologically, both Lahire and Fabre
advocate context-sensitive techniques. The dominant approach in franco-
phone research on writing, as mentioned already, is qualitative and
ethnographic. Fraenkel (2001) establishes key principles of research on
writing in the workplace, which show similarities with the perspective
adopted by anglophone literacy studies. While she acknowledges the
need to study the content of what is said in specific documents, she is
adamant that writing at work cannot be understood hors contexte
[outside the context] but needs to be examined in relation to the
ensemble of practices and situations governing the workplace in question
(Fraenkel, 2001: 240). Her description of the methodology to adopt
for such studies shares much with how those in the (New) Literacy
Studies define their approach: the need for direct observations is high-
lighted but also interviews with the readers and writers themselves in
order to understand reprsentations locales [local representations]
(2001: 236). Following Chartier, she adds a need to examine texts not
only in terms of what they say, but in relation to their materiality and
physical presence, an issue which is also raised in anglophone work, as
in Haas (1995), Wilson (2003) Pahl (2002, 2007) and Leander and
Sheehy (2004).
Despite similarities in perspective, French researchers such as Lahire
and Fabre have hardly been recognized by anglophone scholars of
writing. This is mainly the result of a language barrier. Chartiers work
has been widely translated but it is mainly known by historians and there
is less of a convergence of historical and contemporary interests than
in France (but see Brandt, 2001; 2009, whose historical studies of the
United States are used to inform research on the present and the future
of writing). The other French academic whose work is drawn on by

anglophone literacy researchers is Bruno Latour, as mentioned in the
previous section. Researchers draw on Latour in particular when trying
to understand the power of written texts in specific social and institu-
tional situations. Latour talks about objects such as books as actants that
have agency, an idea which is utilized by Pontille (this volume Chapter
Three, and Fraenkel & Pontille, 2006) and others when discussing the
role of texts in different workplaces and public spaces. The notion of
actants (a concept that crucially includes humans and non-human
objects) allows Latour and his associates to emphasize the role of
technologies as active agents, without however falling into the trap of
technological determinism. Texts, including diagrams, tables or photo-
graphs, function as inscription devices (Latour and Wolgar 1986: 37).
As such, writing allows specific forms of knowledge to become mobile.
This is made possible through the text in which knowledge is inscribed
and which can move between and be drawn on in different contexts
(Latour, 1988).
The work of Jack Goody, introduced above, has been widely drawn
upon by French authors, but its reception in France has been very
different from its treatment by anglophone literacy researchers. Goodys
ideas became influential in France after 1979, when a French transla-
tion of The domestication of the savage mind was published. In his
earlier studies, Lahire drew on Goody when discussing the consequences
of literacy and he did this in a way that is largely supportive of Goodys
claims about writing as enhancing rational thinking. Lahire argued that
even mundane forms of literacy, not just schooling and formal educa-
tion, support abstract thinking (Lahire, 1998), a position that is likely
to be met with criticism by anglophone literacy researchers.
We can see from the above example that despite much convergence
in thought, there are also differences between anglo- and francophone
approaches to the study of writing. In much anglophone research,
Goodys views on the consequences of literacy for individuals and societ-
ies have been heavily critiqued while less attention has been paid to the
other contributions which Goody has made to the understanding of
writing (except for Collins & Blot, 2003 and Olson & Cole, 2006,
mentioned above). Francophone researchers, however, have found
Goodys work useful when examining specific writing practices in an
ethnographic perspective (Fraenkel, 2001; Mbodj-Pouye, 2007). They
examine the effects of reading and writing in specific cultural and
institutional contexts, without however pre-judging what these might

be and frequently adopting a critical stance. This has lead to studies
examining in what ways tables, lists, forms, etc. afford bureaucratic
rationality and give authority to specific forms of knowledge and social
practices. Fraenkel, for example (2007 and this volume Chapter Two),
examines the consequences of acts of writing and often it is the act
of writing itself that produces an effect, as with writing a signature
(Fraenkel & Pontille, 2006).
Prominent themes in francophone research

As well as everyday writing, prominent themes in francophone research
include writing in the workplace, writing in public spaces and reading
and writing in post-colonial societies. In anglophone settings much
research on workplace literacy is shaped by educational concerns. This
is not so in France where researchers focus their attention on the
micro processes of writing as part of accomplishing work-related tasks.
Denis and Pontille (2009), for example, have conducted ethnographic
research to understand how the signs of the Paris subway are installed
and maintained. In contrast to the work by Fabre and others (see
Artires, this volume Chapter Eleven), who are primarily interested
in ordinary writing by individuals, Pontille and others examine collec-
tive forms of writing. The aim is to show how workplaces are shaped
through writing: that is through the texts they use and produce. This
kind of research makes a unique contribution to understanding how
work processes are mediated by written texts and how knowledge is
organized.
A further focus of interest is in how writing gives materiality to
cognitive processes, an issue that has also interested Lahire (1995), also
drawing upon Latours work. Texts, such as subway signs, also afford
specific actions (Denis & Pontille, 2009 and forthcoming, Fraenkel,
2007; 2008 and this volume Chapter Two). Other examples of research
on writing at work are studies of bailiffs (Fraenkel & Pontille, 2003;
Pontille, 2006), of scientific authorship (Pontille, 2004; 2006) and of
the role of writing in agricultural work (Joly, 2000; 2004, this volume
Chapter Five). Similar to the work that was done in the United King-
dom by Jones (2000a and b) researching Welsh farmers, Joly examines
how new rules introduced by the European Union (EU) have changed
farmers daily writing practices. What is interesting here is, again, the
historical perspective, comparing farmers traditional diaries with todays
bureaucratic registers and forms. Writing in the workplace, as mentioned
already, often appears to be mundane and it may even be invisible.
Such ordinary acts of writing are widely studied by the research group
Anthropologie de lcriture (Anthropology of Writing) at the Ecole
des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). From a historical per-
spective, Artires, a core member of the group, is particularly interested
in autobiographical writings. Mbodj-Pouye (2007 and this volume,
Chapter Seven) and Humery (forthcoming), also members of the group,
work on writing in post-colonial societies. They study ordinary forms of
writing in contexts where school-based literacy is particularly dominant
and where everyday writing practices are frequently multilingual,
mirroring the coexistence of official and vernacular languages in post-
colonial societies. Theoretical frameworks drawn on are mainly those
developed by Goody, Chartier and Lahire, but Mbodj-Pouye (2004) is one
francophone researcher to use ideas from the (New) Literacy Studies.
A final area of research which has been developed in recent years
in France looks at writing in public places and spaces. This work is
coordinated by the Anthropology of Writing group at the EHESS.
Denis and Pontilles study of subway signs, mentioned earlier, is part
of this much larger research project entitled Ecologies and politics of
writing. Covering cities from around the globe, it examines how urban
spaces are shaped by writings, both legal and illegal (www.iiac.cnrs.fr/
ecriture/spip.php?article3). A related study, also comparative, examines
how writing in a variety of urban spaces is regulated and policed.
Undoubtedly, as the above overview has shown, francophone research
on writing is vibrant and covers a wide range of areas and theoretical
perspectives. It has much to offer to those in the anglophone world
interested in literacy. There are many parallels between the work of
anglo- and francophone researchers, even though little of this is
known by researchers on either side of the linguistic divide. The case of
Lahire and Street illustrates the current state of affairs and the resulting
lack of cross fertilization, notwithstanding differences in perspective
that undoubtedly exist. Part of the aim of this book is to make the work
of francophone researchers more widely known in the anglophone
world and to promote dialogue between French and English speaking
academics interested in writing as a social and cultural practice.
The Current Volume
The chapters in this volume are united by their approach to examining

writing as cultural and social practice. They were chosen to illustrate
the kind of work done by anglo- and francophone researchers and to
indicate the similarities in theoretical orientation and empirical scope
that makes the comparison between the two traditions so interesting.
Together the 11 chapters aim to further our understanding of the place
of written language in different social and cultural contexts, past and
present. The book consists of four parts. The first part, that is, this
chapter and a chapter by French linguist Batrice Fraenkel (Chapter
Two), focuses on theory. In Writing acts: When writing is doing,
Fraenkel considers writing as an act within speech act theory: writing
is not only important for what is being written, but the act of writing
itself is significant as an event or as a performance, covering writing as
broad as graffiti, road signs, writing in New York after 9/11 and signa-
tures. The chapter offers a first step in the development of a typology
of writing acts.
Part II of the book consists of three chapters dealing with writing in
the workplace. In Chapter Three, Updating a Biomedical Database:
writing, reading and invisible contribution, David Pontille explores the
central but often overlooked writing work that is involved in building
up and maintaining a biomedical database. It shows writing work that
may appear to be mundane and routine but is in fact highly sophisti-
cated. The chapter illustrates the crucial role of writing in the construc-
tion of knowledge in todays knowledge-based economy. In Chapter
Four, Eruptions of interruptions: managing tensions between writing
and other tasks in a textualized childcare workplace, Karin Tusting
takes up a key feature of many contemporary workplaces: their increas-
ing textualization. The example given is that of childcare workers in
England, who face a surprising amount of paperwork demands. Tust-
ings research illustrates changing practices of writing in the workplace
in response to growing demands for accountability. In Chapter Five,
Tracing cows: practical and administrative logics in tension, Nathalie
Joly looks at the writing practices of farmers, who keep daily records
of their work. Keeping these records is not a new practice but with
the modernization of agriculture, farmers writing has become more
rationalized and subject to greater bureaucratic influence. Jolys paper
emphasizes the role of the wider context in her case the EU and its
regulations in relation to changing writing practices.
Part III examines writing by individuals and institutions. Chapter Six
by David Barton, Vernacular writing on the web, provides an overview
of research on peoples ordinary writing and examines the new writing
which is now being done on the internet. New online writing practices
lead to new genres; this necessitates a re-evaluation of what is meant
by vernacular practices of writing. The chapter shows the importance
of the internet as a new cultural space for ordinary peoples writing. In
Chapter Seven, Keeping a note-book in rural Mali: a practice in the
making, Assatou Mbodj-Pouye discusses a new writing practice discov-
ered by the author during her ethnographic research in Mali: personal
notebooks. These notebooks illustrate the importance of a personal
domain in a society that is often thought of as communal in orientation.
Mbodj-Pouyes chapter demonstrates the importance of understanding
writing in the context of social and cultural change. In Chapter Eight,
Writing in healthcare contexts: patients, power and medical knowledge,
Uta Papen discusses the central role of writing and written texts in the
provision of healthcare. The chapter examines the power of writing as
a means of passing on authoritative information and achieving compli-
ance with medical advice and how patients through their own writing
react to and engage with healthcare providers views. The chapter
illustrates how vernacular writing responds to dominant discourses.
Part IV is concerned with historical perspectives. Chapter Nine by
Julia Gillen and Nigel Hall is entitled Edwardian postcards: illuminat-
ing ordinary writing. In Britain, postcards became massively popular
after 1902. With up to six deliveries per day they became a huge source
of everyday British writing. In their chapter, Gillen and Hall recognize
the significance of these postcards as ordinary practices of writing and
a sign of the democratization of literacy in Britain in the early twentieth
century. This chapter is a good example of the affordances and con-
straints of particular artefacts of literacy. In Chapter Ten, Lawful and
unlawful writings in Lyon in the seventeenth century, Anne Broujon
investigates different forms of public writing that were common in seven-
teenth century France. Based on her research in the city of Lyon,
Broujon describes texts such as epigraphs, public signs and inscriptions
on monuments that increasingly became part of the urban environment.
Another category of text common at the time were libels: pamphlets or
posters containing defamatory statements about specific individuals.

These texts, which were put up at the attacked persons house or in public
spaces, were regarded as illegal and their suppression became part of
the municipalitys efforts to control the urban space. In Chapter Eleven,
Sexuality in black and white: instructions to write and Scientia sexualis
in the nineteenth and twentieth century, historian Philippe Artires
examines acts of writing that are encouraged or demanded by a third
party, for example, doctors inviting their patients to write or social
scientists asking their research participants to produce diaries. He
discusses the case of a young man who in 1902 had been asked by his
doctor to produce a record of his homosexual practices. This resulted
in a sexual biography, which, as Artires suggests, was not so much
liberating for the writer but incorporated him into a wider apparatus
of power. Finally, in the Afterword, Brian Street locates the examples of
writing presented in the previous chapters within broader discussions
about literacy in contemporary culture.
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Chapter Two
Writing Acts: When Writing Is Doing

Batrice Fraenkel
The team I was in that night was travelling in Pierre-Antoines car a rusty
old Renault with zero horsepower and we had to work in the town centre.
Jean-Nol was at the wheel he was an excellent driver, fast and confident
Ginette was on look-out, and me and Gabriel were doing the painting. When it
came to painting I was quite uncompromising, but nothing compared to
Gabriel, who took as much care over the slightest little wall slogan as if it were
the Sistine Chapel frescos. His perfectionism was good in that he produced
impeccable graffiti, and people were always more impressed by something that
looked as if it had taken care and skill but it was unfortunate in that it
slowed us down. It was impossible to drag Gabriel away from his work until he
thought he couldnt improve it any more. We had just finished a particularly
careful piece of work, covering the walls of M . . . Town Hall with slogans in
beautifully outlined big red letters, when we were clocked by a police patrol car.
Rolin, Lorganisation
Writing Acts: Slogans, Pixaao and Graffiti
I begin with this evocative scene which has the advantage of immedi-
ately foregrounding the topics I am going to discuss here. It is January
1970, in a group of Maoist militants, on the outskirts of Paris, in M . . .
That particular night the team had decided to cover the walls with
injunctions in three languages to kidnap the bosses, that is, write the
slogan On a raison de sequestrer les patrons (it is right to take the bosses
hostage) in French, Arabic and Portuguese, the main languages spo-
ken in the local factories. Painting revolutionary graffiti was part of
the repertoire of collective action (Tilly, 1986: 541) of many militant
groups,1 particularly those on the fringes of legality. Graffiti written
under these circumstances often fall into the category of slogans. They
follow lexical, syntactic, semantic and rhetorical norms which are not
explicit or institutionalized but which are nonetheless patterned by the
activists memory and the practice of imitating familiar models.
These slogans are often linguistic acts: orders, claims, exhortations,
protests, denunciations, etc. The statement painted on the Town Hall
walls It is right to take the bosses hostage, like the well-known slogans
of May 1968 Ce nest quun dbut continuons le combat (This is just the
start. Carry on the Struggle) and tudiants, Travailleurs, Solidarit
(Workers, Students, Solidarity) are typical examples.
These are exhortations which clearly belong to what the philosopher
Austin calls the category of performatives. As he wrote, An exercitive is
the giving of a decision in favour of or against a certain course of action,
or advocacy of it. It is a decision that something is to be so, as opposed
to an estimate that it is so; it is an award as opposed to an assessment;
it is a sentence as opposed to a verdict. (Austin, 1975: 155). The slogan
is at the same time an enunciation and an action.
Jean Rolins description is also a testimony as he belonged to a Maoist
group and was an active militant during the winter of 19691970. His
text reveals that over and above the speech act implied in writing the
slogan, this was mainly a writing act. His account emphasizes the actual
act of inscribing or painting. It was in fact the concentration needed
to trace the beautifully outlined red letters which was just as, or even
more, important than the slogan itself. Also, in choosing the wall of the
Town Hall rather than any other wall the militants were engaging in an
act of bravado which gave the written words a particular value. Finally,
the enunciation was seen as an exceptional inscription, a kind of written
coup. It had a clear performative force.2
In fact, we see a number of writings on the streets of our cities which
follow the same principle: a remarkable writing act that compels our
attention. The Brazilian pixaao graffiti, for example, found at the top of
high buildings, as in Figure 2.1, immediately suggest that some prowess
was needed to create these signs. The message is often illegible for the
non-initiated, but this does not stop the writing from being noticed and
sending out a message. As we remember from Manhattan in the early
1970s, the city dwellers who saw metro cars go past entirely covered in
graffiti immediately grasped the dangers the graffiti writers had braved,
notably the risk of electrocution. In these conditions the mere fact of
Writing Acts: When Writing Is Doing 35
Figure 2.1 Pixaao graffiti in Brazil
writing is recognized as a meaningful act in itself. The inscriptions

convey a particularly effective graphic force.
All the cases mentioned above form part of the large and rather
ill-defined category of graffiti. All these acts can be seen as belonging
to the same family: the making of graffiti.
Acts of Writing, Acts of Reading
Another scene from the same sphere of activity, political activism,

enables me to extend the analysis to the area of writing. What follows is
an extract from the testimony of a Parisian militant from May 1968:
I remember seeing this inscription written on the wall of the post

office in Rue des Archives: Le vieux monde est derrire nous! (Away with
the old world!) I looked at it, and I thought that the old world was
going to disappear because thats what was written. We had a biblical
belief in the power of the word! (Le Goff, 2006: 7677)
Here, the scene is described not from the point of view of the
inscriber but from that of the passer-by. It is a scene of reading which
also bears witness to an act. The utterance is still a slogan, but what
this account emphasizes is the particular force of reading this inscrip-
tion in a public place. It is not only the message which has this force,
although this is part of it, it is also the fact that it is on display in public.
The same phrase printed in a book would not have the same effect.
So how can we relate this scene to the previous one? In what way are
they linked?
Just as the account of spraying graffiti on the Town Hall demonstrates
the importance of the fact of writing rather than what is written, so in the
second case the emphasis is more on the situation in which the message
is received than on what it means. It is the fact of looking at and not
just reading the inscription that has an effect on the author: I looked
at it, and I thought that . . . We can see that the meaning of the utter-
ance: Away with the old world! is transformed by the fact that it
forms part of the environment, or, more accurately, by the fact that it is
presented to passers-by on a daily basis, it is durable. The very perma-
nence of the inscription suggests to the militant that the utterance can
come true: if slogans like this are no longer removed, does this not
show that they have become legitimate and that the old world is in fact
disappearing? We could say that the political graffiti is having its desired
persuasive effect, and this persuasion is not the result of the message.
It is the result of the performative force of the actual display of the
writing. Here again is the idea that the value of an utterance lies not
only in what it says but in the fact that it is written. The examples of acts
of bravado given earlier are not the only ones where we can recognize
a kind of illocutionary force (Austin) within writing itself. Here, it is
the mere fact that the inscription is durable that gives it a particular
persuasive power.
This case suggests that any writing act may be capable of producing
effects when read. These effects are not reducible solely to the transmis-
sion of the written message, they occur because of the way in which the
utterances are presented to the reader. As well as this example linked to
extraordinary political events, we need to ask ourselves whether other
modes of display are capable of producing equally powerful effects.
When we think about it, we are all deeply familiar with these performa-
tive signs: our cities are regulated by laws governing signage, and some
writings have an official performative force. One example would be
posters announcing citizen mobilization in time of war. But others

are much more everyday, such as the requirement to announce and
hence publish the banns before a marriage in France.
To recapitulate: the study of extraordinary writing and reading shows
the importance of writing as an act of doing independent of the act
of saying. I propose to refer to these phenomena as writing acts. The
examples I have used are a particular type of act, namely the act of
making graffiti.
I should like now to examine the hypothesis that when writing we are
always engaged in writing acts, and not only in the kind of exceptional
situations mentioned above. I shall start from the idea that any written
utterance has meaning as an utterance which is part of language, and
also a specific value deriving from the fact that it is written, and is the
result of a writing act. Going back to Austins analysis which showed that
any linguistic utterance can be seen as a speech act, I shall attempt to
construct a model of the writing act that can account for the graphic
force of inscriptions, the effect of displaying these writings, and certain
other aspects of writing and reading in action, based on an analysis of
the specific situations in which they occur. What I propose is to look at
all these writing acts from the point of view of a pragmatic anthropology
of writing.
At this point in the enquiry I should perhaps turn to more banal and
rather less spectacular situations. The great majority of writing is pro-
duced in a quite routine manner, in normal situations. My hypothesis
should also be able to account for these unexceptional writings. What
about day-to-day, ordinary writing situations? Can we identify writing
acts here, and if so, which? For the sake of coherence, I shall continue
looking at the same terrain, namely writings found in cities.
Signposts, Notices and Street Signs: Labelling as Writing
I shall focus here on the three examples of signposts, notices and road
signs. Again I shall be looking at writings in the city, but this time those
of a normative nature. This is a category of writing that interested
Austin, who remarked that road signs such as Bends or Dangerous
Bends were written in a primitive language of one-word utterances
(Austin, 1962: 72). However they are warnings, linguistic acts that
can also be classified as exercitives. The world of road signs is full of
warnings of this nature. Elsewhere, Austin mentions another case: Even

the word Dog by itself may sometimes stand for an explicit formal
performative (at least in England, a pragmatic and impolite country):
this short word has the same effect as the utterance I hereby warn you
that the dog will attack you (Austin, 1962: 274).
These writings strike me as good examples of common writing
acts whose performativity is real although not spectacular. To pursue
Austins linguistic analysis further, it should be stressed that these utter-
ances appear on signs located in specific places. In fact signs like Beware of
the Dog3 and Dangerous Bend take on their full performative force
only when they are displayed in an appropriate place.
However once these signs are put up they do much more than ensure
optimum conditions for the effectiveness of these performatives. They
also modify the places where they are found: the house which displays a
Beware of the Dog sign becomes a forbidden, protected place, just as
the notices Keep off the Grass4 or No Posters modify the status of the
grass or the wall. The new qualification attached to these sites means
that they are protected by law, with all the consequences that this implies
for users. Walking on this grass or putting a poster up on this wall
becomes an offence. It is easy to characterize the writing act, it consists
of placing a piece of writing in a certain place, an action we can refer to
using the verb to label. I shall use this term to refer to all those acts that
consist of attaching something written to a place, object or person.
The signs that proliferate in urban shopping areas are another
example of labelling practices. They show the name of the shop and
perform an act of naming. K. Bhler, in his theory of language, termed
phenomena of this kind attachment at a distance.5 Wittgenstein, his
contemporary, thought that naming could be thought of as labelling:
Naming something is like attaching a label to a thing (in Philosophical
Investigations, Aphorism 15). These labelling techniques take advantage
of the plasticity of the written object and its ability to be placed in any
kind of environment.
Latour and Hermants study6 of signposting in Paris, specifically the
placing of street signs, helps us to go deeper in the topic. Focusing on
the work of the Highways Department, they followed the personnel on
their rounds. They went into the relevant administrative offices in the
Survey Department, the Land Registry Technical Services Division and
the Signage Department. The authors reveal the vast network of
writings and agents involved in placing a street sign in Rue Huysmans in

Paris. Looking at street signage as what it is, namely work, helps us move
away from conceiving utterance as a pure semiological phenomenon.
We can see actions being formulated, exactly as in Jean Rolins literary
witness to what was involved in painting slogans on a Town Hall. The act
of labelling thus takes on a new dimension, it no longer refers just to the
display of an utterance in a street, but to a small part of a much larger
apparatus designed to regulate writings within the city.
These examples demonstrate the importance of written objects in the
processes of reading and writing. In fact, these three examples of sig-
nage make us see writing as an artisan activity, the fabrication of specific
artefacts. We are so familiar with the objects that we write letters, exer-
cise books, notebooks, messages that we find it difficult to see writing
as a craft skill. However, it is clear that when I write in a notebook, for
example, not only do I fill it but I also create it. I produce it as a written
object. The same goes for all our writing activities: we are constantly
producing written objects without giving them a thought. Every writing
act is thus embedded in a wider activity that comprises the act of writing
by hand, the speech act, the act of creating something, and in the case
of public writings, the act of placing within an environment. My approach
attempts to situate these acts within their total anthropological reality,
which is why we should not artificially isolate the writing act from its
processual context.
Writing Events and Writing Acts: When the City Writes
At this point in the investigation I have put forward certain arguments

for the relevance of the notion of a writing act and the value of a methodo-
logy focused on the analysis of situations. In examining various examples
of urban writings I have made a distinction between two types of act,
writing graffiti and labelling. The first enables us to appreciate the
graphic force inherent in any writing act, and the second to consider
the performative uses of written objects. I have attempted to under-
stand these writing acts by relocating them within the context of the
activities of which they are apart. The writing of political graffiti is part
of the activity carried out by political militants. Placing street signs is
also a typical activity performed by agents of the Highways Department.
In these two specific cases and more generally, it seems to me essential

to understand writing as situated within a specific sphere of activity.
The final example is not just a writing activity but a writing event.
Staying within the area of urban writings, I shall discuss the research
I carried out in New York after the attacks of 11 September 2001
(Fraenkel, 2002). The setting up of memorials in public spaces, com-
prising different types of writing placards, sheets of paper, banners,
note, etc along with candles and flowers, suggests that we should refer
to them as writing events due to the sheer scale of the phenomenon.
The creation of sites where people came together to write, to read
in silence or just to be together in these environments saturated with
writing raises complex issues. It is clear that by writing at one of these
sites and by simply being there, each person was performing an indi-
vidual act with emotional and intersubjective effects (Fraenkel, 2010).
How can we characterize these acts? How can we explain the new forms
taken by reactions to such catastrophic events and their commemora-
tions, involving writing practices which are still emerging, and writing
actions which are difficult to explain?
In New York in September 2001, thousands, perhaps million, of
citizens left messages, signatures or letters in a multitude of places within
the city. This is mass writing, but it is nevertheless individual as everyone
writes with their own hand. It is made up of innumerable acts of
language and writing which, taken individually, have little meaning.
The writings are repetitive, commonplace God Bless America often
consisting of a single word or a clich. It is the city-wide scale of this
writing which gives these acts their importance. One may conclude that
the performative force of these New York writings comes from the sheer
scale of their production and dissemination. The resulting act is the
emergence of a mass collective subject, as if the citizens formed a single
body capable of acting through writing.
This type of construction evokes the notion of the legal entity found
in law whereby, for example, a city may sign a contract. In extreme
situations like that created by the attacks of September 11, each citizen,
through writing in the city alongside all the others, can experience the
curious sensation of being simultaneously an I who takes up the pen,
and a we created by participating in a communal act of writing, and
above all having the impression that the city of New York as a collective
body has come to life. This collective body may be seen as the human
face of the city as a legal entity.
When describing an event of this nature, one cannot avoid questions

concerning the kinds of acts which permit multiple utterances. The
New York writings are not alone in creating a situation where the subject
of utterance is not confined to a single person. On the contrary, as
I have shown previously (Fraenkel, 1992), the majority of written legal
actions, which are, historically speaking, among the oldest performative
writings, necessitate the presence of several persons in order to be valid.
For an official Act of Chancellery to be valid, it needed the signature
of the King, of the Chancellor, and of the beneficiary of the Act, and
sometimes a list of witnesses would be appended. Even today two signa-
tures are needed: that of the person in whom authority is vested (the
Chancellor, the notary, etc.), and of the instigator of the action, the
one who acts. Hence the polygraphy seen in Manhattan is a normal
feature of our judicial culture.
It would certainly be appropriate to single out a family of writing acts
for which the verb to sign would be the paradigm. Such a category
would open up to examination the types of persons who are able to act
through writing. We could then take into account such strange beings
as the legal person and the collective entity, the enunciating team or the
collective subject.
This last example involves returning to the issue of elementary
writing acts like signing and writing which are performed by several
people. It seems to me that the act of writing makes possible very
specific forms of collective life which should be further studied and
analysed. We are far from being in an orchestrated world where each
individual voice merges into that of the collective: we are in a world
of contiguity where each signatory is valid in isolation from their
neighbour. But when this polygraphy occurs on a city-wide scale it
becomes puzzling. It would be useful to clarify the ways in which the
visual resources of graphic signs, the reality effects derived from per-
ception of the world around, and the emotions generated by the fact
of being together are combined.
Anthropological Perspectives
Throughout this chapter I have demonstrated that urban writings

are an exemplary experimental field for an anthropology of writing.
The fact that the majority of these writings are brief utterances, or
even single words, has the merit of weaning us away from our normal
methods of analysing texts. What particularly strikes us about them is
the shape of the letters, the location of a written sign or the bizarre
features of a document. The notion of a writing act is a model which
enables us to bring together elements normally studied in isolation. It
makes it possible to theorize the linguistic, graphic and situational
aspects as a totality. Even better, the theory of writing acts applied to
urban space draws attention to the written elements of our environ-
ment, and the way in which inscriptions constitute it, manage it and
disrupt it. In this way we may find a partial answer to the two questions
we asked from the perspective of an anthropology of writing: what do
we do with writing? And what does it make us do?
Notes
1
C.f. Sorbonne 1968, Graffiti and Documents, (1998) collected and edited by Yves
Pags, Editions Verticales, Paris (No copyright).
2
Speech act theory is based on Austins observation that certain utterances, perfor-
mative utterances, are used to perform actions. Thus, when an appropriate
person pronounces the formula I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth, she is doing
more than saying the words, she is carrying out an action, that of naming and
launching a ship (Austin 1975:5).
3
The French of Beware of the Dog found on warning signs is simply Chien
mchant (Dangerous Dog), a less explicit performative. (Translators note)
4
The French equivalent of Keep off the Grass is again a statement which acts as
a performative: Pelouse interdite (Forbidden lawn). (Translators note)
5
C.f. Mulligan, Kevin (2004), Lessence du langage, les maons de Wittgenstein
et les briques de Bhler, Les dossiers de HEL, Paris: SHESL, n2, internet:
www.htl.linguist.jussieu.fr/dosHEL.htm
6
Latour & Hermant (1998), Paris ville invisible, 2735.
References
Austin, John L. (1962), Performatif-Constatif. In La philosophie analytique, Cahiers de
Royaumont, Philosophie nIV. Paris: ditions de Minuit, 271304.
Austin, John L. ([1961]1979), Performative Utterances. In J.O. Urmson &
G.J. Warnock (eds.), Philosophical Papers. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
233252.
Austin, John L. (1975), How to do Things with Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Fraenkel, Beatrice (1992), La signature. Gense dun signe. Paris: Gallimard.
Fraenkel, Batrice (2002), Les crits de septembre, New York 2001. Paris: Textuel.
Fraenkel, Batrice (2010), Catastrophe writings: in the wake of September 11. In
Mary Shaw & Marija Dalbello (eds.), Visible Writings: Cultures, Forms Readings.
Rutgers: Rutgers University Press.
Latour B. & E. Hermant (1998), Paris ville invisible, Les empcheurs de penser en rond.
Paris: La Dcouverte.
Le Goff, J.-P (2006), Mai 68, lhritage impossible. Paris: La Dcouverte.
Mulligan, Kevin (2004), Lessence du langage, les maons de Wittgenstein et
les briques de Bhler, Les dossiers de HEL, Paris: SHESL, n2, internet: www.htl.
linguist.jussieu.fr/dosHEL.htm
Sorbonne (1968), Graffiti and Documents, (1998) collected and edited by Yves Pags,
Paris: Editions Verticales.
Tilly, C. (1986), The Contentious French. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard
University Press.
Part II
Writing in the
Workplace Institutional
Demands
Chapter Three
Updating a Biomedical Database: Writing,

Reading and Invisible Contribution1
David Pontille
The development of information and communication technologies

has multiplied our ability to produce, circulate and store large amounts
of data. Whether for business use in managing stocks, suppliers and
customers, or for administrative purposes of categorizing and classify-
ing populations, databases are becoming increasingly important and
their reliability is crucial.
Over the last 20 years, databases have become an essential part of
biomedical research (Bowker, 2000; Hine, 2006). As a result of develop-
ments in molecular biology and informatics it is now possible to
undertake genetic analysis of large amounts of data. For these databases
to operate effectively, a link has to be made between very small amounts
of biological material (only a few microlitres) and a wide range of
personal data relating to the donors (age, sex, occupation, lifestyle,
diet, etc.) and their state of health (clinical and biological data).
Yet most studies on bioinformatics databases take this link for granted,
as if it emerged naturally and automatically from the data collection
process. However, when we focus on the process whereby databases are
made, the picture becomes more complicated. The relationship between
samples and data does not emerge in and of itself. It is the result of the
daily work of writing, and it is this point I wish to address. How, in actual
concrete terms, does one produce a bioinformatics database? How does
one forge a material link between different types of data? How does one
ensure that this information is reliable and robust?
A previous interdisciplinary research project on several biomedical
databases in France and the issues involved in different forms of organi-
zation was a first attempt to answer some of these questions (Pontille,
Milanovic & Rial-Sebbag, 2007). I shall go further here by examining a
specific case: writing practices devoted to the updating of a bioinformatics
database that combines clinical, biological and radiological data sets.

In these particular circumstances, the link between inscriptions and
samples has to be reconstituted. Thus, I will analyse the day-to-day pro-
duction of the link between several sorts of data as one action within a
larger chain of activities.
This analysis gives me the opportunity to pursue several lines of
investigation that have emerged from studies situated in the overlap
between the anthropology of writing and the ethnography of work.
The first involves understanding how writing produces robust links
between scientific propositions and data sets. Here I shall follow several
laboratory studies carried out within the anthropology of sciences which
have drawn particular attention to the major role played by graphic
representations in scientific work (Lynch & Woolgar, 1990). In this
point of view, the notion of inscriptions, that summarises all traces,
spots, points, histograms, recorded numbers, spectra, peaks and so on
(Latour & Woolgar, 1979: 88), is particularly relevant to analyse the
different writing activities that occur in scientific laboratories and many
others workplaces.
The studies carried out by the Language and Work network have
focused on the interweaving of productive work and language activities
(Grosjean & Lacoste, 1998; Borzeix & Fraenkel, 2001), in reconsidering
specific aspects of written performativity (Fraenkel, 2006). The second
line of investigation will be to consider written documents as a resource
for action, but also to interrogate the specific actions of writing, and
what they make it possible to do and to make happen.
Finally, several studies have emphasized the way in which the work
of laboratory technicians who actually use the instruments has become
devalued (Shapin, 1989; Barley & Bechky, 1994; Timmermans, 2003).
Such studies have generally shed light on the ways in which the techni-
cians contribution to scientific work may be represented or erased in
the final published papers. I shall follow this third approach in order to
stress out the active role played by these technicians in actually produc-
ing information through their daily involvement in writing practices.
I shall, first, briefly describe the present case study and the methodo-
logies used, before looking specifically at three main issues:
1. Data management: What is done with the written data? How is it

actually handled? And for what purposes?
Updating a Biomedical Database 49
2. Data processing: What is the graphic and textual information used

for? What kinds of reading do they undergo? What combinations are
made between them to produce other documents?
3. Writing and action: What links are made on the basis of these
documents? What do they produce? What transformations do they
undergo?
This will then make it possible to see how some of these documents are
evaluated compared to others and the scientific weighting attributed
to them.
The Case Study: Constructing a Patient Cohort
At the beginning of the 1990s, a team of French doctors began to be

interested in the predictive factors for a joint disease. To establish the
precipitating factors for the disease and identify the most severe cases,
they began with the premise that they had to gather a set of data (clini-
cal, biological and radiological) at the outset of the disease in order to
follow the course of its development in patients for a sufficiently long
time. They therefore set about recruiting a cohort of individuals who
were willing to be examined once a year.
Various types of data were collected between 1992 and 2002. First, at
patients annual health check X-rays of all painful joints were made and
archived. Then patients underwent a clinical examination designed to
elicit a set of data which was recorded into especially fashioned stan-
dardized research booklets for each patient devoted to the cohort.
These contained a detailed 16 pages questionnaire on patients physical
state (e.g. feelings of fatigue, severe pain, ability to move around) and
mental state (e.g. feelings of being a burden to others, insomnia), as
well as their daily activities (e.g. work activity, social life, family support,
nervous tension). It also contained instances of graphic information
(e.g. a cross placed on a scale of values, painful joints circled on a draw-
ing of a limb, hand or foot). Finally, the participants gave a blood
sample from which the medical team isolated two biological samples:
blood serum itself and DNA.
The aim of setting up the cohort was twofold. First, for clinical
purposes, to enable doctors to make correct diagnoses and hence find
therapeutic solutions. Secondly, the collection of data was a potentially

powerful tool from the point of view of scientific research. Having access
to a bioinformatics database held out the potential for formulating
and testing a range of hypotheses using innovative techniques for detect-
ing illness. It was a way of obtaining original results which could be
published in major medical journals.
Clinical practice was thus linked to biological research.2 This relation-
ship involved a particular organization of work within the rheumatology
unit of the hospital. First, the contribution of all personnel the work
of the head of department, the interns, the nurses and the technicians
had to be coordinated. Then adequate procedures had to be established
in the rheumatology unit for dealing with patients receiving a series
of treatments. At the annual health checks, nurses accompanied the
patients to the X-ray department and took their blood samples. For
their part, the doctors carried out clinical examinations and wrote a
range of data into the research booklets. Finally, a room in the rheuma-
tology unit had to be fitted out for analysing and storing biological
samples, another made available for storing research booklets and
another for setting up the bioinformatics database.
An Ethnography of Writing
At the time of my study, new patients were no longer being added. The
stage of data collection from the 880 patients over the period 19922002
had come to an end. The biological samples were stored in secure
fridges, the radiological data were archived in each patient file, and the
clinical data were inscribed in research booklets according to a standard
procedure. However, the database associated with this material had
been in a state of limbo for a long time. The clinical staffs lack of time
and the absence of specific funding for its upkeep had considerably
delayed the project, even though an initial database had been started
when the patients were enrolled.3
The bioinformatics database had to be updated in order to be func-
tional. The main aim was to construct links between the clinical data,
the radiological data and the biological samples. The different data sets
had to be organized according to the same criteria and brought together
in a single material place (the database). In 2004, a laboratory techni-
cian called Kelly, who was trained in biology and had a complementary
degree in informatics, was engaged by the medical team to devote herself

exclusively to this work, and she set about keyboarding the data.
There were two imperatives that controlled the updating work. Kelly
had to compile the bioinformatics database in conformity with regula-
tions which had not been in place when it was originally set up. Since
then regulation at stake had been pointed out and a number of increas-
ingly detailed legal rules had been introduced (Pontille, Milanovic &
Rial-Sebbag, 2007). Also, Kelly had to work relatively quickly to make
the data available so that it could be used to produce innovative findings
which could be published in international journals.
The stage were at now, weve got five years to make use of this cohort.
Five years from now, things will have moved on; the therapies and the
questions will have changed. So weve got five years. We have to hurry
up and make use of it, publish and get our work known. (Database
manager)
Here I shall focus particularly on the work carried out by Kelly. At the
beginning of my research, in April 2005, the data on 600 patients
was almost complete. I therefore observed the updating of data on 280
patients. This investigation was part of a larger interdisciplinary research
project focused on five biomedical databases in France (Pontille,
Milanovic & Rial-Sebbag, 2007). The ethnographic fieldwork was car-
ried out at the same time to emphasize different forms of organization
between these biomedical databases, especially selected in order to include
a range of sizes, institutional contexts and developmental stages. Such a
selection was made possible by the presence in the interdisciplinary
project of a geneticist particularly informed with biobanking activities
in France. She introduced me to the team of doctors interested in the
genesis of joint diseases.
In this particular case, I started with an interview with the principal
investigator of the patient cohort who finally showed me round his
hospital unit. I then negotiated to stay near Kelly during her work in
order to be familiar with the biodatabase updating process. Afterwards
I followed Kelly during a three-week period to understand her different
activities, which are partly shared with several people, and involve a
variety of tools and locations. Concretely, I sat down for hours near Kelly
while she was facing her computer screen, reading research booklets
and compiling data from juxtaposed texts on her office desk. I also
followed her to the several rooms of the rheumatology unit she went
during the updating process to identify the range of documents and of
devices she systematically relied on. Finally, I made a regular collection
of written documents that she used in the course of her day-to-day activity.
Such an ethnography over time enabled me to study in detail the
various elements that Kelly made use of in order to update the database,
to note the constraints on her work as they emerged over time and to
bring to light the range of writing activities that she engaged in. I supple-
mented my observations with photographs, interviews with several
people involved in the clinical research project (the principal investi-
gator and some of the doctors involved in setting up the cohort), and
a sample of published articles based on this bioinformatics database.
Following Kelly through the course of her daily work showed how
she contributed to producing the database. Apart from having her own
space in the laboratory attached to the rheumatology unit and a com-
puter dedicated to her work, she had priority access to the locked room
where research booklets had been stored since 1992. She had every-
thing she needed for rapid updating of the data. All she needed to do
was take the research booklets one at a time, read the contents, and,
using the software, inscribe the data into the appropriate tables of the
bioinformatics database: one clinical datum, one biological datum,
two radiological data, and one patient whose description included
personal data (e.g. sex, date of birth, marital status, educational level,
number of screenings, presence of serum or DNA samples).
However, these facilities were far from sufficient. Circumstances had
made it impossible to record all the data on the research booklets. The
patient cohort was spread in time between the years 1992 and 2002,
between different parts of the hospital rheumatology unit, and between
a number of doctors and nurses some of whom had changed hospitals
over the course of the project. Also the people who had seen the patients
initially were not always the same ones who had written in the research
booklets. The quality of the data varied markedly according to peoples
availability and commitment (some doctors had written their theses on
this cohort). There was also variation in quantity: replies to the ques-
tionnaires were more complete for some patients than others; the data
were inscribed more conscientiously by some doctors than others.
Contrary to what one might think, updating the database therefore
did not require just an office, a computer and the research booklets.
As we shall see, Kelly regularly made use of other elements in order to

carry out her task. In particular, she had one essential tool. Instead of
updating the database directly into the computer as she went along, she
first wrote the relevant data by hand on an intermediate form designed
by the team. We shall see the reason for this additional step later, but for
the moment let us note merely that this form was part of the updating
process. Each intermediate form, consisting of four A4 sheets, was a
summary of the results of each annual health checks taken from the
research booklets. This was a crucial first stage in stabilizing the infor-
mation and preparing the updating of the bioinformatics database.
How did Kelly actually go about filling in the intermediate form?
How did she deal with the multiple inscriptions in the research booklets?
How did she manage to make links between the different types of data?
Handling the Documents
Kelly did not start by filling in the intermediate forms. She began by
organizing the different spaces that constituted her work place. Ever
since 1992, the research booklets had been stacked in one of the staff
rooms. Every time a patient attended an annual health check, the nurses
and doctors would fetch their research booklets in order to fill in them.
While the cohort was being set up, the research booklets would be in
daily circulation between the storage room and the rest of the rheuma-
tology unit and so would be removed from their storage boxes on a
regular basis. The nurses would replace them more or less promptly
depending on how busy they were and how many emergencies arose.
Over the 10 years of patient follow-up, an increasing disorder had
encroached on the apparently orderly organization of boxes neatly
aligned on the shelves (Figure 3.1).
The first thing Kelly did when she arrived was to spend several hours
carefully sorting out the research booklets. This classification was two-
fold. First, she began by placing the research booklets for each patient
in chronological order in box files. Then she arranged the box files in
alphabetical order. This handling activity did not entail either reading
or making sense of the research booklets, but merely noting the dates of
the health checks and the patients names although the activity did
require some concentration. By placing the research booklets in the
box files and then arranging the latter, Kelly was imposing a spatial
organization on the documents.
Figure 3.1 The stored research booklets room
The importance of this classification was seen whenever research

booklets mysteriously went missing. Doctors and nurses sometimes
used them when following up former patients from the cohort. Kellys
first recourse was to look for the missing research booklet in the other
box files in case it had been misfiled (some patients had similar
surnames). If she found it in the wrong box she would sigh over her
colleagues failure to take due care with the documents they dealt with
every day: I dont believe it! It was hiding in here!
In these action sequences involving handling and manipulation, the
documents are not texts to be read. Kelly saw them as sheer objects
which she carried around, moved, put in piles, sorted and arranged. By
regarding documents as written objects, Kelly took into account the
range of their material supports, here specifically the research booklets
and the box files.4 It is important to emphasize this materiality of writing.
Through her handling activities, Kelly became increasingly familiar with
the tools of her trade: updating the bioinformatics database presupposes
an intimate knowledge of the various elements which constitute it.
Hence the documents are not simply textual resources. As material
objects, they form an essential part of the working environment. In
many work situations the fact that documents are objects which are
produced and manipulated is just as important as their textual content
(Latour & Woolgar, 1979; Latour, 1986; Grosjean & Lacoste, 1998;
Pontille, 2006; Denis & Pontille, 2008).
However, the handling of the written objects was not purely a
manual task. By moving the research booklets and classifying box files,
Kelly performed a stabilization of her working environment (Conein &
Jacopin, 1993). The shelves and the box files constituted a visual
memory. Minimal as they were, these paper technologies produced an
additional set of landmarks, enabling Kelly to put in order the different
elements that formed the material infrastructure of the bioinformatics
database.
The handling of the documents also required the ability to project
oneself into the future. By arranging a spatial distribution of the data
inscribed in different material supports, Kelly was preparing and anti-
cipating future activities: the documents were organized in a particular
way to produce a resource space rendered accessible through efficient
routines (Kirsh, 1995). Once every element was in its place, Kelly was
able to devote herself to fill in the intermediate forms.
Forms of Reading in Order to Write
The challenge for Kelly lay in condensing the data contained in the
various material supports into a single form (the intermediate forms) in
order to transfer it into the computer database. Although doctors
assumed that the data gathering stage was complete, Kelly still had to
engage in an active process of data collection. Filling in the intermedi-
ate forms involved searching, sorting and selecting the data contained
in the research booklets. This selection therefore involved a change of
attitude to the documents: Kelly was now fully focused on their textual-
ity. In the case of both biological and clinical data, she needed to know
what she was looking for and know how to read them. But let us be clear
as to what this reading entails. It is far from being an obvious and
unambiguous activity. On the contrary, Kelly adopted several ways of
reading in order to identify the relevant data.
In some cases the reading was a rapid scan and a visual sorting to
locate the essential data. Her gaze swept over the content and came to
rest at precise points which formed landmarks thanks to the standard-
ized presentation of the written notes. This reading could be done while
standing up and continuing to pay attention to interactions with nurses
and doctors who might be in the same room.
Kelly carried out this form of reading in order to pick out the results
of biological test which might not always be written up in the research
booklets. In such a case, she consulted the patient file where they were
stored along with other documents.5 Kelly rapidly scanned the biologi-
cal results and picked out the relevant ones. Constant practice had
given her a trained eye. For each patient she was able to rapidly distin-
guish the results that related to the cohort criteria from those that did
not. The fact that the results were presented in the form of lists, tables
or standardized formulas meant that the reading process could be
structured and the contents scanned to decide which data need to be
collected (Figure 3.2).
The organization of the graphic space was also an important resource
for action. Kelly held the biological results in one hand and filled in the
requisite spaces on the intermediate form with the other. Her reading
was inextricably linked to writing: while she scanned the graphic space
of the documents, her attention was focused on the end of her pen. As
soon as she identified a relevant biological result, she copied it down.
For other tasks, the reading was more detailed. It presupposed a
studious concentration, a meticulous attention to each word, and might
Figure 3.2 Reading in the office

require several rereadings. This was the case when Kelly had to extract
clinical data. How did she proceed? As Figure 3.2 shows, she opened a
research booklet at the annual health check page, placed the intermedi-
ate form beside it on the desk, and opened the computer database at
the entries dealing with that patient while keeping the medical notes
in their cardboard file nearby.
Here, reading involved, first, deciphering the doctors handwriting.
They tend to fill in the health check results rapidly and often use abbre-
viations which make reading more complicated. Kelly was sometimes
unable to make them out. In order to update the data, she had to use
her wits. She often turned to other written objects where the writing is
more legible.
Well, I have to read the letters sent to the patient [at the time of that
health check] because its written so illegibly, and the same for the
treatment. Life would be a lot easier if they would all fill in the research
booklet properly. (Kelly)
Here again, the patient file was a resource; it contained all the letters
sent to the patient. This correspondence provided data on how the
pains were developing, the patients state of health at the time of the
consultation, the treatment prescribed and any test results.
But reading also involves interpreting. Without an understanding
of what was written, the content would have been meaningless and
Kelly would not have been able to process it correctly, that is, use it to
fill in the intermediate form. The challenge was to study the data
inscribed in the research booklets, evaluate its coherence and establish
its meaning. This discernment is largely local; it is inscribed within the
normative system of a group of professionals involved in the same
clinical research. The shared writing objects, practices and common
experiences are the basis for an understanding of the documents. The
shared professional terminology provides specific terms for evaluating
the patients state of health, the progress of the illness and the medical
treatment provided. Thus the ability to read is closely linked to compe-
tencies based on medical knowledge situated in a specific configuration
of several documents.
Finally, reading also involved checking that the data made sense.
Kellys practiced eye enabled her to recognize the note-writer (around ten
of them between 1992 and 2002) and to attribute a relative weighting to

the data contained in the research booklets. Kelly did not attach the
same importance to all inscriptions to the research booklets, but evalu-
ated them in terms of their enunciative authority.
I think it must have been the technician before me who wrote that
in the research booklet. I dont like it so much. I think it should be
a doctor! (Kelly)
Identifying the handwriting played an important role. The value of an

inscription varied according to whether it was written by a technician,
a junior doctor in training, a fully fledged doctor or a noted mentor.
Kelly attributed more or less weight to an inscription depending on the
institutional hierarchy of the writers. Just as in medical diagnosis
(Cicourel, 1990), the structure of authority relations between the staff
plays a central role.
Thus, Kelly was engaged in an activity that involved different forms of
reading that were closely linked to writing. Systematically, she brought
the different elements together, compared the research booklets with
parts of the patient files and compiled items of data from correspon-
dence. All these activities were necessary in order to copy, report,
transcribe or inscribe data in the intermediate forms. In carrying out
her meticulous work, Kelly selected and interpreted material previously
provided by the doctors in order to produce a new link. But the link she
forged by writing had to be sufficiently robust to enable one to navigate
between the clinical, radiological and biological data sets.
Producing Reliable and Durable Information
In looking at the content of different forms of writing, Kelly was not

merely transferring data from one support to another. Along the way,
she was producing information with different kinds of validity. As we
shall see, Kelly transformed the data into reliable scientific and medical
information, she produced legal documents and she fashioned a
material link by modifying the status of the elements which made up
the database. The performativity of writing was crucial throughout
this chain of transformations.
At several points, Kelly converted the inscriptions into figures and

carried out calculations of certain biological parameters. That was the
case when she was carrying out a recount of the number of swollen
joints in order to convert it into a joint index: one of the sheets in the
intermediate form contained a graphic representation of the human
body showing the limbs, left and right, and including a calculation of
the joint index (Figure 3.3). Checking these calculations was not just a
linear process, it involved going back and forth between different data
sets. It involved numerous adjustments which were not solely reducible
to copying or transcribing.
If she was in doubt about an annotation or a calculation, Kelly
began reading, rereading, checking and redoing calculations. As she
went along, she tried to verify it from other sources. Her biomedical
knowledge was essential for carrying out such calculations, but it was
linked to skills which were heavily dependent on the ability to manipu-
late writings: gathering, compiling, sorting, checking, examining and
comparing (Latour, 1986). During this cross-checking, Kelly was trying
to ensure that the data were medically coherent and hence make sure
that they were valid.
Updating the bioinformatics database was thus not an automatic
process. Not only did Kelly gather inscriptions scattered among many
different written objects, she also systematically made judgements of
their value before writing them on the intermediate forms. The main
issue here was to transform the data into reliable scientific and medical
information.
The intermediate forms were actively involved in this production.
They served to give spatial distribution to the set of data compiled and
condensed by Kelly within a single graphic space. The intermediate
forms became the sole support for the process of updating the com-
puter database. The intermediate place of these forms within the chain
of production can be simply stated here: they were a replacement for
the written objects used previously (box files, research booklets, patient
files, correspondence, the results of biological test, X-rays) and formed
the starting point for the production of original information which
could be published in specialized journals.
But the intermediate forms also had another purpose. By filling them
out, Kelly was storing the data according to the requirements of the
National Commission on Data Protection (Commission Nationale de
60
Figure 3.3 The intermediate form: calculation of a polyarthritis index
lInformatique et des Liberts). She gave each patient in the cohort

a number, which appears on the intermediate form as well as in the
bioinformatics database, in order to preserve anonymity. She then
stored each intermediate form in a cardboard folder with all the other
data on the same patient. Finally, she placed this folder in a locked metal
filing cabinet reserved for the cohort.
This particular use of the intermediate forms was no longer concerned
with the production of scientific and medical information. Kelly pro-
duced here a document with an explicitly legal function: if necessary, it
would prove that the cohort set up for biomedical research purposes
conformed to existing legislation and respected the patients rights. In
terms of the French legal system, it is absolutely necessary to have a
paper version of the database. It is the only place where the biomedical
data and the patients name are found together, whereas the electronic
version of the database, on which all subsequent treatment is based,
must be completely anonymous.
In inscribing the information on the same physical record, the writing
also transformed the status of the individuals. They were not only
patients who circulated within the hospital service, they also became
entities forming part of the bioinformatics database. The attribution
of numerical codes and the systematic inscribing of data was not merely
a writing gesture. It was an act which impinged directly on persons
(Bowker & Star, 1999; Fraenkel & Pontille, 2006). Here, it consisted of
addressing them in a specific way by establishing their medical needs,
and it influenced the course of their lives by obliging them to attend
annual health checks. They were hospital patients, but they were also
simultaneously categorized as individuals suffering from joint disease
who featured in the bioinformatics database. The inscriptions made
initially by the doctors and nurses, which Kelly then reworked, com-
pleted and archived, transformed their status permanently. It was
through the intermediary of writing that they were constituted as
members of the cohort and that their identity is newly organized through
multiple inscriptions.
One last operation completed this process. After checking for
missing data and correcting anomalies, Kelly decided to backup the first
version of the database on a CD-ROM.
It would be a good idea to make a backup on CD so we have a

clean and reliable copy. If we do this, if we have a problem at any
Figure 3.4 The making of a bioinformatics database
time in the future, we will have a copy of the database that we can
rely on. (Kelly)
The purpose of this saving, which was in addition to the backups

made regularly by the hospitals computer server, was to have the same
information available for all the analyses. The recording and storage
were designed to give material form to the relationships that had been
established between different pieces of information (Latour & Woolgar,
1979; Berg, 1996). As a transportable object, the CD-ROM played an
active part in the construction of a material link between clinical, radio-
logical and biological data sets. It formed the culmination of the pro-
cess of updating the database. In doing this, it also formed part of
the rationalization of the process since it contained no trace of the
many doubts, hesitations and corrections which Kelly had laboriously
overcome when making the database. It thus erased the whole set of
day-to-day activities involved in updating it (Figure 3.4).
Invisible Workers of Writing and Scientific Contribution
This erasure of the conditions of production of the database should

not, however, reduce invisibility to a one-dimensional phenomenon.
On the contrary, observing Kelly go about her daily work enables to

emphasize that there are various forms of invisibility.
Kelly was mainly visible during her handling activities. She regularly
carried around research booklets, patient files and X-ray plates from
place to place within the rheumatology unit of the hospital. This carry-
ing around was of course part of her work. In the eyes of her colleagues,
it drew on reserves of physical energy and needed few specific skills
(Shapin, 1989), although handling the documents was not reducible to
this. Kelly used it to familiarize herself with her tools, organize her work
environment and anticipate her future activities.
When she was in front of her computer, her work generally consisted
of a simple and repetitive task: physically keyboarding the data in the
database. In common with many other laboratory technicians (Barley &
Bechky, 1994), the importance of her activity remained largely invisible
and unrecognized. However, Kelly participated actively in the process of
data collection by virtue of different kinds of reading. Her expertise was
closely linked to the way she used the graphic space of documents and
to her ability to navigate between various written resources in order to
act properly.
There was an even more invisible stage: Kelly contributed directly to
the production of new knowledge by her daily writing work. Day after
day, she filled in numerous gaps in the data contained in the research
booklets which were supposedly her only source material. As she wrote,
Kelly checked, corrected and filled in any missing cases. She forged a
robust link between different items of clinical, biological and radio-
logical data sets.
Of course her contribution was seen as essential: she was engaged
to carry out work which no-one else within the rheumatology unit had
sufficient time to do. Her employer also saw her as being necessary for
the long term.
At the moment Im trying to think of a way of renewing my data man-

agement technicians temporary contract. This girl has had training
in basic statistics, I need to keep her. So Im now looking for funding
to extend her contract. (Database manager)
However difficult, meticulous and crucial Kellys writing work may have
been, it was still reducible to making a stable bioinformatics database.
All her writing activities were directed towards preparing the database
so that it could be used by clinicians. As a data management technician

Kelly was responsible for producing multiple inscriptions (gathering,
keyboarding and manipulating data, carrying out statistical analyses,
drawing up intermediate summaries . . .). In no way was she judged to
be in a position to write texts, that is, articles publishable in scientific
journals, like the doctors she worked with. The way the latter saw her
contribution confirmed this point:
The authors acknowledge the contribution of Kelly Whitehand as a

clinical research data manager as well as the help of the Computa-
tional platform for Clinical Research and Analysis in Epidemiology
& Public Health of the Beautiful University. (Acknowledgments
section of an article published in a scientific journal in 2007)
When Kelly was thanked in published articles, it was in the same way
as a technological platform. Although her work was essential, only its
technical aspect was acknowledged. It was seen as inextricably linked
to the inscription devices (Latour & Woolgar, 1979: chapter 2), these
laboratory instruments that can transform a material substance into a
figure, a diagram or other inscriptions which form the starting point
for scientific literature.
Conclusion
This case study shows that the solidity of the link between the different
types of data which make up the bioinformatics database is based on
writing. As well as favouring abstraction and making it easier to carry
out mental operations (Goody, 1977), writing is also a tangible object,
easy to handle, to manage and to combine (Latour, 1986). This is shown
by the multiplicity of the physical records that Kelly manipulated:
research booklets, intermediate forms, patient files, computer files, CD-
ROMs, etc. During her daily work, Kelly consulted various documents
and committed herself in systematic writing practices which support the
production of a strong material link between different data sets.
This study also shows that information is not the starting point of
Kellys work. On the contrary, it is the result of all her actions devoted
to the biodatabase update. The whole set of documents daily used by
Kelly was precisely a way of making available information that has a
polyvalent value: scientific, medical and legal. Classificatory tools and

coding procedures were crucial to this differentiated information man-
agement. They had important political implications in terms of how
individuals appearing on databases are identified (Bowker & Star, 1999).
Finally, it shows that the work of laboratory technicians is not reduc-
ible to manipulating instruments. In some cases, they are actively involved
in collecting data and thus make a direct contribution to the produc-
tion of knowledge through their daily writing work. Kelly produced an
effective link between various pieces of data. Her involvement in differ-
ent forms of reading and writing activities together culminated in a
single operation: transforming data into information by giving them a
specific and durable form. Yet, even if they effectively write some origi-
nal results, laboratory technicians are rarely authorized to put their name
on papers and few of them receive recognition for the importance of
their scientific contribution (Timmermans, 2003; Pontille, 2004).
Notes
1
This chapter has benefited from the comments of participants in the Ethno-
graphies of Literacy: an Anglo-French Dialogue workshop organized by the
Lancaster Literacy Research Centre in May 2008. I am also grateful to Philippe
Artires, David Barton, Jrme Denis, Batrice Fraenkel, Fabien Milanovic and
Uta Papen for their helpful critical remarks on earlier versions of this text.
2
See Keating and Cambrosio (2003) on the changes in clinical activities brought
about by advances in molecular biology.
3
This is the main preoccupation of most bioinformatics database managers. They
have to constantly find grants to cover their use and maintenance: We need
people to carry out these specific tasks. And this is not part of the clinical staffs
daily work, so we have to get separate research funding (Database manager).
4
In other action sequences not discussed here, Kelly manipulated different written
objects: she carried around patient files, handled X-rays, sorted out cardboard
files, and put forms away in plastic cases.
5
See Berg and Bowker (1997) for a detailed analysis of the recording procedures
that take place within patient files.
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Chapter Four
Eruptions of Interruptions: Managing

Tensions between Writing and Other Tasks
in a Textualized Childcare Workplace1
Karin Tusting
Introduction
Writing in the workplace has been a particular area of study in literacy

studies and social sciences for some time. Generalizations have been
made about the nature of workplace writing in contemporary society.
Work is claimed to be increasingly textualized (Iedema & Scheeres,
2003), with workers expected to engage in complex literacy practices,
even in previously non-textual jobs (Brandt, 2001; Hull, 1997). The move
to an audit culture (Strathern, 2000; Power, 1997) requires workers to
record their practices in great detail to meet heightened demands for
accountability. This textualization of work can lead to stress and con-
flicts (Farrell, 2000; Farrell, Kamler & Threadgold, 2000; Iedema &
Scheeres, 2003) as workers re-negotiate practices, knowledges and iden-
tities in the face of heightened textual demands.
This social structural trend towards a culture of audit and inspection
plays out in local situations, shaped by complex histories, cultures and
local meanings. The research drawn on here2 was based in two case
study sites, an adult education college and a childcare centre. It seeks to
understand the effects of changing textual processes on the nature and
experience of work. The study explores the specific paperwork demands
staff are faced with, where they come from and how they are mediated,
for instance by local management. It asks what the impacts are of such
paperwork demands on peoples professional identities, relationships
in the workplace, and working practices. This chapter will focus on data
from the childcare centre, although some of the themes which emerge
are common to both sites.
This research addresses literacy from a perspective which sees literacy

as a form of social practice, in which literacy exists in multiple forms,
tightly integrated with and shaped by broader social practices and
structures (Tusting & Barton, 2005). It draws on linguistic ethnographic
methods (Rampton et al., 2004) which aim to develop an understand-
ing of the meanings and experiences associated with literacy practices
in particular settings, through reflexive immersion over time, partici-
pant-observation and ethnographic interviewing. Data collection in a
childcare centre for 1 year from early 2007 included regular observation
of working practices and discussions with staff. Twelve staff, represent-
ing a range of age, level of experience and work situation, kept logs
of all their encounters with paperwork over a period of 1 week (similar
to those developed by Jones, 2000). Semi-structured interviews based on
these logs were carried out to further explore the impact of paperwork
on their working lives.
One issue which emerged throughout the course of the fieldwork,
consonant with the literature on the textualized workplace, was that
many staff expressed difficulty, to varying degrees, in keeping up with all
the writing tasks they were expected to complete during their working
day. In this chapter, I will explore some of the reasons for the difficulties
they described, relating these particularly to the material conditions
under which writing tasks were carried out, and the multi-threaded
nature of activity in a childcare workplace. I analyse in detail one
observed instance of a childcare worker engaging with a writing task,
who is interrupted throughout her writing by other demands on her
time and attention.
I will argue that what we can see here are the concrete effects of
literacy events being interwoven with all the other activities at play in
the workplace. The difficulties experienced by this staff member are less
to do with her personal skills or with the nature of the task itself, and
more to do with the material realities of the local and broader context
they are working within. Analysis of the multiple processes and activities
at play will demonstrate the role of the staff member and the semiotic
artefact she is producing in articulating together processes and activities
at a range of different timescales, which have a variety of goals, more
or less complementary or contradictory to one another. This both goes
some way towards explaining the experience she describes of having
difficulty in keeping up with writing demands, and complexifies the
notion of the literacy event.
Eruptions of Interruptions 69
Paperwork Demands in a Childcare Centre
Early years education is a field in which written accountability demands

have increased dramatically in recent years. Most of these requirements
come ultimately from the government department which regulates
childcare centres, at the time of writing the Department for Children,
Schools and Families (DCSF). The managers of the childcare centre
interpret these requirements and construct systems to fulfil them,
informed by regular inspections and reports from Ofsted, the govern-
ment educational inspectorate.
The expectations placed on childcare workers have been developing
and changing since the publication of the Every Child Matters Green
Paper (HM Govt, 2003), which introduced a programme aiming to
reform all aspects of childrens care. Since then, there has been an
increasing shift away from staff-led group activities towards a continu-
ous provision approach. This aims to make a range of activities and
resources available all the time, carefully selected to encourage the
development of each of the children as individuals. Children themselves
then choose which of these resources to draw on in their play. This
provision is planned through staff regularly writing observations of
childrens activities, and drawing on these to identify appropriate
resources and activities to provide support for each childs next deve-
lopmental steps.
The centre in which this research was carried out implemented the
continuous provision approach in 20032004. This was experienced as
a significant cultural shift for many of the more experienced staff, who
were expected to move away from a role where they were responsible
for setting and guiding group activities, and shift to working in a much
more individually responsive mode in which the choices children made
structured what was going on. In some ways, even at the time the field-
work for this research was carried out in 20072008, some of the staff
interviewed were still coming to terms with the changes this implied
for their professional practices, identities and values.
Childcare at the centre was organized into roughly age-defined rooms,
with groups of children aged 01 in the babyroom, 12 in two crche
rooms, 23 in two nursery rooms, and 34 in pre-school rooms. In each
room, strict child-staff ratios were observed at all times, with a maximum
of 3 children to 1 adult in the babyroom and crche, 4 children to
1 adult in nursery and 8 children to 1 adult in pre-school. The centre
employed highly qualified childcare staff compared to the norms of

the sector, with 95% having the equivalent of NVQ level 3 or above
(as compared to 65% of childcare staff in group providers qualified to
this level nationally in 2007, Nicholson et al., 2008). Each child had a
named key person in their room who was responsible for completing
the majority of the paperwork related to that child and liaising with
their family and principal carers, though on a day-to-day basis, children
were looked after by all the staff in the room depending on what was
going on. Each room followed a daily routine with lunch at midday,
snacks morning and afternoon, and times for the children to play and
to rest, though this was flexible, particularly with the younger children.
The rooms were set up with a range of different age-appropriate
resources, such as books, sand trays, water trays, painting facilities and
toys of various kinds, from which children could choose as they wished.
Recording and planning of activities was based on written observations
of individual children, which were expected to be carried out on a very
regular basis for every child. Prior to the introduction of this system,
written observations had been used, but less regularly, and primarily for
specific reasons, for instance if a concern was raised about a particular
childs development. All observation and planning was linked to par-
ticular named and numbered sections of one of the frameworks, pro-
duced by the DCSF in response to the recommendations of Every Child
Matters, within which all childcare providers were expected to work: Birth
to Three for younger children, or the Foundation Level for pre-schoolers.3
Full-time staff were expected to complete around eight to ten obser-
vation sheets a week. These included a brief written description of
some aspect of a childs behaviour, a section relating this to one or
two areas of the framework, and a Next Steps section drawing out
implications for future activities. At the time this fieldwork was carried
out, observations were recorded on forms which were pasted into
achievement books alongside photographs of the child, as in Figure
4.1a and 4.1b.
At this point, L., the child in the pictures, was around 8 months
old. This example demonstrates the level of detail involved in the
observations. All the observations and photographs are labelled with
headings and subheadings taken from the Birth to Three framework,
for example, Skilful communicator listening and responding,
Healthy child, healthy choices individual choice. The example also
Figure 4.1a Individual observations

Figure 4.1b Individual observations
shows how observations structured the future activities planned by the

staff, in the Future play and practical support section. The observation
sheets were collated weekly and one member of staff would draw on
the ideas noted down for future activities, for instance in this example
musical toys/instruments and singing time, to plan resources and
activities for the room the following week. Once they had been used for
planning, observations were collected in the childs achievement book,

which was shared regularly with parents.
At the end of each term an Individual Play Plan was completed for
each child, assessing their progress against each different area of the
framework and making plans for supporting their future development.
Planning was also produced in relation to the centres termly themes.
Medium-term planning was carried out by drawing together ideas for
possible activities related to the theme of the following term, produced
by staff in the different rooms, collated by management into a table of
activities to choose from.
In all rooms below pre-school age, a daily feedback sheet was com-
pleted for each child which tracked what children did, what they ate,
when they slept, and when nappies were changed and checked. These
were filled out throughout the day by the childs key-worker and given
to parents at the end of the day, along with a verbal report. In addition,
a range of health and safety records were kept, diaries were used to
communicate between staff and to keep records, and there was ongoing
contingent paperwork to deal with, including such things as staff
meeting notes, information on policy changes and new information
for parents.
The management team of the centre audited each room on a monthly
basis to check whether staff met paperwork requirements, scoring them
out of 100 per cent and making suggestions for improvement where
necessary. Every staff member I spoke to was aware that Ofsted inspec-
tors could turn up unannounced at any point, so paperwork had to be
kept as current as possible at all times.
Balancing Paperwork Requirements and

Immediate Demands
Keeping up with this paperwork while looking after the children was
challenging for most staff. This chapter will focus on the experiences
of Thea, a young staff member working in one of the pre-school rooms,
as a case study example, using a brief extract from observing her
work to illustrate the material realities of writing in this workplace.
This has been selected as a typical case (Mitchell, 1984), a good illus-
tration of many of the issues discussed in the interviews with staff more
generally.
It was not the nature of the writing tasks in themselves which staff
reported difficulty with, but rather the challenge of fitting them all in
to an already busy day. The daily routine included many and varied
events which placed different demands on staff: registering the children
on arrival and departure, discussing any issues with parents, feeding
them snacks and lunch, setting up and carrying out planned activities,
routine cleaning and tidying up, and generally interacting with the
children with an eye to promoting their development. Finding slots of
time within these activities to complete all the paperwork demands
including completing observations, keeping achievement books up to
date, brainstorming medium-term planning, recording daily events on
daily sheets or food records, and keeping health and safety records
was a real challenge. Apart from the weekly planning time allotted to
team leaders, there was no specific time allowed for writing activities,
which were fitted in around the other daily tasks.
The result of this was that at any given moment, there was always
something else that could or should be written. This increased work
intensity, since any (rare) natural pauses in the hectic round of activity
were accompanied by a feeling that this ought to be taken advantage
of as an opportunity for catching up on outstanding writing. In
Theas case, the paperwork demands on her were such that she never
felt she had completed everything she was expected to. In any spare
moment, there was always something which could be done. It led
to a constant underlying nagging feeling of guilt at never doing
enough. As she said, It gets to the point where if you are sat with
[the children] you start to feel guilty that you should be doing the
[achievement] book.
Keeping up with the number of observations expected was a particu-
lar problem. Each full-time member of staff was expected to complete
eight to ten observations in a week, pro-rata for part-time staff; but
many staff, including Thea, struggled to achieve this number. With the
introduction of the monthly audit, failure to complete the appropriate
number of observations impacted not just on the individual concerned,
but on the whole team of staff, since one member not completing
enough observations brought down the score of the room as a whole.
This requirement led not only to practical difficulties in coordinating
multiple demands, but also in some ways challenged Theas under-
standing of her role and her professional identity. She defined her job
as being primarily to interact directly with the children, and felt that
other tasks including paperwork should be subordinate to this,
telling me: The job itself is caring for the childrens needs and what
they need. That is the crucial part. Anything which took her attention
away from this was seen as an obstacle: It [paperwork] takes your atten-
tion away from what they need because your attentions not on them,
its on something else. She felt that there were times when writing
demands prevented her temporarily from directly interacting with the
children, impoverishing her ability to assess their situation and pro-
gress, since she found immediate interaction to be more useful for
these purposes than writing and recording:
A lot of the time I dont necessarily need to fill something like that
in as detailed as that to be able to know what I need to concentrate
on [yeah] with my children . . . if I was sat down there and one of
them was struggling with it then Id automatically make a mental note
and think I need to sit with that child and help them to be able to
do that . . . rather than actually having to write something down on
a bit of paper.4
The different paperwork demands that the nursery had to fulfil came
from a wide range of sources, including education policy, health and
safety legislation, the management of the larger institution in which it
was based, specific demands from Ofsted inspections, and requests from
parents. It fell to local management to mediate these multiple demands
and produce a single local system for staff to implement. The managers
spent time with staff and children in the rooms on a daily basis, and had
a good understanding of the tasks staff were carrying out during the
day. They designed the system with these in mind.
The observations were intended to be short and easy to complete.
Discussing issues of paperwork and writing demands with me, the Cen-
tre manager suggested that perhaps some of the staff who were strug-
gling with their writing load might be over-estimating the amount of
writing that was being asked of them. For an observation, she did not
expect staff to write a great deal; a sentence or two would be enough,
and so each should take no more than a minute or two5. She also
challenged the idea, expressed in the quotation above, that direct
interaction with the children was more important than the other tasks
of the job, describing the written observations as playing an equally key

role in caring for the children:
The value of sitting back and actually looking at the bigger picture
and taking 5 minutes to jot down their observation and what youre
going to plan for them the following week is of equal value with
being there.
Communication between managers and staff was generally very good,

with regular team meetings, individual appraisals and continual infor-
mal conversations. Nevertheless, when members of staff did experience
difficulty with writing demands, there was a reluctance expressed in
conveying this directly. This was a nursery which prided itself on its high
standards. Staff were well trained, relatively highly qualified, and paid at
a higher rate than the average wage in the local area. Unusually for the
sector, the turnover of staff was very low. As respected and autonomous
professionals, staff took pride in their ability to fulfil all the require-
ments of the job, and did not wish to appear to struggle:
You find it quite hard to go and say Im having a problem with this
because you feel as though youre almost going to be saying I cant
cope with my workload and I cant do my job properly and its not that
at all . . . you dont want to come across to management as a whinger
and somebody that cant cope with what theyre doing.
However, perhaps inevitably, there was a feeling among some staff

that management did not fully understand the implications of some of
the demands of the recording and planning system, particularly when
additional requests were made in already busy days. As I was told:
When you are out of the room for a long period of time, i.e. youve
become management and youre now in the offices, you dont actually
realize what an impact all these extra Could you just maybe do this or
can you just try and do that what effect it has, as it goes over time and
all these different bits build up . . . I dont think maybe that they
do realize that we do find it hard work to keep on top of it all.
I will now explore in more detail a vignette from my observations which

illustrates and explains some of the reasons for these difficulties in
keeping on top of it all. These relate directly to the material circum-

stances under which staff were carrying out their writing. In this type of
workplace, writing has to be carried out as one of a stream of parallel
processes, which overlap with and can interfere with one another. It is
this interference between processes which makes the writing tasks staff
are faced with particularly challenging to complete.
The Challenges of Writing Observations
At the time the fieldnotes below were written, the room contained
14 children aged between 3 and 5 years old and 2 members of staff,
Thea and Ellen. It was mid-morning. Children had arrived between
8.45 a.m. and 9.30 a.m. They had been playing with a range of different
resources, in small groups, and had had snack time together. Thea and
Ellen had registered the children, set out different resources, joined
in with some of the play, and set up and cleared away food and drink.
The room was laid out with different areas for different activities: a
sofa and books for reading, a water play area, a dressing-up area, the
computer area, etc. There were several child-sized table and chair sets,
which were multi-purpose. Children sat around these tables to eat; they
would later be used for painting and for other play. There was no dedi-
cated writing space for staff, although one of the tables was set up for
children as a mark-making table, stocked with pens, pencils, crayons
and paper.
At a rare quiet moment mid-morning, Thea decided to take advan-
tage of all the children being occupied to write up two observations of
activities that she had noticed earlier on, when two of the girls had been
sorting pebbles into different types. She got out two blank observation
forms and sat down at the table that had just been used for snack, bent
double over it, perched on a child-sized chair.
The description below, taken from my fieldnotes, details the process
of Thea writing the two observations, while skilfully negotiating a con-
tinual series of interruptions. Each individual interruption is marked
by # and numbered in bold. (Children are referred to by initials; staff
names are pseudonyms.)
10.35 a.m.: Thea grabbed a piece of paper. Im just going to write

down what these two were doing with the sorting, before. She sat
down at the child-sized snack table, bent over and starting writing on
observation sheets.
10.37 a.m.: #1 A. spotted that Thea was sitting at the table on her
own and went over to show her how his Transformer turned into an
aeroplane. She stopped writing and talked with him about it.
#2 S. had been wrapping some highlighter pens up in Christmas
paper, and went over to Thea to ask if she could start the Sellotape off.
Thea asked who the present was for, S. said for mummy and daddy.
Thea explained she couldnt take pens home for mummy and daddy
from pre-school. So what can I send? Thea suggested wrapping up
a piece of paper with a message on for them, and went over to the
mark-making table with her to set her up preparing this.
#3 Another girl N. came over to Thea with the wrapping paper, and
to get the Sellotape started again. Thea put the roll in a dispenser
and showed the girls how to use it, before going back to the table to
continue writing.
#4 The boys were having another conflict with the Transformer,
and went over to her. They were not happy that A. still had the
Transformer.
[#5 Thea noticed that M. at the mark-making table was struggling
to tear paper into shape and called over to her: Use scissors M.!]
#4 continued She called over to A.: Come here a minute. She
explained that the Transformer belonged to F., and that he needed
to give it back now and be nice. F. might give him another go with it
later. A. handed it back and she praised him, then checked, Are we
sorted now? OK.
Thea turned back to filling in the observation sheet.
10.42 a.m.: #6 A sudden, loud scream came from the writing table.
Thea and Ellen both went over and checked what had happened.
D. was upset because M. had taken her picture away. After comforting
her, Thea went back to writing. She had now completed one box
on the first observation sheet, and started filling in the next steps
section.
10.45 a.m.: #7 M. went over to Thea, and showed her milk bottle
tops she had wrapped up. Thea: Thats a good idea, Mummy will
love them. Thea began the second observation sheet. S. went to
approach her, saw she was writing, and went back to the table to get
the Sellotape from N.
#8 Thea said, with frustration: Oh, Ive wrote three twice now.
She was now onto the second Next Steps section.
10.50 a.m.: Thea finished writing-up the observations.
Interruptions
While engaged in the primary activity of writing an observation, Thea
experiences a string of interruptions of different kinds, which place
demands on her to respond in a variety of different and sometimes
contradictory ways. Most of these interruptions come from the children,
and require her to quickly frame appropriate responses. A frequent
theme in interviews with staff was that children needed attention
immediately, at unpredictable times, and that when in the room with
the children, responding to these immediate needs had to take priority
over writing. This caused Thea some frustration:
When youre trying to take the time out to sit and do bits of paper-
work like this and if then something happens in the room or the
children are wanting something from you, youre then getting frus-
trated because youre having to stop what youre trying to do . . . youre
trying to do the best by the children and provide the care that they
deserve as well as trying to fit these other bits in as well which some-
times are hard work.
This example shows how this dynamic conflict plays out in practice. The
majority of these interruptions are initiated by the children. In #1, A.
begins a conversation about his toy. In #2 and #3, S. and N. are request-
ing Theas assistance with their activities. In #4, Thea is asked to resolve
a conflict between the boys. In #7, M. shows Thea her bottle tops,
demonstrating pride in her activities. #6 is child-led in a different way,
with sudden and dramatic screams from D. eliciting an immediate
response from both members of staff. Only #5 and #8 are interruptions
initiated by Thea herself. In #5 she notices one of the children strug-
gling and calls over to make recommendations, and in #8 she interrupts
herself as she notices an error in her work. All of these interruptions,
even relatively straightforward ones like #1, in which A. simply initiates
a conversation about his toy, require Thea to shift her focus away from
the writing task she is working on.
The interruptions are not merely on a practical level, but often require
Thea to engage in delicate interpersonal negotiations; the sort of work-
place activity which has been called emotional labour (Hochschild,
1983). Interruptions #4 and #6 require her to mediate conflict between
the children. To achieve resolution, she needs to be sensitive to each
childs perspective and help them to reach a solution they are com-
fortable with, negotiating between the boys, using careful explicit
explanations about what is appropriate behaviour, praising appropriate
behaviour, setting boundaries around inappropriate behaviour and
checking that the children are happy before returning to writing. In #2
a different kind of delicacy is required, when Thea needs to clarify for
S. what she is and is not permitted to take home. She needs to handle
this sensitively and with some thought. The difference between paid-for
resources such as highlighter pens, which cannot be taken home, and
a paper message, which can, is not necessarily transparent to a 3 year
old. Thea manages this situation in a creative way, coming up with a
solution which enables S. to continue her activity without giving away
resources which belong to the Centre, and without causing disappoint-
ment for the child. In #7, another child-led interruption, M. is display-
ing pride in her achievement. Thea is sensitive to this and reinforces
her pride by giving her praise. These sorts of delicate negotiations are
all part of the important socialization work that nursery staff constantly
engage in. Each one requires Thea to shift her focus away from her
writing task and to quickly come up with creative solutions to immediate
social difficulties.
In the childcare setting, unpredictable and dramatic events requiring
an immediate response can happen at any time, interrupting any writ-
ing activity which may be going on. In interruption #6 in this example,
D.s loud screams led both Thea and Ellen to drop what they were doing
instantly and go over to her, to find out what was going on and to
comfort her. In this instance, the problem was an interpersonal one
rather than, as was feared, an accident, but the impact on Theas writing
was similar: a break in flow, a heightening of emotional intensity, and
a shift of focus away from the writing task towards the childrens imme-
diate needs.
Theas principal activity at this point was writing the observation. In
the quotation cited above, the manager described this as a process of
sitting back, looking at the bigger picture and taking 5 minutes to jot
down an observation, a description which implies this is a simple writing
task which can be completed in one brief sitting. However, the constant
interruptions to which Thea responds turn writing an observation into
a rather more complex set of activities. To complete the writing task
she has engaged in requires her to continually shift her attention back
and forth between the interruptions and the writing task, refocusing
after each one. She found that such constant interruptions made the
writing task very difficult for her. Interruption #8 above, where she
exclaims in annoyance at having made an error, shows how such constant
external distractions lead to a break in cognitive focus.
The space Thea is writing in is cramped, which makes her task more
difficult, and it is itself directly affected by the multiplicity of activities
going on. Because of the interruptions, she has to keep changing her
work space as she deals with the children. In interruption #2, Thea has
to walk away from the table at which she has been working to get to the
other side of the room, to ensure that S. has all the resources she requires
to get on with the message-writing activity. The same is true of #3, when
she is asked to start the Sellotape off for a second time. And because
tables are used for multiple activities and there is no dedicated space for
writing, the activity is framed by Thea constructing a place to write by
clearing a table, getting out her writing materials and pens, and putting
everything away again afterwards. This is something staff have to do
each time they decide to write anything more substantial than filling
in the daily sheets or the register.
The cumulative impact is that a relatively short piece of writing, which
as an uninterrupted activity might well take only 5 minutes to produce,
ends up stretching over 15 minutes. Discussing this example, Thea
described it as fairly typical:
Whenever you try and sit down and do something like that [. . .] youre
bound to get disrupted because the children need us to sort issues
and different things out that are going on.
Multiple Processes, Multiple Activities, Multiple Goals
The interpretive framework of activity theory offers us one way to

describe the complexity of processes at play in this room. This approach
to understanding human behaviour stresses the goal-directedness of
human activity and the central importance of the material and semiotic
tools which mediate activities. It is normally traced back to the work of

the Soviet psychologists Vygotsky (1962, 1978) and his colleagues
Leontev (1978) and Luria (1976). Vygotsky developed the idea that
human action is not simply a direct response to a stimulus from the
environment, as the then-dominant behaviourist model suggested.
Rather, human action is always mediated by artefacts (including both
physical, material tools, and cultural objects such as words and ideas),
and object-oriented, that is, aiming to achieve a goal of some kind.
The ideas associated with this school of thought have been translated
into Western research by the work of Engestrm (e.g. 1987) who deve-
loped the model to explore the complexities of collective activity systems.
Here, however, I will not be drawing on the full representation of the
different aspects of the collective activity system explored by Engestrm.
My analysis of the different activities going on in the room will focus
primarily on their object-oriented nature, identifying activities by the
multiple goals which people orient to in different processes, and explain-
ing the impact of these concurrent competing activities on Theas
writing. I will also explore, but in less depth, some of the mediational
means used and produced in these activities.
Identifying a multiplicity of activities going on in a given social setting
is rarely difficult. As Lemke (2000) points out, in any human situation
there are always many different processes taking place, unfolding over
different timescales and relating to different systems. Most social acti-
vities include a range of goals which are not necessarily common or
shared among participants; different goals are just successfully enough
articulated to permit collective activity to proceed for the most part
coherently (Lemke, 2000: 288). There is no reason to suppose that these
articulations of different goals will necessarily be made in a straight-
forward or non-conflictual way. And each process of articulating goals
is itself another activity which has to be performed by people.
In this room, we see many different activities taking place, using dif-
ferent mediational means, addressed towards goals of different kinds.
By examining the detail of this literacy event, we can explore in detail
which processes are being articulated together, both through the event
itself and through the eruptions of multiple processes which interrupt
it. The analysis which follows will be structured around the goals of these
different processes, following activity theory, and the different timescales
on which they play out, following Lemkes timescale approach.
Immediate activities and goals

The room is a site in which many things are going on at the same time.
Many conversations are happening; different groups of children are
engaging in play of various kinds; children and adults are reading,
writing and making things; people eat and drink, and clear away; staff
record what is going on and plan what is going to happen. Each of the
external interruptions #1#7 above can be interpreted as an eruption
into Theas writing task of a concurrent process, associated with a
different goal.
Thea herself has multiple goals. Her immediate goal of completing
the observation exists in tandem with an ongoing goal of maintaining
order in the room and safety for the children. She therefore cannot
simply choose to focus on writing for a given time in order to complete
the task. She needs to remain constantly partially aware of other activi-
ties in the room, and to be prepared to switch focus immediately when
necessary to engage with whatever else is going on. The childrens goals
are different. Their immediate goals are to enjoy play and to pursue
their relationships with their friends. It is as they engage in these activities
that many of the interruptions arise.
A good example of concurrent short-term goals can be seen in the
nested interruptions #4 and #5 above. While Thea is engaging in
delicate negotiations between the boys, she notices another child strug-
gling with an activity, and calls instructions over to her. She is at this
point juggling three separate activities, each of which has different
immediate goals. In writing the observation, her immediate goal is to
complete it. In giving instructions, her immediate goal is to enable
the child to complete the activity. In mediating between the children,
her immediate goal is to keep the peace, with underlying longer-term
socialization goals to which I will turn next. It is through Theas actions
that these immediate goals are articulated together, as Lemke puts it,
more or less successfully.
Longer-term systems and goals

The processes brought together in these events are not restricted to
local and immediate ones. The process of writing the observation inte-
grates the immediate activities in the room into broader social systems,
and to systems at longer timescales. These broader and longer-term

systems include (among others) the interpersonal relationships in the
room; the Early Years Centre and its planning procedures; Theas
lifespan, career and training; and Government policy and inspection.
Each of these is associated with different goals and plays out at different
timescales. This is an example of a situated activity which locally
produces and reproduces broader social orders social practice, as
Lave and Wenger (1991: 47) describe it.
Several of the interruptions described above can be understood as
Thea trying to meet medium-term relational goals, such as maintain-
ing good relationships with the children, and encouraging harmonious
relationships between the children. Thea needs to respond to the child-
led interruptions at an immediate level to maintain order in the room
and to keep the childrens activities going, but also in the longer-term
perspective to maintain her relationship with them. It is an important
part of her role that the children should feel they can approach her
with their problems and difficulties, to share their interpersonal con-
flicts or their moments of pride, and that they should trust that she will
respond to them appropriately. The emotional labour interruptions
identified above are all eruptions into the writing activity of short- to
medium-term processes of relationship maintenance.
Relationship maintenance and emotional labour also contribute to
longer-term goals relating to the childrens development, such as social-
izing the children into norms of good behaviour, constructing parti-
cular identities, habituses and social practices, and supporting the
children in learning the content and practices laid out by the stepping
stones of the Foundation Framework, in preparation for school.
Within the local planning systems of the centre, writing down observa-
tions forms part of processes with the goals of planning activities both
for the following week, and in the longer term relating to the theme
of the term. The written observations will also be used for recording
purposes in the medium-term, by being put together in the achieve-
ment books. Production of these durable, portable semiotic artefacts
has the goals of representing each childs activities and development,
and of providing a basis for communication with parents.
Writing the observations is also a means by which the local activities
of the Early Years Centre are incorporated within much broader and
longer-term policy systems, primarily by means of doing the work
required to situate them within the Foundation Level framework. At the
immediate level, goals include selecting particular behaviours to record

and highlight, reframing them by associating them with the labels of
different sections of the framework, and classifying these behaviours in
levels against a stepping stone structure representing desirable deve-
lopment. The framework also structures the activities made available in
the room in the medium-term, doing work similar to Hamiltons (2009)
analysis of the Individual Learning Plan in adult literacy classrooms,
aligning local identities and practices with the goals of the national
system. This broader and longer-term policy framework is set at the
government level. It is mediated by the Centre management through
the development of the local system of observations, achievement
books and weekly and termly planning. Thea and the other childcare
workers writing observations and doing planning then become the local
agents of the governmental policy framework, integrating the childrens
local play activities into a nationwide structure of meanings.
Theas activities also contribute to goals which relate to her own life
history, identity and development as a childcare professional. She draws
on her training and experience in each interaction and activity in
which she engages. Each time she writes an observation, she is reinforc-
ing her expert knowledge of the children, the framework and how to
relate them together. By fulfilling the range of goals she is addressing
here, she contributes to her longer-term identity goals of being a good
childcare professional.
Writing the observation contributes in addition to local goals by
fulfilling the requirement placed on her to produce the right number
of observations. This is part of being a good professional, and also
contributes to being a good team member. Each room is judged
competitively against the monthly audit criteria of the Centre. In inter-
views with me, most members of staff said they cared about getting
a good score in this audit, and particularly about not letting their
colleagues down by failing to fulfil their requirements. At a broader
level, and crucially for the continued existence and support of the
Centre, writing observations contributes to the goal of ensuring that
the evidence requirements of Ofsted are fulfilled at all times.
We can see from this analysis that completing the observation form
is not a simple isolated task. In Lemkes (2000) terms, the observation
form affords heterochrony, coordinating a range of systems and pro-
cesses at different timescales. Even at the immediate level, the produc-
tion of the observation form is an example of a semiotic artefact being
used to knit together the recent past and the near future. Thea is not
doing the observation while she is writing it; she observed the described
behaviour earlier on in the morning, and made a mental note of it
while she was doing other things. She recreates it in written form,
thinking back into the immediate past, and thinking ahead as she
completes the next steps planning section. In the longer term, Thea
is articulating what is happening in the room with goals from these
broader social systems by constructing the mediational means of the
observation form.
Conclusions
Thea tends to either put the difficulties she experiences with writing
observations down to her own individual work preferences:
I personally cant sit in a room [with children in it] however quiet . . .

because a lot of the time I end up writing something that they end
up saying to me and Im having to start the whole thing again and
its . . . it is hard work. (Emphasis added.)
or to the sheer volume of the demands she is faced with:
You just seem to have to provide that bit more and more and more
evidence of what youre doing and it all has to be done in paper form.
The analysis above elucidates the challenges she is facing in a different

way. As Jackson (2000) argues, difficulties in fulfilling literacy demands
at work do not necessarily come down to issues of individual skill, but
are more likely to relate to the material and mundane features of work
organization. The writing task is interthreaded with all the other acti-
vities going on concurrently. It becomes fragmented as Theas goals,
and therefore her activities, constantly switch. Her cognitive, emotional
and social focus has to shift quickly and constantly. And this is not an
unusual event: this is one among many writing tasks she will engage in
over the course of a working week, all under similar conditions.
In a study of a Swedish day nursery, Davies (1994) has identified simi-
lar difficulties in managing paperwork against the immediate demands
of childcare. As in the example analysed here, the workers Davies was

studying had to carry out several activities simultaneously, leading to
a range of tensions for children and workers. But this analysis is not
limited to the experiences of people working in childcare. It speaks to
issues identified in the textual mediation of care work more generally,
where writing work is often seen as separate from the work of dealing
directly with people. Caring work can involve many different types
of activity concurrently, with many different goals. As in this example,
caring work can include emotional labour; teaching; cleaning; serving
food; clearing food away; negotiating; boosting self-esteem; singing;
categorizing and framing; planning; recording; filing; decorating . . .
the list could go on almost indefinitely. Negotiating the complexities of
this, while writing under the complex, challenging conditions analysed
above, means that writing tasks which on the face of it might appear
simple are actually fraught with difficult issues which workers negotiate
on a daily basis.
In the New Literacy Studies, the notion of a literacy event is a central
analytic tool. Heath (1983: 93) defines a literacy event as any occasion
during which a piece of writing is integral to the nature of the parti-
cipants interactions and their interpretative processes. Barton and
Hamilton (2000: 8) gloss the notion of a literacy event as activities
where literacy has a role. Usually there is a written text, or texts, central
to the activity and there may be talk around the text. Events are
observable episodes which arise from practices and are shaped by
them. By this definition, the events observed here can clearly be seen
to be a literacy event, given the centrality of writing to Theas activi-
ties. However, the notion of a literacy event as drawn on in the New
Literacy Studies does not often incorporate the sorts of fractures and
tensions identified in the analysis above. It has become almost a truism
to state that literacy events are part of broader social practices. This
analysis has demonstrated in concrete terms what this being part of
can mean in practice, with the literacy event of writing an observation
continuing in a multi-threaded way with many other activities, with
different goals at different timescales. We need to think not simply in
terms of a unitary writing act but to look at the threads of practice
woven together, and the eruptions into the act of interruptions, to gain
understandings of the experiences of people writing in the workplace
or elsewhere.
Notes
1
I would like to express my thanks to the editors of this volume for their helpful and
constructive comments on earlier versions of this chapter; to participants in the
seminar Ethnographies of Literacy: an Anglo-French dialogue, May 2008, at
which it was first presented; and to participants in the research at the childcare
centre for their feedback. All inaccuracies and infelicities of course remain my
own responsibility.
2
I am grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council for funding this work.
The title of the research project from which this data is drawn is Paperwork and
Pressure in Educational Workplaces: The Textual Mediation of Target Culture.
3
After this research was carried out, in September 2008, these were superseded
by an integrated Early Years Foundation Framework, covering the years from birth
to age 5.
4
Interviews have been orthographically transcribed, removing ums, ers, repetitions
and backchannelings, with capital letters and punctuation added by the researcher
only where necessary to assist the readers interpretation. Ellipses . . . have been
used to indicate where material has been deleted. Square brackets [ ] indicate
material that has been added to clarify meanings inferred from the broader
interview context.
5
A few months after these observations were carried out, the format for the obser-
vation sheets was changed by the management to encourage shorter, more focused
observations, a change welcomed by staff in the rooms.
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Chapter Five
Tracing Cows: Practical and

Administrative Logics in Tension?
Nathalie Joly
In the past 10 years, a large number of studies have looked at

accountability both in the private and the public sector. The intro-
duction of demands for systematic writing into a predominately oral
workplace (at least in some industries) has given new impetus to ana-
lysis of modes of cooperation, of the production of knowledge, of indi-
vidual and collective responsibility, and finally has provided a favourable
environment for the study of creativity within organizations. At the
same time, criticisms have been made of what can look like rituals of
verification (Power, 1996) and of the rise of audit culture (Strathern,
2000) that publicizes, among other things, the coercive technologies
of accountability (Shore & Wright, 2000) and the arrival of panoptic
systems of surveillance (Puxty, Sikka & Willmott, 1994).
In France, field studies have made available a body of findings on
how workers react to accountability rules and how they put them into
practice, mainly within the context of audit and quality control proce-
dures. These studies have shown that writing down work procedures has
led to recognition and sharing of previously tacit knowledge and the
dissemination of appropriate practices, and has given rise to increased
knowledge and expertise in production processes (Campinos-Dubernet
& Marquette, 1999; Cochoy, Garel & de Terssac, 1998). However, these
findings need to be qualified. Thus, despite the producers assurances
that they were adhering to instructions, strategies of selective com-
pliance with quality control and accountability procedures have been
observed (Rot, 1998). Hence, despite the success of enrolment on
paper (in the sense given by Callon, 1986, where enrolment consists of
allocating tasks to the members of a network in order that they feel as
actors and give sense to their actions), it was sometimes found necessary
to compromise with systems of established relationships and to revert
Tracing Cows 91
to oral communication in order to coordinate services (Reverdy, 2000).

Also, problems arose when procedures were interpreted differently
when used in different sites (Mispelblom Beyer, 1995), and not all orga-
nizations welcomed the conscious recourse to records1 (Cochoy & de
Terssac, 2000).
Therefore, enforcing accountability has not been a smooth process.
Moreover, a number of analysts writing from a critical sociological
perspective have attacked its Taylorist2 elements and its disciplinary
nature, in Foucaults sense (1978). One of the least-explored aspects
of this production of writing under constraint is the changes in record
keeping, or, more precisely, the linkage between an existing system of
records and a new system of accountability. This gap is no doubt mainly
the result of the invisibility which has long cloaked writings produced
within organizations (Borzeix & Fraenkel, 2001). Also, even when atten-
tion has focused on records within companies, it has proved difficult to
document them adequately due to their often confused and fragmen-
tary nature (Cochoy, Garel & de Terssac, 1998). Whatever the reason,
the fact is that there have been few studies of the kinds of writings which
preceded the institution of quality control procedures, and a fortiori,
which placed them in the context of accountability systems. The only
observation made was of the disappearance in some cases of industrial
workers little notebooks: When I started out, I copied a workmates
little notebook: temperature, quantity . . . these little notebooks have
practically disappeared. Nowadays, the bloke watches the procedure.
These days, theres one big notebook for everyone (Campinos-Dubernet
& Marquette, 1999: 90).
I intend to approach accountability in agriculture from the perspec-
tive of native writings. This can be justified by the large number of
ordinary writing practices that take place on farms. As we shall see
below, these should be seen in the context of both the specific nature
of this occupation (where, for instance, remembering events is crucial
for people who work with living creatures) and the history of agricul-
tural development (modernization involved mastering the techniques
of writing-counting-measuring, Coquery, Menant & Weber, 2006).
For some years now, accountability has been enforced on farms by
regulations (European health legislation), by the requirements of agro-
alimentary industries and wholesalers and by new mechanisms of state
support (contractualization and conditionality). As in the production
of goods and services, the meaning we attribute to this imposition of
writing is somewhat ambivalent: it can be interpreted as a form of

subjection of local practices to global norms defined by the market
and the State, or else as an opportunity for learning and the develop-
ment of competences. It can also be seen as a kind of duty to consumers
concerned about food safety and quality and environmental protection,
but also as a more strategic form of farm management.
The materials on which this chapter draws have been gained by
observations in a dairy farm in a village of Cte dOr (Burgundy) where
the office and animal housing were piled with paperwork of all kinds.
This farm is medium sized, representative of local farming as regards to
the size of the herd and the crop. This is an exemplary case, which may
be highly individual but is also absolutely typical of the ethnographic
observations I have carried out over the last 10 years within very differ-
ent farming contexts. The analysis will focus on writings produced as
part of the farms internal management of the herd, and will describe
their characteristics (content, format, and style) and their uses. Follow-
ing Goody (1977), the emphasis will be on the processes whereby infor-
mation is written down and made visible, and the cognitive possibilities
they offer. This focus on writing to oneself (Joly, 2004) makes it possi-
ble to detect potential tensions between practical and administrative
rationalities which intermingle on a daily basis.
La Panetire GAEC3: A Writing Farm
The room is tidy. There are two sets of shelves holding files along
the walls, a table and chairs in the middle, and at one end, a large bay
window with another table drawn up to it, with a computer nearby.
Then, as you go further into the bay, you see something surprising.
From this space above the cowshed you can see almost the farms entire
herd. Michel sits here to do his paperwork (see Figure 5.1). He likes
being able to look from his cows to his registers to the computer screen.
This is the office at la Panetire, a farm run by two brothers.
This enclosed space, deliberately placed close to the animals, is the
centre of a strategic activity, the management of the herd. This requires
a patient process of obtaining and processing information such as
milk production, feed, health checks, calving, sales, repairs, etc. No
aspect of the animals lives is immune from forecasting, calculation and
logging of results. The office is also the centre for document storage
Tracing Cows 93
Figure 5.1 An office above the cowshed
and administration. No event within a cows career can be ignored. In

fact, since the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy in 2003, the
granting of European aid is conditional on the fulfilment of environ-
mental, health, animal welfare and plant protection requirements. It
has given rise to a system of checks known as conditionality in which
all documents held by the farmer are examined, with the possibility
of sanctions.
Within this space equipped with modern technological and more
traditional writing tools diaries, pocket notebooks, calendars the
conditions seem to be in place for tracing cows, by constructing a
continuous data chain of information on the origin, type of production
(stock-rearing activities), movements (cows leave the field or change
owners) and transformation in the value of every animal on the farm.
Michel is anxious to ensure that all his papers are in order and has
signed up for a training course. This is when I first meet him, on a visit
to his farm along with other farmers on the course. The category
of office work does not cover all the writings found at La Panetire.
As you wander round the farm buildings you come across a large
number of inscriptions, some of them improvized on odd bits of card-
board, others scrawled on a calendar or a wall chart.
Amongst this proliferation of writings we may make an initial distinc-
tion between documents produced by a third party and those generated
within the farm itself. The first category includes a huge range of infor-
mation: technical, economic, legal and administrative. Some of these
documents merely pass through the farm but others are stored there
permanently. The first category usually consists of printed matter such
as test results, echography scan results, animal passports, receipts for
feed deliveries, weight tickets, etc. which involve no or little writing:
just a signature or a tick in a box. The second category of documents
relates to work and work-related activity and is produced on a daily
basis. Michel makes entries in diaries, makes copious notes in exercise
books and charts, and enters information into the computer. He uses
two software programmes to keep track of the milking herd. Both words
and figures feature in all of these different supports. Following legisla-
tion introduced in 1987, all bovines are identified by a unique 4-digit
lot number engraved on their ear tags, which makes the animal trace-
able. This lot number is used for general administration, by professional
bodies and by market operators. Instead of giving his cows names of
flowers as in times gone by, Michel has taken to referring to them by
their numbers, like so many other stock rearers. Hence the endless lists
of numbers scattered among all the writings relating to the stock.
However, on closer examination, the initial distinction between exter-
nally and internally generated writings proves unworkable. Among the
documents found in the office at La Panetire, we see a number of
annotations handwritten by Michel on a wall chart produced by the
milk marketing board. These give details of the weather during spring
and summer, directly underneath a graph showing annual milk produc-
tion. The farmers intention here is to note the influence of climate on
the herds productivity. In another document, the health inspection
record, the vets visits to treat the calves are noted. These two examples
of multiple-authored writing show the dispersed nature of herd moni-
toring, which requires not only the skills of the farmer but also those
of several outside partners: the stock advisor, the inseminator, the vet,
the milk quality controller and so on.
Another way of classifying the documents is in terms of their relation-
ship to activities. We can thus distinguish between documents which will
be stored and those which have a more ephemeral existence. The first
type are the subject of off-line reflection (Conein & Jacopin, 1993),
distanced from the activity, for purposes of planning or assessment,
whereas the second type are used on-line, that is, as a support for
the ongoing activity. In order to operationalize this categorization and
Tracing Cows 95
analyse the reasoning based on this writing, I shall look at the diaries
which are kept at La Panetire and the various inscriptions found in the
cattle shed. The decision to focus on the writings produced by Michel
(his brother/associate is responsible for crop records) rather than those
of third parties was based on the nature of the study. It should not be
taken to mean that these were the only writings used in the course of
stock rearing.
Recording work
Work documents are a grey literature which generally holds little
attraction for researchers (Pne, 1995). Their function is to get things
done, make things known and evidence things . . . with the most
economical linguistic and semiotic means (Fraenkel, 2001: 254) which
normally means that the writer is not visible in the document. These
formal characteristics feature in farm diaries. Their pages are filled with
uninterrupted writing for a very specific use: not writing down things
to be done as is commonly thought, but things done everyday, work
in the fields, looking after the herd, general maintenance, visits from
experts, and the daily weather report. The style is stereotyped and draws
on repetitive formulas, often omitting the finer points of grammar, as
is shown in Figure 5.2. However, it is not totally devoid of narrative
Figure 5.2 Daily recording of weather conditions and activities

effects which personalize these steady routines. These provide a glimpse

into the micro-worlds of the scriptors work and surroundings, giving
scraps of information on personal and family life hairdresser and
doctors appointments, births, family meals, visits, etc. This desire to
document the days events is similar to that found in a documentary
genre well known to eighteenth century historians, the book of reason
(Joly, 2000).
Michels writing is a good example of these formal characteristics
which I identified in my own research on agricultural diaries 10 years
ago (Joly, 1996). The dry bulletin of everyday activities shows the desire
to create a record, to fix and render visible the work carried out, with
syntheses interspersed here and there: records of the animals in the
herd, the amount of fodder harvested, etc. Generally, the weather
observations come at the beginning or the end of the days work.
The need to write every day, which is rarely shirked, is the most
interesting feature of the diary. It provides the farmer with a synoptic
overview (Latour, 1985) of work progress on different timescales:
daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. The diarys ability to bring together
otherwise scattered information which can be seen at a glance has
several consequences. As he flicks through the pages of his diary,
Michel finds it easy to track the beginning and ending of the specific
operations which make up the work cycle of his year. He can grasp the
thread of his activities and organize their course. These temporal
buffers (Cellier & Marqui, 1980) are then used to make season-
by-season comparisons which rely on diaries kept over 2 consecutive
years. Taking the previous cycle as a reference, the farmer has available
a calendar of routines (Joly, 2004) that enables him to plan his acti-
vities and monitor their progress. The climatic information often pro-
vides the key to interpreting any deviations from the normal (a rainy
spring which delayed sowing), which enables him to explain them and
thus be reassured.
Hence the diary plays the role of a cognitive artefact (Norman, 1993)
which makes it possible to manage a dynamic environment (Hoc,
1996) in which living things, plants and animals have their own rhythm
of growth. This depends on conditions which are in many cases unfore-
seeable and uncontrollable (such as climatic factors). Their develop-
ment may also be out of step with human intervention, sometimes
markedly: hence, the end result of an insemination may not be seen
until the animal conceived has itself reached the age of reproduction.
Tracing Cows 97
In these conditions, it is particularly important to compile observational

data and establish temporal references. Farmers records are therefore
crucial in this respect. As Goody (1977) stresses, referring to the calen-
dar encourages a reflection on work activities in which temporal rela-
tionships between events are grasped on a different basis to that of
simple experience. But at the same time, these memorized action scripts
make it possible to form expectations of events [. . .] and to use these
as a means of reducing the uncertainty and complexity of decision
making and action (Qur, 1997: 171). They form temporal arrange-
ments (Joly, 2004), in the same way as the spatial arrangements found
in daily life (Conein & Jacopin, 1993).
Drawing up lists
Other types of documents found on stockbreeding farms, and at La
Panetire in particular, complement this central memoir: grazing
record sheets, health records, calving records, breeding plans, birth
registers, etc. Most of them are at the interface between internal records
and the relations of farms to their numerous partners, as mentioned
above. But for information to be shared, it often needs to be copied
several times, especially when data has to be entered into information
chains with their own format. This is particularly the case with animal
identification data which, since the stockbreeding laws on 1962, con-
nect each of the French Republics cows (Vissac, 2002) to the Ministry
of Agriculture.
The main characteristic of these writings is that they are essentially
in list form. Following Goody (1977), lists differ from spoken forms of
language (and no doubt also in how they are perceived visually) in that
they separate and abstract their constitutive elements: since the words
are isolated, they can be seen in purely quantitative terms (and some-
times given an ordinal number as well), which means that counting, the
simple arithmetical operation of addition, becomes a much easier and
more obvious process. (1979: 161). We can see from this how much
easier it becomes to organize a herd. The enumeration is permanent
and relates to the need for technical and administrative management:
recording genealogies, animal movements, health procedures, etc.
Once the numbers reach a certain level or the need for records extends
over a certain length of time, the written list fixes information that
would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to commit to memory.
Generally, written records are processed by external organizations and

thus have standardized formats. However, it is not uncommon to see
liberties being taken with these formats, or to find parallel documents
drawn up for personal use, where the information is presented differ-
ently. Hence, school notebooks are often used in preference to the
documents produced by professional organizations.
Alongside these lists which aim to show the state of the herd at a given
time and which are stored permanently, other, more ephemeral lists
can be seen around the farm buildings. These have the function of
displaying immediate observations which may or may not be stored
afterwards. This type of listing takes a very specific written form, using
words or abbreviations, numbers, shorthand signs and other symbols
(Fraenkel, 1994). At La Panetire, next to the milking parlour, there is
a rather odd metal cupboard covered with inscriptions (see Figure 5.3).
Here the farmer has made a note of cases of mastitis. From left to right,
he has written the date of diagnosis, the cow concerned (referred to
by its lot number), the teats affected (in shorthand form), the treatment
applied (in abbreviated form), the end of the treatment (noted as day
Figure 5.3 A cupboard serves as reminder

Tracing Cows 99
of the week). In fact, this list functions as a notice board. Read across,
it serves as a checklist: the farmer knows which cows not to milk, and
until what date noted on the right hand side. Read vertically, it is an
aid to decision making: the farmer can see at a glance which cows are
prone to mastitis on the left side of the list and can decide to dry them
off at the appropriate time.
This overview of mastitis cases is important for giving an idea of the
herds overall health. It also enables specific animals to be targeted for
treatment. A number of codes, including ticks, underlinings, question
marks and comments, are used to make it easier to draw the farmers
attention to abnormal or worrying events.
Finally, there are other lists used to prepare for future action, in the
form of rough drafts or plans. An example is a calendar displayed in
the stable in which Michel has written down the probable calving time-
table, noting down the numbers of the pregnant cows (see Figure 5.4).
This is based on his memory of the matings from 9 months earlier
which he jotted down in a small notebook. When calving begins, he
ticks off the numbers in turn, as in a shopping list, and he thus has
an immediate visual record of the births still to come and the cows to
watch out for. He can also estimate the amount of work yet to come
with greater accuracy.
Figure 5.4 An overview of calving

Some of these lists have only a limited life, so the calendar, for instance,
will be thrown away once the dates of calving are entered into the
notebook. Others are kept and reused year after year. For instance,
the farmer will draw on the mating schedule from the previous season
to draw up the current seasons schedule. This is obviously of value.
Sometimes the lists create a concrete representation of a given situa-
tion in order to make management easier, like the mastitis cupboard
described. At other times they alert the farmer to a delay in carrying out
an activity, on the basis of diary variables (Arrow, 1974). They may also
provide information on procedures, like the record cards farmers slip
into their overall pockets which tell them about sowing schedules or
the amount of fertilizer used the previous year and provide a basis for
making on the spot decisions.
Real Writing Work and Compulsory Writing Work
Keeping diaries and filling notebooks and calendars with lists are two
complementary practices which support reflection and rationality. The
chronicle of work encourages reflection upon information, as Goody
has suggested (1977: 109), and enables activities to be routinized. List
making reorganizes information to make it easier to use. My analyses
here are essentially deducible from the material reality of certain
written documents we may observe in a limited period of investigation.
But study of a corpus alone is certainly not sufficient to enable us to
grasp the logics of writing. In previous studies, we have carried out
biographical interviews to find out about the farmers motivations, their
work histories, how they viewed their jobs, etc. We have also observed
the writing work, the way farmers kept diaries and the role of wives.
Talking to the farmers about their writing practices, we have been able
to gather their views on the paperwork they are dealing with. We are
convinced that writing practices are sufficiently complex to require a
combined ethnographic approach (Dodier & Baszanger, 1997). There
are, moreover, a series of written forms involved in stock-rearing
management notably computer supports which have not been
included in this analysis. But despite these reservations, we can try to
draw some conclusions about the process of moving from the existing
system of records to an official system of accountability.
Tracing Cows 101
La Panetire is a kind of repository of writing practices in agriculture

and the changes they have undergone over the last half century. It
demonstrates the central role of science and technologies in managing
a herd and the rationalization they have brought about in methods of
management. There is a plethora of records. Calculation is everywhere
and information processing is used increasingly. The farm also shows the
great importance of regulation, administration, commercial contracts,
in short, a whole body of obligatory inscriptions whose purpose is to
regulate the activity of stock rearing and which frame the production
of writing, evermore imperatively and normatively.
What can we learn from this case study about the difficulties encoun-
tered by farmers today in recording their practices? First of all, we may
conclude that although accountability is an innovation, it has certainly
not been the first to introduce the logic of writing on the farm. Of
course, not all farmers write in similar ways, or as intensively as Michel.
But certainly all of them have been obliged to some extent to adjust
their recording systems to outside demands. In this respect, we can
identify three main issues.
The first issue lies in the incompleteness of the records produced for
the needs of day-to-day management. As the herd is made up of lots,
breeders can save themselves some registration works. When they carry
out some routine intervention, for example, vaccination of the calves,
the dose given to one animal will be the same for all other animals
in the cohort. The information is embedded within the organization of
the work itself (Lorentz, 2001) and does not need to be recorded in any
other way. However, the current obligation to register every treatment
each animal undergoes brings with it an additional burden of informa-
tion management and the acquisition of new skills. Although informa-
tion technology obviously makes it easier to deal with large numbers of
events it does not resolve all difficulties and only half of all farmers
have computers. Specifically, the problem of going beyond organiza-
tional routines that are functional from the point of view of internal
management but have to be suddenly rethought in response to new
requirements.
There is a second issue, linked, paradoxically, to the sheer abundance
of records produced on some farms. Michel provides a particularly
good example. In his anxiety to monitor his herd closely, he has
produced a multiplicity of notes and supports. However, the more the
information is spread around, the more reports are needed, and the
more scope there is for errors and omissions (Maz et al., 2004). During
a visit I made to his farm a practical session in information manage-
ment the group of trainee farmers witnessed a most enlightening
exchange which illustrated this. In fact, the trainer rapidly picked up
any gaps in the information, whether due to the software used or to the
farmers mistakes:
Michel: when I see a case of mastitis, I treat it that morning. Like

you say, I write it down here right away [information written on the
cupboard, see fig. 5.3] and I know how long to wait. So I know whats
what. In the evening, I come along and I know not to milk her. After
it happens, normally I come here on my computer in the evening,
and then I input the information [. . .] This one, for example, shes
been milked there, you see, thats entered [brings up data on the
spreadsheet]. That one, she had mastitis on the 13th of February,
and then in fact she was only treated on the 1st, that was the second
quarter. So, in fact, I havent put down when the treatment ended!!
[Michel looks surprised because this information is compulsory.]
Trainer: Well, obviously that isnt in accordance with the rules. If you
stay with this [with this software], you have to have a report on paper
too for the rest of the information [that is, the compulsory informa-
tion], in relation to . . . [. . .] An inspector who comes along, hes going
to say, I want to see everything well, what are you going to give him?
Michel: Well, Im not very well up on this at the moment.
So even this writing farm is not completely in order with regard to

official accountability. The information missing from the spreadsheet is
almost certainly written on the metal cupboard in the milking parlour.
But supposing it has been rubbed out? Is it in a notebook? What would
happen in an official health check?
We can guess from this example the amount of work that has to be
done to ensure complete correspondence between the data available,
recorded on internal native supports, and the data required, in a form
that can be presented to an agent of administration during a farm check.
This work makes cognitive demands. If it is not done regularly, it leaves
farmers in a state of uncertainty, even those who are most scrupulous in
their stock-rearing practices. There is a huge amount of stress involved.
Tracing Cows 103
Similar conclusions have been drawn from studies of British farms: Its
got dreadful with forms now! sums up many peoples response to the
increasing amount of form-filling and other paper work that is now
involved in routine farming practices (Jones, 2000: 71).
A third issue relates to the language and style of the records. The ones
that farmers utilize for their own management purposes use their occu-
pational language whereas those they are obliged to produce for others
often use other ways of describing their activity. Of course, this occupa-
tional language is largely hybrid. It shows the influence of over 50 years
of intensive modernization and a culture of state support, and is a mix-
ture of indigenous expressions, technical concepts and administrative
terminology. But we should emphasize that not all farmers have an
equal ability to straddle these different worlds. Some of them seemingly
have little difficulty in marrying administrative forms to their own man-
agement instruments (Joly & Weller, 2009), while others have been pro-
foundly affected by the challenge to their identity resulting from this
conceptual distance, quite apart from any criticisms they may voice of
the actual principle of control. Finally, certain farmers find themselves
at odds with the style of records demanded. The increased codification
of agricultural practices favours mechanised and repetitive writing
(Dardy, 2004), as opposed to the narrative writing of diaries. It requires
other abilities on a daily basis: ticking, striking through or filling in box
after box, which deprives them of the pleasure of writing. And also of
other associated pleasures, as Albert has posited in relation to keeping
accounts, a wider kind of stocktaking: a soul-searching before the
household deities of domestic order [here, the professional ideal], or
ways of rendering accounts to an idealised self desirous of a life well
spent (Albert, 1993: 46).
Keeping records for others sets in train a series of transformations in
the real work of writing. Will farmers, as they have done in the past, be
able to keep their distance from these demands, and show inventiveness
in reformulating them?
Notes
1
The authors stress that things can be accountable but yet still not understood.
Hence, they suggest making a distinction between accountability, the written
entering of single actions and events at work, and mappability, in the carto-
graphic sense, which refers to the methodological and reflexive use of information
gathered.
2
Frederick Taylor, in Principles of Scientific Management (1911) advocated modern
scientific management techniques such as the breaking down of complex
activities into simple repetitive tasks, and the routinization and standardization
of working practices. Critics saw this as de-skilling and as an attack on workers
control over their work situation.
3
This farm has the legal status of a GAEC, Groupement Agricole dExploitation en
Commun, a non-trading partnership allowing farmers to work together under
conditions similar to those of a family farm.
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Part III
Writing by Individuals and

Institutions
Chapter Six
Vernacular Writing on the Web

David Barton
Introduction
Studies of everyday reading and writing draw attention to the wide range
of literacy practices which people participate in, and how they serve a
wide range of purposes in peoples lives. Some activities, like filling in a
tax form or paying utility bills, are imposed externally and are carried
out in response to the demands of the state or other institutions. But
many of the things people do, and the ways in which they do them, are
voluntary and serve peoples own purposes; these are things such as
reading novels and magazines, planning holidays, keeping a diary, writ-
ing to a newspaper. All of these activities are currently being transformed
by the possibilities offered by new technologies. It is the ways in which
these everyday practices are changing which is the focus of this chapter.
The overall question is what is happening to writing as people take up
new opportunities on the internet. The question is addressed here by
examining the writing practices associated with the photo sharing site
Flickr, framing this within what is known about vernacular practices.
This chapter first describes some of the general characteristics of
these vernacular literacy practices by reviewing studies of such practices.
It then focuses specifically on writing practices and turns to an example
of writing on the web, that associated with Flickr. The chapter reports
on a study of the writing of active multilingual users of Flickr, examining
it through the lens of literacy studies, and then returns to notions of
vernacular activity and how they are changing in contemporary society.
Vernacular Literacies
In an earlier detailed study of the role of reading and writing in the

local community of an English town, Barton and Hamilton identified
key areas of everyday life where reading and writing were significant for
people and where they used reading and writing for their own purposes.
To summarize from that study (Barton & Hamilton, 1998: 247258), the
activities in this local literacies research ranged from ways of record
keeping and note-taking through to extended writing of diaries, poems,
life histories and local histories. The study contrasted such vernacular
literacy practices, which were often voluntary, self-generated and learned
informally, with more dominant practices which were more formalized
and defined in terms of the needs of institutions. Vernacular literacy
practices are essentially ones which are not regulated by the formal
rules and procedures of dominant social institutions and which have
their origins in everyday life.
The areas of everyday life where reading and writing were seen to be
of central importance to people were: organizing life, such as the records
people kept of their finances; personal communication, such as the notes,
cards and letters people send to friends and relatives; the personal
leisure activities people participate in; the documenting of life where people
maintain records of their lives; the sense making people do to understand
their lives; and their social participation in local activities. Such vernacu-
lar practices are frequently less valued by society and are not particularly
supported or approved of by educational and other dominant institu-
tions. They may also be a source of creativity, invention and originality,
and the vernacular can give rise to new practices which embody differ-
ent values from dominant literacies. They can be shared locally but
have tended not to have broader circulation.
In terms of learning, vernacular literacy practices are learned infor-
mally. This is a sort of learning which is not systematized by education
or other outside institutions. The learning is rarely separated from its use;
rather, learning and use are integrated in everyday activities. Vernacular
practices draw upon and contribute to vernacular funds of knowledge
(as discussed in Gonzales, Moll & Amanti, 2005) and are linked to self-
education and local expertise. They give rise to particular texts with
their own local circulation. Vernacular texts are not circulated very far.
They are often treated as ephemera, they tend not to be kept and are
easily disposed of.
Vernacular literacy practices can be contrasted with dominant literacy
practices. Dominant literacies are those associated with formal organi-
zations, such as those of education, law, religion and the workplace.
These organizations sponsor particular forms of literacy, as described in
Vernacular Writing on the Web 111
Brandt (1998, 2009). These are the institutions which support, structure
and promote particular forms of reading and writing. These dominant
practices are more formalized than vernacular practices and they are
given high value, legally and culturally. When people act in their lives
they in fact draw upon all the resources available to them and it is
clear that dominant and vernacular practices overlap and are inter-
twined. There may be official texts, for instance such as a letter from
the bank. The texts are official but what people do with them, the prac-
tices themselves, can be vernacular. People develop their own practices
around these texts. What is interesting here is how people make litera-
cies their own, turning dominant literacies to their own use, by constant
incorporation and transformation of dominant practices into verna-
cular activities. Everyone has vernacular practices: an international
financier, a presidential candidate or member of a royal family may
keep a personal diary, write a list of things to remember to do at the
beginning of the day or write poems as a form of relaxation. But what is
important for ordinary people (a term which will be left loosely
defined, but see Barton, et al., 1993) is the ways in which vernacular
activities can provide a voice not otherwise available, for instance to
marginalized people. This is particularly true of acts of writing, and such
writing is the focus of this chapter.
The study of ordinary writing normally focuses on the activities of
ordinary people. Although such writing has not been researched as
much as more prestigious texts, there have now been several studies of
the value of ordinary people writing (such as Sinor, 2002), historical
studies (as in Lyons, 2007), rural life (Donehower, Hogg & Schell, 2007
and Powell, 2008) and in developing countries (Barber, 2006; Blommaert,
2008). In an earlier study of adolescents in the United States, Camitta
defines vernacular writing as that which is closely associated with
culture which is neither elite nor institutional, which is traditional and
indigenous to the diverse cultural processes of communities as distin-
guished from the uniform, inflexible standards of institutions (1993:
228229). This definition locates the writing in its cultural setting.
Most of the studies have been of writing in English. Note that the term
vernacular is used here in a broader sense than when reference is
made to vernacular languages, which means local languages. Verna-
cular writing is not tied to specific languages. Blommaerts study and
the studies reported in Barber show people drawing on written verna-
cular languages as well as dominant languages of English and French
in Africa. The role of different languages in vernacular writing is reveal-

ing and is explored further in this chapter.
One reason for being interested in peoples vernacular writing now
is that technologies are changing the possibilities for people to act in
the world. People use new technologies including computers and the
internet in their everyday lives for writing, not only with instant messag-
ing and emails, but also in many more ways. To some extent computers
have been used to do old things in new ways: people have found
new ways of sending messages and of maintaining contact with friends
and relatives. However, technologies, particularly more recent develop-
ments, provide greater possibilities for people to engage in new and
different activities, which have not existed before. (For an overview of
recent research in this area, see Coiro et al., 2007.)
The focus in the present chapter is on those parts of the web where
users put in their own content, where there is a given interface which
provides spaces for people to add content. Central to this is the idea
of social networking, that is, participating and collaborating in commu-
nities of users. Often this is in the form of people communicating by
writing, but it also includes uploading pictures and films. Blogs are a
common example of an internet writing activity: a framework is pro-
vided and people write in and add content. Sites known as Wikis, like
the ubiquitous online user-generated encyclopaedia Wikipedia and other
specialist encyclopaedias and dictionaries provide further examples.
There are also social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace where
people communicate through writing and in other ways. And there
are virtual worlds like Second Life. Such sites all provide new possi-
bilities for writing. In addition, people write when they leave evaluations
of music they have listened to, books they have bought, places they
have visited and the quality of service they have received in service
encounters. Often people make links between their activities in these
different arenas.
Writing on Flickr
Writing is obviously central to blogs and Wikipedia but this chapter

examines a place where it may be less obvious that there would be
writing, that is, in photo sharing sites. The focus here is on Flickr, one of
the most well-known photo sharing sites internationally, www.flickr.com;
Flickr is a site where people can upload and display their photos,
effectively creating an online photo album. This chapter draws upon
data which has been collected as part of a larger ongoing study of the
literacy practices associated with Flickr to address the question posed
earlier about what is happening to vernacular writing as people use new
technologies. This study includes broader issues, such as language
choice and issues of informal learning which will be reported on in
more detail elsewhere. The research uses the framework of literacy
studies (outlined in Barton, 2007) to examine writing on the web. To
do this, it focuses on the practices people are participating in and the
texts they utilize, drawing upon things which are known about the
structure of literacy practices, including phenomena such as networks
of support and informal learning and the ways in which people act
within the constraints and possibilities of a medium with its perceived
affordances (as in Lee, 2007). This includes issues about the significance
of identity, about multilingual identities and about linking local and
global phenomena. I will begin by describing how Flickr works and how
writing is located within an assemblage of multimodal possibilities with
word, image and layout intertwined in many different ways.
Flickr is a website which provides a frame or interface and people
add their own content, primarily photographs. As a first step, when
someone uploads a photo, they can add a title and a description of the
photo. They can also add tags: these are individual descriptive labels
which can be used when searching for photos.
Figure 6.1 shows a Flickr page where a photo has a title, description
and tags. Users can form sets of their own photos, which they give
a name to, and sets can be grouped into collections, which are also
named. The photo in Figure 6.1 belongs to a set called nw yrk 2007.
Users can also share their photos with other Flickr members by adding
their photos to groups representing common interests across users.
These groups also have spaces for discussion and sometimes members
run blogs. People also make contact with other members by listing
friends and family members they want to keep in touch with, known
as their contacts. People can also comment on each others photos.
Figure 6.1 shows a comment and response below the photo, and when
scrolling down there are further comments. Users can join discussions
of photos and they can send messages to other photographers. These
are all optional activities and people using Flickr may do none of them,
some of them or all of them. The list of possible activities continues, and
Figure 6.1 A Flickr photo page
examples will be given below of how people use Flickr for complex
social networking and how people situate their Flickr activities within a
web of other ever changing Web activities.
There is a separate page for people to write a profile of themselves.
The page might be empty or it might contain several screens of writing.
For example, Carolink wrote a description in Spanish with a translation
into English below it:
The only person that takes awful photos with the most expensive
camera. I am not in this thing for the photo, with all my respects.
I make photos to write. This is a permanent learning for me and
I have nothing to teach. Knowing all that, if you still like my pictures,
be my guest.
There are some general categories which people fill in, optionally, when
joining Flickr, such as gender and location. The profile also contains a
list of peoples contacts and of the public groups they belong to. On
their profile page people can provide links with internet activities, such
as their blogs, other photo sites and websites. People can also add
widgets, small programs, to show such things as the number of hits they
have received, what countries viewers have come from and their most
popular photos. The framing provided by Flickr is currently available
in eight different languages, but people can write in any language they
want to. In these different ways Flickr encourages social participation;
it provides a range of affordances which people take up.
Researching Flickr
As with any internet research, this research inevitably requires adapting

existing methodologies and developing new approaches (as in Hine,
2005). Overall, the Flickr study is multi-method and brings together
different sources of data. This chapter draws upon five interlinked
sources of data. The study began with a systematic study of the Flickr
sites of 100 members. There was then a two-stage online interview with
30 Flickr users. First, there was a general interview about their uses of
Flickr, as described below. This was followed by particular questions
based upon analysis of at least 100 of their photos. To get a broader idea
of the range of language issues and how they differed in particular
settings the sites of users of other languages, including French, Norwe-
gian and Greek, were also examined. Finally, data also came from auto-
ethnographies on our own developing Flickr activities, carried out by
Barton and Lee.
The study focussed on multilingual activity on Flickr for several
reasons. First, it is the only way to include the range of international
activity represented there and peoples deployment of different lan-
guages is essential to the global communication seen on such sites. In
addition, language choice can be quite revealing about issues of identity
and sense of audience. This can be analysed on peoples websites and
followed up in individual questions for them. Crucially for this chapter,
language choice illuminates what is happening to vernacular practices.
The first step in the analysis was to get a gauge of multilingual activity
on Flickr. A set of 100 randomly selected Flickr users who were members
of a major English-based group, FlickrCentral, were examined. Of these,
75 users of the 100 users had their profile in only English, a further 12
had a bilingual profile including English. Seven had it in a language

other than English and 6 had no written profile. This demonstrates
that even on an English-based site there are significant numbers of users
of other languages.
For the next stage of the research, the online interviews, a different
group of people were studied: people were selected who were active
on Flickr and who used at least two languages, Chinese and English or
Spanish and English. These are the two most common languages on
Flickr after English, and are languages which the researchers know. For
the first stage of the interviews, participants were invited to complete
an online survey at My3q, a website which hosts online questionnaires.
This asked about the range of users Flickr activities: what they used
Flickr for, their contacts, the languages they knew, where they were from
and their educational background. The sites of people who answered
the survey were then analysed, especially their 100 most recently uploaded
photos. Based on this they were then asked specific questions about
their site and the photos. This was done through Flickr email and was
followed up, where appropriate, by further email exchanges.
The research set out to study people who were frequent users of
Flickr and, indeed, 26 of the 30 people who participated in the study
said they went on Flickr almost every day or more frequently. As well
as uploading photos, everyone did a range of other activities: they all
commented on other peoples photos and nearly all responded to com-
ments on their photos; most updated their profiles regularly and they
used tags to search for photos belonging to other people on particular
topics. There were eight people who administered groups.
Online Writing Practices
Turning now to examine these peoples writing in more detail, all used
titles for pictures; they did not give a title to every picture, some were
blank and some were sequence numbers given by the camera or other
software. Titles appear above the picture and to the left. Many titles
were like the titles of novels or paintings; they might be explanatory or
descriptive, like teatime, class of 79 or slightly cryptic like loser, Im hooked.
Many were playful. Often they were intertextual to other photos or to
the wider world. A common way of doing this was with song titles, such
as Wandering eyes, Singing in the rain and Common people.
Descriptions of pictures were not quite as common as titles, but many

pictures had them. The descriptions appear beneath the picture and
can be of any length. Usually they provided further information about
the picture or the persons relation to it:
These plants are genus of perennial subshrubs, and are an important

specie of the mountains (known as pramos) of Venezuela, Colombia
and Ecuador. They were apparently discovered by the botanist
Alejandro Humboldt, in 1801. no photoshop.
Sometimes descriptions were used to provide translations of the title, so

the title might be in Chinese, for example, speaking to a local audience,
and the description in English, addressing a more global audience.
A different space for writing is the list of tags. Tags are categorizations
provided for individual photos and they were used extensively by the
people studied. In this data, and across Flickr, they range from conven-
tional classifications like beach, summer and blue shared by other people
through to innovative, cryptic and often idiosyncratic ones, such as van
storm and noflashgordon. Some would be recognizable to other Flickr
users, such as the tag 365 or 365Days, meaning that the photographer is
involved in a photo project of taking one photograph a day for a year.
Tags increase the accessibility and searchability of photos on someones
site. Anyone can also view a persons tags as a tag cloud showing their
most popular tags and Flickr also organizes popular tags into clusters.
People provided tags in several languages.
Similarly with the sets (and groups of sets, called collections) which
people created, some followed conventional categories, such as photos
of particular events of holidays or birthdays, or they were more special-
ized, inventive and individual, as in my purple wall or why breathe. Some
sets were defined by a particular event such as a birthday party, whilst
others, such as sunsets would be added to regularly. This was also true of
the groups people belonged to which ranged from the conventional to
the original. Unlike tags and sets, which can remain individual, groups
can only work if other people share that category. As has been pointed
out elsewhere, tags are taxonomies created by people, often referred to
as folksonomies (Marlow et al., 2006; Winget, 2006).
Another significant area for writing is the page where people can write
their profiles. An open space for writing is provided and what people
put in varied a great deal in length and content. It was common to write
a short paragraph about oneself, as in the following example:
It gives me an enormous pleasure to share my photos with strangers, friends,

family and people i know. This pleasure is automatic, i dont have any special
expectation from your reactions, but if i can put a question mark in yourself,
even if its a methaphysical one of any sort, then i would be very happy.
[SMeaLLuM]
Also on the profile page is a space for other users to write testimonials
about the person. This facility was not used much but there were a few
testimonials.
Peoples interaction with other users came initially through comments
left beneath the photos, with the most recent being added at the bottom
(unlike blogs, where the most recent are at the top). These were
commonly evaluative usually positive, as in:
your work is an inspiration to me;
or
The bright blue and still waters are fabulous to present an air of calm. I like the
clouds hovering over the horizon here.
Some were more cryptic and may have been addressed to specific
people: Hey baaaaby! Dont hate me! =)). People also participated in other
online writing activities which will not be pursued here, such as joining
Flickr discussions and blogs. And from their profile pages they made
links to their other internet activities, such as to their blogs and to social
interaction sites like Facebook or Twitter.
Language Choice and Imagined Audience
The examples so far have been mainly in English. However, all the
people studied here deployed more than one language. Their language
choices are revealing about peoples sense of identity and the audience
they are addressing. They combined the resources of the different lan-
guages they knew in various ways. The titles and descriptions would be
in either language, with titles more likely to be in English than the

descriptions. In terms of tagging, people drew on various languages,
sometimes translating directly and at other times having particular
reasons for having a tag in a specific language. Carolink, for example,
said she was participating in new practices and she had a strong sense of
the global: I try to fit all the tags both in English (universalism) and in Spanish
(my immediate Flickr public) and, since I know a little French, I put the French
word when I remember it. Elsewhere she talked of her Spanish audience
and her international audience: Spanish flickrs is too limited for these
internet times. I do not leave Spanish, but I try to use English when I can and
later she responded to our questions: Well, I try to put all my photos
available to any kind of public, and it is not a mistery that English is more uni-
versal than Spanish . . . For her and for several of the people interviewed
English provides access to a global culture, especially a music culture,
which was drawn upon for titles and comments about photos, providing
a common reference uniting people from many different countries.
This shows the importance of music to peoples global identities and
how people used it to identify themselves as global cosmopolitans.
Often, the profile contained more than one language, and commonly
it was in two languages a rough translation with the English usually
being below the first language. However, the languages were deployed
in many different ways with translation being only one use of peoples
linguistic resources. One Chinese person, Tiong, for instance, wrote
in English My English is not v good and in Chinese neither is my
Chinese a joke which only people with a knowledge of both languages
would understand. Often the English translation was shorter than the
original, but people also used the two languages to provide different
information. Where people left comments or wrote testimonials they
wrote them in a range of languages.
In this way language choice throws more light on issues of vernacular
writing. Elsewhere we explore how peoples language choices are shaped
by the content of the photo, their sense of imagined audience for the
photo and their particular situated language ecology, which is to do
with the status of the languages for them and their familiarity with the
languages (see Lee & Barton, forthcoming).
People talked of intended audiences and their imagined audiences.
We saw this when they shifted from being interested in their existing
friends and relatives and began seeing strangers as potential audience.
They shifted local activity to participating in global flows of language

and culture. Several people mentioned this shift over time, as in:
At first, I intended to use Flickr for sharing photos with friends and family and
for storing images only. But I found some of ppl commenting on my work and
watching the photo work from other. After that, I keep surfing Flickr daily to
keep friendship and to learn/improve my work. (*Andrew)
Taking account of imagined audience (Ivanic, 1998; Merchant, 2006)

in this way is a very salient practice in internet writing activities and
although people also imagine audience in other kinds of writing, this
issue seems to have higher significance here. There is an unknown
audience which can respond. Thus, they were interacting with new
people, with different people and with people in different places. In this
way, they were asserting new identities, including complex multilingual
global identities which they were projecting to new audiences, and they
had a sense of themselves as global citizens.
Turning to references to their learning, people had many reasons
for using Flickr, and often they referred to several reasons. Perhaps this
can be summarized by what one person said succinctly: To learn about
photography; To share my photos; To have fun; To meet people (Charleeze),
with the additional use of writing a photo diary, which was also men-
tioned by others. In particular, several people mentioned learning,
although this wasnt prompted in any way by the questions.
Sharing images with people not my photographic skills, but my way of seeing
the world. I try to do research in ways of telling stories or expressing moods. Yes,
I try to learn to make photographs too and Flickr members are very good at
sharing knowledge. (Carolink)
I learn about different places, people and cultures. It is not just a matter
of improving, but it is also about learning and interacting with different
people. (Erick C)
Vernacular Practices Revisited
Returning to examining this data in terms of vernacular writing

practices and addressing the questions posed at the beginning of this
chapter about how vernacular practices are changing, the first thing to
point out is that the activities which people are engaging include new
practices. Based on the responses which people gave us in the inter-
views, it is clear that some things people are doing, like creating a
wedding album or sharing a photo with a friend or relative who lives
at a distance, consist of carrying out existing practices in new ways.
And, for several people, their engagement with Flickr began with a
desire to continue existing practices. However, once people saw the
affordances of the medium, they extended what they did into new
practices. Their new practices included a range of specific activities
such as commenting on and evaluating photos taken by other people,
classifying their own photos and making links between different photos.
Most people said they had not done these things before, particularly
with people they did not know offline. Tagging is a good example where
most people could not think of an earlier activity around photography
where they had classified their photos in this manner. The only example
we found was where one person had used tags effectively on his blog.
By inventing tags, and putting their photos into sets and collections they
were organizing and classifying their photos in new and more complex
ways. This made their photo collections searchable more easily by them-
selves and by others and it opened up the possibilities for new uses of
their photos.
These specific activities contributed to broader social practices which
resulted in people relating to the world in new ways. As a way of examin-
ing these broader social practices which the writing was located in, it
is worth returning to the areas of life where reading and writing were
seen to be of central importance to people, given at the beginning of
the chapter. People engaged in these areas of vernacular activity in new
ways. For example, there were the new forms of social participation
which developed with a wider and more geographically dispersed group
of people. Flickr served new purposes for them. They became involved
in social networking, in deliberately setting out to get more views for
their photos and trying to get a higher chance of being searched for
and getting more comments and other activity around their pictures.
They were also documenting their lives in new ways and their personal
leisure activities were changing as Flickr took up more and more of
their time.
Flickr is a good example of vernacular activity on the web. Turning
now to examine the other characteristics of vernacular activity men-
tioned at the beginning of the chapter, one can see ways in which the
core notion of vernacular has changed. Vernacular literacy practices

were described as voluntary and self-generated and this is true of
peoples participation in Flickr and in the internet more generally.
What people do on Flickr has its roots in everyday experience albeit
within a framework provided by a private company driven by commer-
cial concerns. The software developers provide the possibilities and con-
straints within which people act. Companies such as Yahoo, the owners
of Flickr, can be seen, in Brandts (1998, 2009) terms, as sponsoring
particular practices. The people we studied saw it as providing many
possibilities for them. They appreciated the freedom they had and did
not refer to any perceived restrictions.
Vernacular practices like the activity on Flickr may also be a source of
creativity, invention and originality, and the vernacular writing did give
rise to new practices which embody different values from dominant
literacies, as in the sharing of knowledge and the support which people
said they gave each other around photography, which they mentioned
in the interviews. And, although it is not the focus of this chapter,
people are taking different sorts of photos. This is partly enabled by
digital technology where, once one has the equipment, individual
photos are free and quick to produce, so that people can take as many
as they want, review them immediately and decide what to keep and
what to delete. In this way a space for experimentation is opened up
where they can try things out and get immediate feedback. It seems that
people are taking more photos of the everyday, of the mundane, of the
self (with me being one of the commonest tags on Flickr), of food, of
ones room, ones body and ones workplace. These relate to broader
changes in the social uses of photography which Van House (2007), has
begun to explore. People undertake systematic investigation such as
the 365Days sets, mentioned earlier. People using Flickr have become
reviewers, commentators, evaluators of their own and others work.
They draw upon and contribute to expanding global funds of knowl-
edge. Also, people are increasingly getting ideas from each other, and
not just from professionals, for example, through photography maga-
zines. In this way there are shifts in where expertise lies and in the role
of professionals.
In terms of what people said about learning, these vernacular literacy
practices are learned informally, learning is not separated from use but
learning and use are integrated in these everyday activities. This can be
seen in the data and, as described above, people spontaneously talked
about their learning and said they were sharing and learning in ways
they had not done before. They were also reflecting on their own
photographic practices in new ways.
In many ways the practices seen on Flickr were similar to other
vernacular practices. But there are ways in which what people are
doing on the internet challenges and extends earlier notions of ver-
nacular practices. First, as explained earlier, vernacular practices can be
thought of as less valued by society and are not particularly supported
or approved of by education and other dominant institutions. Now
they are more valued. Flickr is trawled by media professionals wanting
photos for books, newspapers or other internet sites. Teachers use it to
get illustrations for their classes and researchers are exploring its use
in classrooms (such as Davies & Merchant, 2009). In fact the success of
these sites depends heavily on the users contributions. Developers also
respond to users feedback, for example, where Flickr has launched
multilingual versions. Another aspect of vernacular activity which online
activities draw out is ways in which vernacular practices change and
develop the configurations of applications which people use and the
ways they use them are constantly changing as new applications are
developed and become popular. In this way vernacular practices can
also be transitory, changing quickly.
Vernacular practices have been thought of as more rooted in and
restricted to personal spheres rather than to public spheres. Whilst
people can keep areas of their Flickr site private if they want to, and
many do, our research focussed on the public arena. Here, as in other
areas of the internet, what counts as being private and personal in
vernacular activity has changed. People are making available to the
world activities which before were kept local. These vernacular practices
are not private and they are not hidden from other people or from
authority. On the internet, photos can have a different circulation. What
is happening is that people are making the local global. There were
several examples of people wanting to tell the world about their local
activity. They were putting up photos to inform the world, showing people
how we live, as one person put it, for example, when people added expla-
nations of local sites or customs. People project global identities by
making their photos available for other people to see, by participating
in global discussions of them and by switching between their local
language and English, the perceived global language. This can be seen
as one of the effects of globalization (as in Beck, 2000). In this way the
sociological distinction between local and global activity is eroded (as

in Wellman & Hampton, 2002) and the whole notion of vernacular
changes. We see practices which are at the same time both vernacular
and cosmopolitan. Technologies make these connections possible and
people take up the affordances offered and develop new practices.
In discussions of the globalizing effects of new technologies, research-
ers such as Koutsogiannis and Mitsikopoulou (2007) have referred to
glocalisation, making the global local, as when a brand is localized
to local conditions, such as when a coffee company adapts their cafes to
particular countries and cultures. An instance of this in our data is how
Yahoo, the company which owns Flickr, has localized the global brand
by providing an interface in different languages. But we are also seeing
activity in the opposite direction, that of making the local global. People
by their writing have made the local global. Sociologists emphasize the
two-way relationship of glocalization, as where Urry (2003: 84) refers
to . . .mutually interdependent processes by which globalization-
deepens-localization-deepens-globalization and so on. Most attention
has been on how the global changes the local. Here we see the opposite:
people using the local to write the global.
Finally, the contemporary importance of the activity of writing is
clear. With an increasingly wide range of multimodal activity on the
internet, writing remains central to participation and vernacular writing
is of increasing importance.
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Chapter Seven
Keeping a Notebook in Rural Mali:

A Practice in the Making
Assatou Mbodj-Pouye
Literacy practices are often divided into personal and professional or

public, each domain of use displaying a set of writing and reading acti-
vities which can be readily identified. This chapter focuses on some
practices and texts that blur such common distinctions in a multilingual
setting in contemporary rural Mali where literacy is incipient (Besnier,
1995). While working as an ethnographer on writing practices ranging
from recording family events to keeping track of farming activities, my
attention was caught by the fact that these texts often appeared in note-
books, either dedicated to personal writing, or more often rescued from
a previous use to keep such notes. As keeping a notebook does not refer
to any culturally defined genre of personal writing, I will explore the dyna-
mics through which the notebook becomes a space for writing, as in
Mbodj-Pouye, 2009. I will argue that these notebooks allow their writers to
experiment with new ways of delineating a personal sphere. To investigate
this practice, I draw on two distinct traditions: an approach to literacy
practices as framed in literacy studies, and an interest in the material
and textual dimensions of writing as developed notably by historians
working on writing and reading practices in medieval and modern Europe
(les pratiques de lcrit, to borrow from Roger Chartier (1987)).
The dominant trend in literacy studies research has defined itself
as ethnographic. A key statement is that literacy should be approached
as a social practice (Scribner & Cole, 1981). Hence the interest in the
oral and written interactions surrounding the uses of written pieces
during literacy events (Street, 2000; Prinsloo & Breier, 1996). A central
assumption is that the meaning of literate activities cannot be deduced
from textual analysis only. This might have led to a lack of interest in
this level of investigation amongst researchers adhering to a social prac-
tices view of literacy. Some studies, however, offer a detailed analysis
Keeping a Notebook in Rural Mali 127
of written pieces. For instance, Papen provides a linguistic analysis of a

payment reminder received by one of her informants in Windhoek, in
order to understand the way such a document is (partially) read (Papen,
2007: 8086).
While agreeing that detailed linguistic analysis helps understand
specific literacy practices, I add another layer to this textually sensitive
approach to practices by considering closely the materiality of the note-
book. This dimension is inspired by research developed by historians
of writing, who stress the importance of the material dimensions of
print culture (McKenzie, 1986; Chartier, 1995). This aspect is key to
understanding the evolution of forms of personal writing (Hbrard,
1999). Drawing on historical studies to understand contemporary writ-
ing practices has opened up a new field of investigations in French
sociology (Lahire, 1993). In particular, insights from codicology and
palaeography have proved illuminating when studying writing practices
(Fraenkel, 1994).
The study of notebooks as a site for personal writing in Africa has
benefited recently from a renewed interest in everyday literacy in colo-
nial and post-colonial Africa (Barber, 2006). Though the strong asso-
ciation of writing with power, especially in colonial times, should not be
overlooked (Hawkins, 2002), the emergence of local genres of writing
and the way religious, bureaucratic, political and literary practices over-
lap needs also to be highlighted (Peterson, 2004). Studies of notebook-
keeping range from investigations of strictly defined diary-keeping
(Miescher, 2006; Watson, 2006) to explorations of less ordinary cases, as
for example Gunners (2006) study of a member of a South African
church who moves from copying hymns and prayers toward the record-
ing of his visions in a notebook. This last example calls into question
the idea of personal writing as regular and ordinary, echoing works
on diary-keeping in Western settings which reveal that it cannot be
reduced to the single model of self-centred and daily writing (Lejeune
& Bogaert, 2003).
Recent research in anthropological linguistics on grassroots literacy
also provides an interesting framework. Inspired by Johannes Fabians
intuitive suggestions, Blommaert offers a fascinating analysis of two
documents, an autobiography and a history of the Congo both hand-
written on exercise books (Fabian, 1990; Blommaert, 2008). Blommaert
deals with texts only, not with observed events or practices, but he
argues that his perspective is fully ethnographic. Drawing on his work,
I further elaborate on the role that ethnography in the classic sense of

the term can play when combined with text analysis.
Thus, this chapter brings together three levels of investigation on the
notebook. First, a discursive analysis of its contents, exploring how
writers deal with a diversity of genres and languages. Secondly, a study
of the way they handle this specific support as a graphical space where
they display their notes. Thirdly, I offer an exploration of the notebook
as an object and of its importance as a personal property kept by the
writers with their belongings. The data I draw on was gathered through
observations and interviews. How to deal with documents as texts and
objects within an ethnographic investigation will be my focus through-
out this chapter.
Context and Methods
I rely on research data collected in Mali during a broader study of

literacy practices in the cotton-growing region of Southern Mali.1 My
initial objective was not to focus on a specific literacy practice. Rather, in
a country where there had been very few studies of literacy practices,
and hardly any on the ordinary uses of literacy, my intention was to
provide a broad overview of these practices. Mali is considered as poorly
literate, both by international standards (the national adult literacy
rate is 24% Source: Human Development Report 2007/2008, UNDP) and
according to national discourses, which see illiteracy as a major impedi-
ment to development (for a comparative analysis of such discourses in
developing countries, see Street, 2001). What was at stake for me, in line
with other research in the field of literacy studies, was to scrutinize the
actual practices of people deemed to be illiterate or semi-literate.
The village where my study was conducted is located near the town of
Fana. It is a large village, inhabited by 1,500 people. The main activity
is agriculture, essentially the production of cotton, together with food
crops such as millet, maize and others. As a cash crop, cotton has been
the main focus of colonial and post-colonial interventions in the area.
The organization of cotton production by a nation-wide company (the
CMDT, Compagnie Malienne pour le Dveloppement des Textiles)
underwent a major change in the 1970s when new responsibilities were
transferred to village associations. They were granted responsibility for
cotton weighing, equipment and supply orders and credit management
(see Bingen, 1998). This organizational change created the need for
literate villagers who could assist with the local management of tech-
nical records. In line with government-sponsored literacy campaigns
offered at the same time, the CMDT fostered literacy in Bamanan,
organizing trainings in the villages, and promoting the use of docu-
ments in this language. In 1979, a bilingual primary school French-
Bamanan, was opened in the village, as part of a national experiment.
Bamanan is the first language in this village, where French, the official
language of Mali, is hardly spoken outside the school.
My ethnographic research relied on the combination of several
methods, mostly qualitative though complemented by a basic survey
providing an overview of levels of education and literacy. I observed and
participated in literacy events whenever they occurred in the village.
Most of them related to collective activities, such as collaborative
writing during the weighing of the cotton crop, in which I participated.
However, except for moments of letter-writing or reading, literacy events
are scarce in the domestic space of the compound (du, in Bamanan).
I also conducted semi-structured interviews, first with villagers identi-
fied by the community as literate (very often those who act as literacy
brokers when NGOs or state agencies need local agents), and then more
systematically with the first villagers who had achieved a complete pri-
mary schooling at the bilingual school. Those interviews were held
in Bamanan, to begin with, with the help of an assistant, and then by
myself. As a whole, I recorded 56 interviews. Informal conversations
were added to this. The interviews explored the life trajectory of the
villagers, with a specific attention to education and professional and
migratory experiences. They also focussed on the writing and reading
practices the interviewees engaged in, in a wide range of domains and
activities including managing a farm, keeping records of family events,
coping with administrative demands, accounting and making shopping-
list, writing letters, collecting religious prayers or magical recipes, etc.
As I was often presented with notebooks during interviews, I developed
a growing interest not only in the distinct practices displayed on the
pages of the notebooks, but in the fact that a single object could be
used for such different purposes. In order to investigate the notebooks
cultural and social meanings more thoroughly, I photographed them
during my interviews. My corpus consists of 301 photographs of pages
(often, double pages) of notebooks kept by 23 writers from the same
village near the town of Fana.
Literacies and Languages
In this village, literacy can be acquired in different ways, involving

three languages: through the adult literacy classes established by the
CMDT already mentioned, in Bamanan; in school where two languages,
Bamanan and French, are used; in the village Koranic schools that offer
basic Islamic instruction. Neither the higher traditional Islamic learn-
ing, nor the modern form of the mdersa were available in the village at
the time of my study.
Becoming literate means studying in one or more of these educational
settings, and gaining other experiences when migrating for work in
urban places. Thus the pathways to literacy are plural, and the writers
repertoire often encompasses different languages. Multiscriptuality is
common too, as Bamanan and French share the Latin alphabet, whereas
Arabic is used both in Arabic script and in Latin transcription.
Most of the notebooks vary both in themes and in languages. In
that sense, these objects challenge the view offered by studies where
different literacies (whether defined by separate domains or by distinct
languages) are associated with distinct practices (Scribner & Cole, 1981;
Herbert & Robinson, 2001). I will now discuss this point in more detail,
dealing first with the issue of theme or topic, and secondly with the
issue of language.
Bringing together various themes

The following table provides an overview of the themes appearing in
the notebooks.
Table 7.1 What is dealt with in the notebooks?

Farming (dates for sowing or treating cotton fields, meteorological data)
Business (accounting, record of credits)
Family (dates of marriage, births and deaths; accounts of contributions at ceremonies)
Village organization
Religion (prayers)
Magic and medicine (recipes)
Notes from the radio (general news, sport results, song titles)
Addresses
Copy of notes during a training course
Copy of a book, partially or completely
This overview calls into question the notion of personal writing. In

fact, many of the notebooks were not initially dedicated to personal
writing. The notebook might have been received during an agricultural
training course to which literate villagers are often convened. On such
occasions, the organizer (NGO or administrative representative, agri-
cultural advisor, teacher) gives out exercise books to the audience. At
the end of the training (which generally lasts from one day to a week),
each participant will have conscientiously filled in a part of the note-
book by copying down the statements written on the blackboard by
the teacher. This notebook will then be taken home with them. Paper
has value in the village environment, and the blank pages will be either
torn out to be used to make lists, write letters or notes, or filled in with
other notations. A similar way of getting a notebook is to rescue a school
exercise book in order to write in the margins or in other spare space.
Few writers buy a notebook for their own use.
The different topics listed above intermingle in the notebook in ways
that are specific to the writers, according to their literacy skills, the other
practices they are engaged in and their own background: their social
background (gender, age, social status, occupations in addition to farm-
ing, migration, etc.) and their personal history of literacy (Barton &
Hamilton, 1998: 12). The examples I draw upon in this chapter give
only a glimpse of these variations. They do, for example, exclude women,
though few of them keep a notebook.
Some use the notebook in a very organized way, opening a page for
each new topic; some even make use of different notebooks to set apart
different domains. For instance, one villager, Moussa Camara keeps the
recording of the weight of cotton collected by family members during
harvest on a small hand-cut notebook, written in Bamanan. Another
exercise book, which he had bought for this purpose, is entitled history
of past events (Histoire des faits qui ont pass in the French original).
It is a chronicle of birth and death and it is written exclusively in French
(cf. Figure 7.1). But most writers switch from one theme to another
within the same notebook, sometimes on the very same page.
Writing is not dictated by the regularity of the daily routine. On the
contrary, it depends heavily on having an occasion: the need to record
a special event or to keep track of a particular set of actions. Writers
often reported that they may not be writing anything in their notebooks
for several months. Thus, writing is sporadic, allowing a single notebook
to span across years.
In a cross-cultural perspective, it must be remembered that ordinary

writing in partially literate societies is generally characterized by mixed
genres, as Chartier reminds us for medieval and modern times:
Their names may change, but throughout Europe the genres of

writing are the same [. . .]. Shifts from one style to another are easily
made, resulting often in mixed texts, passed on from generation to
generation. In these texts, we can find concerns about the household
budget next to family related columns and the recording of events,
minor or major, which spin the web of everyday life. (Chartier, 2001,
786787 authors translation)
Multilingual documents
Moussa Camaras notebooks mentioned above introduce the issue of
language. This example is quite exceptional in the way it deals with the
plurality of languages of writing: using distinct languages in notebooks
dedicated to different purposes. More often than not, the biliterates
make use of the various languages (and scripts) of their repertoire in
the same notebook. It this context, the idea of distinct literacies identi-
fied by the use of distinct language is not helpful. Contrary to the almost
ideal experimental Va setting where Scribner and Cole could isolate
three literacies each characterized by their language, script and ways of
learning, in my setting some literacy practices mix different languages
(Scribner & Cole, 1981). Even approaches designed to investigate mul-
tilingual literacies often focus on practices where individuals draw from
a multilingual repertoire to select one language for each practice (as
evidenced in several chapters published in Martin-Jones & Jones, 2000).
In my case, the writings are multilingual. Thus the notebook represents,
not only a testimony that different literacies coexist, but the material
place where they overlap. I will not deal in detail here with the linguistic
problem of describing written code-switching, which requires to take
into account the graphic devices by which code-switching is or is not
marked (Sebba, 2000). I have described this phenomenon in my corpus
elsewhere (Mbodj-Pouye & Van den Avenne, 2007).
As one might assume, some genres or domains are closely associated
with specific languages: Islamic prayers are in Arabic, medicinal recipes
or magical formulas retain the original Bamanan forms, addresses used
in a postal service are in French. But in addition to these cases a wide

range of texts exist that can be written down in two or more languages,
such as family events. This leaves the biliterate writers with a choice.
A careful analysis of the notebooks reveals that it is predominantly
made in favour of French. The higher status of the official language can
partially account for this fact, but other explanations are called for. It
is particularly striking to note that the writings where expressions of
feelings appear, though often implicitly, are in French. Papen also
observes that her Namibian informants have a strong desire for English
literacy as opposed to writing in the vernacular languages (Papen, 2005;
2007). The comparison should be balanced by very distinct colonial
and post-colonial histories which set apart post-apartheid Namibia and
Mali. However, these results demonstrates that vernacular literacies
do not necessarily imply the use of vernacular languages (Mbodj-Pouye,
2008b).
Hence, the content of the notebook reflects the plurality of literacy
practices and the various literacies writers engage in. This description of
the heterogeneity of the practice calls into question the very category
used throughout this account: Can we speak of a single practice? If so,
where does its unity lie?
An Emergent Practice
Naming the practice

Investigating notebook-keeping was made quite difficult by the fact
that there is no common designation of the personal notebook avail-
able, either in French or in Bamanan. I first got to see some notebooks
when some informants produced them to show me some of their par-
ticular writing practices. For instance, when asked if he would write
down magical recipes, a farmer answered Yes, I do. I can show you some
in my notebook, and then we would wait for him to go and find his
notebook. When I decided to focus more specifically on this practice,
I often had to introduce the topic myself, which proved tricky on two
fronts. First, when trying to point to personal writing in general, I had
to avoid labelling it secret (gundo, in Bamanan), which was the easi-
est way one would speak of it, but which would at the same time make
any further question inquisitive. The ambiguity of this notion of gundo
is well demonstrated in anthropological work on the Mande area (Jansen

& Roth, 2000). In my context, most often it did not refer to specific
cultural contents whose transmission is submitted to strong social con-
trol. Rather, it pointed to a personal sphere, whose social significance
may be self-evident for a man, head of his household, but was often
much more suspect when it came to juniors and women. The personal
things writers dealt with in their notebooks were identified by quite
loose phrases such as my own business or, in Bamanan, magofnw,
literally what you may need.
Secondly, even the notebook itself is not always labelled in any specific
way by the writer. Here too people resorted to very loose designations
such as my own notebook, or even a dama kaye kn, (in Bamanan) or
un cahier part (in French), meaning a notebook that is separate.
These phrases allow to grasp a diversity of practices that a narrow defini-
tion of personal writing not to speak of the terms diary or journal,
unknown in the village are unable to capture. This general statement
needs to be qualified in order to account for some specific practices. In
a few cases, the writer chooses to give a title to his notebook. This title
can appear on the cover or on the flyleaf. This is reminiscent of the
school habits of naming the different exercise books according to
the subject matter of the course or its use: exercise book, lesson book,
etc. These vernacular ways of labelling are crucial in understanding
the meanings attached to the practice.
Three writers in my corpus give titles to their notebooks. Moussa
Camaras title History of past events has already been quoted: as
apparent in Figure 7.1, this title appears on the first page, and can be
considered as the title of the following text. However, as the notebook
Figure 7.1 Opening page of M. Camaras notebook (detail)

is dedicated to this text, it operates as a title for the whole notebook. Its
position, centred on the first line, gives it the character of a title.
Ganda Camara, a student in Bamako, who I interviewed when he was
back in the village for the holidays, kept a notebook entitled Memories
(Souvenirs in French), which was written after he finished and passed
the examination at the end of secondary school, and which was full
of love poems and private jokes, reminding us of the main themes in
youth writing.
Finally, Moussa Coulibaly gives various titles to his notebooks, some
taken directly from school models, like Control notebook (Cahier de
contrle) others pointing more directly to a private sphere, such as
Secret notebook (Carnet de secrets).
The titles chosen, all in French, obviously situate the practice
within the domain of self-writing framed by these notions of history,
memory and secret. They are evidence of models of personal writing,
but their scarcity does not allow extending this consideration to all
the notebooks. Moreover, when discussing with these writers, I did not
witness any use of these titles to refer to these notebooks.
We can conclude then, that some notebooks are explicitly designated
as self-writing, as indicated by their titles, but as a whole, there is no
shared category or genre of personal writing that people could refer
to when talking of their notebooks.
Shared features
At a first glance, when looking at the different topics dealt with in the
notebooks, we are struck by the variety of the themes and types of texts.
However, all notebooks draw from this repertoire of type of texts, which
then appears rather limited. Furthermore, most of them mix several
of these types of text. In fact, it is the very heterogeneity of the practice
which attributes to them a common aspect, as they have to find solutions
to common problems.
The most prominent one is to find ways of graphically separating
the different entries. This is operated in various ways: some writers are
comfortable with a school-like layout with a succession of distinct para-
graphs, using the margin only for titles; others visibly struggle with the
graphical surface of the page, taking the whole double page, including
the margins, as a unique space where the different units seems to float
in an order much more uncertain. The notebook as a whole, and the
order it provides, is also diversely handled we shall return to this issue

later on.
In fact, even if the solutions differ, the fact that the writers have to
address these difficulties give the notebook its shared features. The
question is how they use one notebook over a length of time often
spanning several years. Compiling various information, collected and
written down sporadically over the years, produces writing that consists
of chunks. As already mentioned, the practice never follows a model
of journal writing: even when events are recorded, the writing does
not follow a daily routine. Nevertheless, the distinct moments of writing
might coincide with distinct textual units, providing the notebook with
an entry-form style, as displayed in Figure 7.2.
On the right-hand page appears the continuation of notes copied
during an information campaign on HIV, in Bamanan, that occupied
the first eight pages of the notebook. This page is the point where this
activity of copying down ended, and where the notebook was turned
into a personal object. The end of the page is devoted to a list of events,
which are dated. These are not essentially family events recorded in
French from 1997 to 2003: deaths and births, as well as one marriage,
his fathers departure to Mecca, and one entry concerning a television
bought for the African Football Cup (Coupe dAfrique des Nations)
organized in Mali in 2002. The left-hand page is devoted almost entirely
to the results of the following African Football Cup in Tunis in 2004
Figure 7.2 A double page from Ndiamba Coulibalys notebook

(some figures related to a weight of cotton appear on the right). This

page details, in French, the results of the first round of the competition.
Changes in ink suggest that the writing took place at different moments,
maybe match after match.
Oral and written genres in the notebook

In order to explore the question of what models or types of writing
the notebooks draw on more thoroughly, we have to first examine the
different textual units within the notebook. The thematic variety of the
notebook, as displayed in Table 7.1, indicates a diversity of genres used
in the notebook.
The most distinct genres refer to forms that are well established in the
oral or written communicative repertoire of the villagers. For instance,
a type of entry clearly identified is the magical incantation (kilisi). It has
a beginning and an end, often a title, and it is clearly named as such
during interviews. The analysis of this genre, widely represented in my
corpus (60 items) shows various strategies used by the writers in order
to write down a kilisi, which involves transcribing speech the text of
the spell but also often advice on how to use it and who provided it.
Some writers carefully represent the oral origin by quotation marks (or
other orthographic signs), through code-switching (by putting the
incantation itself in Bamanan and the instructions for its use in French)
or by means of the layout (separating the text of the incantation as a
block, with accompanying information surrounding it). Some borrow
the written genre of the medicinal recipe in order to provide a text
which fits better into their representation of the written mode.
Other kinds of writing are so recurrent that they are likely to be
evidence of a known model that writers are familiar with, which can
exist in printed form or simply be a regular patterned way of writing.
For example, birth records are very popular among notebook keepers.
When presented as a list, they look very similar to the administrative
registers. Some more detailed descriptions (including date, time and
place of birth, name of the parents) indicate that the writer may have
used the printed birth certificate as a model.
In this broad family of writing practices adopting bureaucratic models,
the obituary stands out as a particular site of a fusion of distinct literate
traditions. In addition to the influence of administrative texts, vernacular
forms of writing are also present. A print model is available: the obituary
notice in the newspaper. In Mali, in rural areas, this model as a material
reference is rarely present. But, its handwritten form is very common,
because of the practice of sending a note to the local radio (a commu-
niqu) right after the death, as a means to inform relatives from neigh-
bouring villages.
The analysis of the genres the writers make use of allows us to under-
stand better the thematic heterogeneity of the notebooks. Identifying
different genres is a way to capture the distinct social practices that
provided the occasions for writing in the notebook: the genre not only
conveys the notion of a particular graphic disposition, but it is often
associated with a writing practice used in a specific context. In the inter-
views, the writers often made these links clear for me by referring a text
to a specific context of writing (taking notes while listening to the radio,
or during a training), and also by skipping some texts when reading
through the notebook with me, which was as meaningful.
Models of the notebook

Up to this point, we have looked at individual entries to a notebook and
which type of text they draw on. We will now look at the notebook as a
whole. As reflected in the uncertainty of its naming, the notebook does
not immediately evoke a single model.
The practice of keeping a notebook relies conspicuously on the
model of the school notebook. This can be seen in the layout (where
entries are made on the pages). It also appears in the way the notebook
is understood as an individual object, which is, in school-contexts,
oriented toward evaluation and control by the teacher (Hbrard, 1997).
Adult literacy classes follow a very school-like pattern, and the same
pattern is incorporated. Throughout my corpus, the school-like exer-
cise book appears to be a model to which some writers conform quite
exactly (by inscribing regularly the date of the day, for instance) or
much more loosely. However, this provides a general frame but cannot
account precisely for the kind of practice observed.
Professional and collective writing in the village often relies on note-
books, which further conveys the idea of the notebook as a document
that is useful in everyday life and not only in schools. It also enhances
the meaning of the notebook as a means of control: for instance, NGOs
that promote a villager as their local representative will leave a notebook
with him and regularly inspect his work through the notebook. At the
beginning of the literacy campaigns, the CMDT has even tried to gener-
alize the practice of keeping a notebook to manage the farm.
Thus, the practice of notebook-keeping for ones own purpose draws
on distinct habits, taken from school and developed in professional
settings. However, no single model of personal writing is available. This
makes an important difference with the case Blommaert deals with. His
writers challenge some of the most established genres: history and auto-
biography (Blommaert, 2008). The few writers in my study who choose
a title for their notebook are quite reminiscent of these cases, testifying
that some of them actually try and fit into some preconceptions of
self-writing or history, but these are exceptions. Most often, what perme-
ates is only a sense that proper writing should be thematically organized
and homogeneous, leading the writers to almost apologize for the het-
erogeneity of their notebooks. For instance, Mamoutou Coulibaly, a
nephew of the village chief, literate in Bamanan and local representa-
tive for several development projects, had much to say about his profes-
sional notebooks as well as the ones he kept for the village farming
association. But when it came to his personal writings, he overlooked
them precisely on the ground that so many different things could be
written down in it. Mamouna Tour, a woman involved in village proj-
ects tasks as a secretary, literate in French and Bamanan, became all the
more confused when I drew her attention on her notes, saying: It is a
notebook I have just like this, I happened to . . . I grabbed one of my old
school-exercise books, I write like this . . ..
Ordinarily, writers talk about their notebook and treat it simply as an
object at hand, whose main characteristic is that it appears to represent
a safe place to write down things they want to keep for themselves.
Keeping a Notebook: The Materiality of the Text

and the Meaning of the Object
In the last part of this chapter, I will explore the consequences of the
material aspects of the notebooks. I will begin by considering their
materiality at the level of the writing practice itself: What does it mean
to write on this kind of material? How can this analysis enrich our
understanding of the practice? Then, I will look at the notebooks as
objects in the domestic setting, which are literally kept by villagers
as their personal belongings.
Dealing with a codex

Writing on a notebook means fitting into a particular written form.
This form is part of a wider family of written objects, printed or hand-
written, dealt with by historians (to be more precise by specialists in
palaeography) as a codex. A codex is an assemblage of sheets. This
broad definition gives us two hints on the uses of this kind of object as
a writing support.
First, the fact that the sheets are assembled (for the notebook: bound,
with a central pair of staples) implies that the primary use of the note-
book is to store sheets together. Of course, sheets can be torn out, but
the normal use is to keep them together. At school, the difference
between rough paper and the notebook is important. The villagers
make use of various written matters: sheets torn out from notebooks,
pieces of cardboard cut off from cigarette boxes, notepads taken from
tea company advertisements, calendars, CMDT forms to fill in, etc.
Among them, the notebook is characterized by the fact that it lasts: it
represents the writing where a notation has the best chance to be kept.
However, these distinct supports coexist in the same environment and
one practice can involve successively or at the same time as a series of
others. For instance, Moussa Coulibaly recorded the death of his sister-
in-law on three different supports: from the calendar hanging on the
wall (where the day of the death had been marked with a cross) to a
personal notebook (where the event appeared in a short narrative), via
a smaller leaflet (where a shorter record was written). The whole chain
of writing (Fraenkel, 2001) which is linked with this event, can be seen
to be part of an even broader chain of events: there must be an official
death certificate, as it took place at the hospital, as well as a written
obituary sent to the radio, and maybe other records of this event in the
village. Thus the distinctiveness of the notebook as a storing place
becomes clear in comparison to other supports, and in this case it is
acknowledged by the writer whose notebook, already mentioned, is
entitled Secrets notebook.
Furthermore, the fact that the notebook is made of different sheets
implies that the sheet constitutes a unit of writing, but also that the
order of the sheets may be significant. Some writers develop personal
ways of using these characteristics, such as Makan Camara (a detailed
analysis and a full transcription of his notebook is provided in Mbodj-
Pouye, 2008a). It is clearly organized in order to devote a specific page
to each of the social spaces he belongs in: one sheet deals with family
matters (recording several births and a marriage), another with two
events related to the village, another with events heard on the radio
(the death of national or international celebrities), etc. In that case,
it is striking to observe that during the 6 years he has kept this note-
book, he has carefully classified the event on the right page each time,
giving consistence to an order he has himself set. Others follow chrono-
logical order more classically, but even in these cases, there are specific
ways the writers choose to write or not to write the date, come back to
what they have previously written, or copy from time to time the same
piece, etc.
A notebook of ones own

As mentioned earlier, most of the notebooks were not initially dedicated
to personal writing. However, when set apart from other uses, the note-
book takes on a new value. Kept in a briefcase hung on a clove in the
mud-wall of their home, for those to whom writing is central to their
social identity, like Mamoutou Coulibaly, or more often wrapped in a
plastic bag with a few important documents, it enters the intimate space
of its owner. The fact that the notebook is a personal belonging is essen-
tial. The extent to which it can be circulated varies: some would specify
that they would not show it outside the family, whereas others would
not show it to anyone except selected friends. As an ethnographer,
I encountered some refusal to show me a notebook, but I often bene-
fited from my position as an outsider, the villagers being confident that
I would not be able to understand the secrets contained in it anyway.
The common point of the entries is that they are related to the writer
without implying self-examination. Keeping a personal notebook appears
to be a way of setting aside some personal information and thoughts,
which is a way of objectifying the existence of a domain of ones own
which is not given as such in contemporary rural Mali. The content
exceeds the boundaries of the secret strictly defined, but neither is
it equivalent to the domestic. Private, but not intimate, seems a good
way to describe them, as the writing practice is not self-centred, and is
definitely not a way to self-scrutinize. But it is part of the emergence of
a personal sphere, whose boundaries are drawn differently according
to the writers profile.
Conclusion
In the course of my research, while interviews and observations pro-

vided a useful overview of literacy practices including that of writing
in notebooks, in order to understand the meanings of keeping these
notebooks, a close analysis of the texts as documents and as objects
was required. From this point of view, notebook-writing appears as a
crucial site where the notion of a personal sphere is put into practice,
though not discursively elaborated.
Following on from this research, another ethnographic endeavour
would be to observe the future development of this practice: Is this a
genre in the making? Will these notebooks be transmitted? Or is it a
unique moment, characterized by the emergence of a practice that will
soon be replaced by new forms of compiling information and keeping
track of past events?
As this set of questions illustrates, the specific analysis presented
here, combining discursive and material analysis, is most useful in rais-
ing new questions to which, as ethnographers, we must seek answers
in the field.
Note
1
This research was a part of my PhD in sociology and anthropology, defended at
the University of Lyon 2 in March 2007 (Mbodj-Pouye, 2007). I am of French
and Senegalese origin, and my first experience in Mali was for fieldwork research
for my thesis. To this purpose, I had previously learnt Bamanan in Paris at the
INALCO.
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Chapter Eight
Writing in Healthcare Contexts: Patients,

Power and Medical Knowledge
Uta Papen
Introduction
In contemporary societies, much social interaction and communication

is mediated by written texts. Public institutions, for example, frequently
communicate with individuals in writing. Writing is also central to how
individuals contest what official texts demand of them and it allows
people to display and disseminate their own knowledge and views. In
this chapter, I discuss examples of the role of writing in healthcare
contexts and in communications between healthcare providers and
lay patients.
Healthcare contexts are an example of what Smith (1999) calls textu-
ally mediated social environments. Communication between doctors
and their patients, albeit primarily oral, frequently involves written texts.
This is, for example, the case when as I have found in my research
a doctor explains a medical procedure to a patient and gives her an
information leaflet about it. As a social context, healthcare is shaped
by structures of authority, and health texts are implicated in these
relations of ruling (Smith, 1999). Doctors and patients are expected
to take on specific roles. Traditionally, the doctor is seen as the holder
and provider of expert knowledge and the lay patient as its passive
recipient, leading to a paternalistic model of healthcare (Charles, Gafni
& Whelan, 1999). These rules are also revealed in the contents and
functions of patient education leaflets, consent forms and other texts.
Patient education leaflets aim to achieve compliance with medical
advice. How patients engage with medical texts and the authoritative
voices these contain can be seen in their reactions to written informa-
tion and in the instances of patients own writing that I will discuss.
The data I discuss in the following is taken from two research projects,
one recent the other ongoing. Between 2003 and 2006, I studied the
health-related reading and writing practices of adults living in the north-

west of England (Papen & Walters, 2008; Papen, 2008a). More recently,
I have begun a longitudinal study of pregnant womens experiences
with literacy in relation to their antenatal care (Papen, 2008b).
The Role of Written Language in the Delivery and

Reception of Healthcare: A Theoretical Perspective
Writing is more than a skill: it is a social practice that takes its meanings
from the activities and context it is part of. Those theorizing reading
and writing as social practice commonly use the term literacy practices
to refer to the culturally shaped uses and meanings of written texts
(see, for example, Street, 1993; Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Papen, 2005;
Barton, 2007). In this chapter, I focus specifically on health-related
literacy practices: texts that are written for patients and writing that is
produced by patients themselves. Such texts, and the acts of producing
and using them, are instances of particular practices: patterned ways
of using written language in healthcare contexts, such as, for example,
the sending of appointment letters and information leaflets to patients.
These are part of the wider practices of healthcare common in England,
the context of my study, and they need to be understood in relation
to these macro-conditions. At the more micro-level, it is necessary to
look at a specific texts role in relation to ongoing talk between health
professionals and patients. Doctorpatient interaction has been widely
researched (see, for example, Wodak, 1997; Sarangi & Roberts, 1999;
Roberts, Sarangi & Moss, 2004; Roberts et al., 2005; Heritage & Mayn-
hard, 2006; Iedema, 2007). Few studies, however, have looked at the
role written-texts play in doctorpatient interaction and how talk is
often structured around text (but see Freebody & Freiberg, 1999 for an
example). In this chapter, I show how health texts are used or invoked
during talk and as part of the social interactions that constitute a
healthcare episode. The social relations governing this interaction
that is, the doctors position as the expert define at least to some
degree how any texts will be used and understood. The written word
can be specifically powerful and the visual presence of hefty volumes of
medical encyclopaedias in a doctors surgery are part of what turns the
consultation room into a medical space (Fairclough, 2001: 49). Patients
also experience power as they feel subjected to the rules and rituals
Writing in Healthcare Contexts 147
of the healthcare system. Modern healthcare is a bureaucratic system

based on the institutionalization of specialized medical knowledge. It is
enacted through a myriad of medical rituals and situated practices
(Cicourel, 2005). Written texts are often central to such rituals.
The relations of ruling, however, are not to be understood as fixed
structures of domination which leave no room for the individual to act.
Power, as Foucault has suggested, is not a unitary entity and it is not
necessarily repressive. Relations between patients and the institutions
they deal with, in my case Englands National Health Service (NHS),
cannot be understood by thinking in terms of simple binary structures
of authority and compliance. Conformity may be achieved through
subtle means and patients often voluntarily subscribe to the procedures
they are subjected to and accept the forms of conduct suggested by
their physician (Lupton, 1994). But non-compliance and the desire to
resist are also frequent. In order to understand patients ability (or
not, as in some cases discussed below) to act independently, I use the
concept of agency, defined as a persons socio-culturally mediated
capacity to act (Ahern, 2004: 306).
Studying Writing in Relation to Healthcare:

An Ethnographic Perspective
If, as argued above, reading and writing are social and cultural
practices, they need to be studied as such. An ethnographic approach,
focussing on how specific patients in particular healthcare situations
make meaning from written texts is required. Ideally, this is done
through a combination of observations and interviews. Health, however,
is a private matter and healthcare contexts frequently remain closed to
the inquiring gaze of the researcher. Participant observation therefore
is not always possible. The Literacy, Learning and Health (LLH) project
was primarily interview-based. In all, 45 people were interviewed about
their health-related reading and writing practices and their experiences
with health texts. At the time of being interviewed, all of these were
students in adult basic education or English (ESOL English for Speak-
ers of Other Languages) classes in various places in the north-west of
England. They were people of various backgrounds and ages. Amongst
the non-native speakers, some were educated to degree level. Those
whose first language was English mostly had less formal education and
several had left school before the end of secondary education. The
interviews were semi-structured and open-ended, focussing on one or
two recent health episodes and contacts with healthcare providers that
the informants recalled. A total of 6 out of the 45 participants became
key informants: they were interviewed several times and visited in their
homes and 2 of them were accompanied on their visits to healthcare
providers.
In my ongoing research with pregnant women, I take a longitudinal
approach and work with a small number of women, who I interview
several times throughout their pregnancies. My informants are profes-
sional women with university education and I am particularly interested
in how women with this kind of background react to the bureaucra-
tization of antenatal care and the medicalization of pregnancy. Where
possible, I complement interviews and informal conversations with
participant observation.
The data analysis in both these projects is guided by the patients
own perspectives and accounts of their experiences. I explicitly look
for my informants meanings of specific events and how they read the
cultural practices of using written texts in healthcare. My own reading
of their accounts, however, is guided by what I believe to be a central
aspect of writing in healthcare settings: its relationship with power and
knowledge and the way texts and language are used, on both sides
doctor and patient to achieve specific purposes. Thus, my approach
is anything but purely inductive. In the following sections I discuss the
main themes emerging from my research. I begin with texts that are
written for patients. I then discuss writing by patients themselves.
Texts Written for Patients
Patient information leaflets

A variety of text types are used in healthcare contexts including patient
information leaflets and consent forms, prescriptions, charts and wall
posters, signage and other written instructions. These texts facilitate the
organization of healthcare and they are part of how health professionals
inform patients on things such as diagnosis, treatment and prognosis
of a disease. Current healthcare policies in England emphasize the
need for doctors to provide good quality information and to ensure that
patients understand what is happening to them. Frequently, information
is provided in written form. The goal is informed choice and this is

regarded as a way to change the traditional balance of power between
doctors and patients (Pollock et al., 2008; Department of Health, 2001a
and b). Patients are assumed to be empowered by this new focus on
information sharing and joint decision-making. The question of course
is whether this is necessarily the case (Kealley, Smith & Winser, 2005)
and how patients react to the informed patient agenda (Murtagh &
Hepworth, 2003; Henwood et al., 2003). In the following, I discuss some
of the ways in which the people I worked with reacted to written health
information.
Sonia, a Polish woman in her 30s, saw a nurse about what she feared
to be an ulcer on her lip. During the consultation, the nurse printed out
for her a leaflet on the causes and treatment of cold sores. Leaflets, such
as these, are interpretive resources (Coupland & Williams, 2002: 420).
In the interview, Sonia explained that the nurse had first described what
cold sores are and how they can be treated. Sonia had been afraid that
she was affected by something more serious, possibly an ulcer that might
even have to be removed surgically. She appreciated the nurse spending
time to calm her fears. After explaining about the sore, the nurse printed
out the leaflet. She used a highlighter pen to mark important parts
of the leaflet for Sonia and she wrote on it the name of the cream she
suggested Sonia should buy. Sonia took the leaflet home.
In this particular example, the leaflet was given to the patient towards
the end of the consultation and it served to backup and confirm the
information that had been provided orally. The written text was intended
to support the authority of the medical practitioner. But because Sonia
trusted the nurse and was happy with the advice received, she did not
read the leaflet carefully. In an earlier encounter, however, Sonia was
surprised to see a medical professional looking at the internet for infor-
mation. Sonia had phoned the surgery asking to be seen by a doctor.
She believed to suffer from a chest infection. She had been disappointed
when the receptionist got her an appointment with a nurse, not a doc-
tor. In Poland, Sonia explained, only a doctor would take such a case.
After examining her chest, the nurse went to her computer. Sonia
believed that the nurse was typing the symptoms in a special program
to find information. She felt that she could have done this herself and
that a medical professional should not take help from a computer
in this way. In fact, the nurse had searched for and printed out a leaflet
for Sonia. The incident illustrates how a health practitioners acquired
status as an authority can be put in doubt by her use of a written text.

It also shows the significance of culturally specific understandings of
healthcare and the expectations these generate. Sonia compared the
care she received in England with what she was used to from Poland.
For her, the nurse had less medical authority than a doctor and the fact
that the nurse appeared to have resorted to information from the inter-
net further undermined Sonias trust in her ability. Sonias reaction can
be explained by her lack of familiarity with a practice which in some
English surgeries is part of the dispensation of healthcare and which
could be seen as an example of a medical ritual: patients being given
a leaflet printed out for them. It shows differences in the cultures
of healthcare and the role of written texts in patient information. The
second time Sonia was exposed to the same practice when she had
the cold sore she appeared to have been less taken aback by the nurse
looking on the computer and she was genuinely happy with the advice
she had received.
When Anna, also from Poland and having lived in England for 2 years,
was informed about her smear test, she received a leaflet explaining
her results. She also received an invitation for a further investigation, a
colposcopy. In several interviews, Anna spoke to me about her experi-
ences of being treated for cell changes in her uterus. In one of our
conversations, we discussed in detail a leaflet Cervical screening What
your abnormal result means (see Figure 8.1) My own reading of the
text had been that it was struggling to find a balance between the need
to tell readers about the possibility that their smear test results could
indicate the development of cancer, and the wish to avoid unduly
frightening women who received it. The frequent use of modal verbs,
as in cervical cancer may develop and adverbs such as sometimes
and usually, illustrates this. From the health providers perspective,
the leaflet had to be sufficiently direct about the possible consequences
of the result in order to ensure compliance with the follow-up treat-
ment. Anna herself showed much understanding for the leaflets lack
of specificity. It was difficult for the writers to be precise about what
the result indicated, she explained. They simply do not know at this
stage, she told me. Having said this, she also made it clear that she
was not at all unaffected by the possibility of pre-cancerous or even
cancerous cells developing in the cervix alluded to in the leaflet. She
was scared.
Writing in Healthcare Contexts
151
Figure 8.1 What your abnormal result means
Continued
Figure 8.1
Leaflets, such as the ones discussed above, are centrally produced

standardized texts. Not only do they have to account for the possibility
of symptoms indicating different diseases, but also, the description of a
procedure or an illness contained in a patient information leaflet has
to be applicable and make sense to a large number of patients. They
cannot but write about patients in a generalized way, even if the use of
the second person singular, directly addressing the reader, aims to miti-
gate the distancing effect of this. Leaflets can, however, be personalized
through the physicians accompanying oral explanations. For Anna this
was certainly important. She spoke very positively about the consultant
who performed her colposcopy and the later loop extinction treatment.
She told me in detail about how she was invited to ask questions and
how both the doctor and nurse did everything to inform her about what
they were doing. The leaflets she had been given and received by mail
before the second procedure offered an additional resource. She read
them in the light of what the doctor had already told her. Talk that sur-
rounded the text offered a perspective and framing for understanding
the more general account offered by the leaflets.
Both Sonia and Annas case illustrate the central role of written infor-
mation in the dispensation of healthcare. They also show different
reactions to the practice of giving out leaflets. Anna seemed most
strongly to have been empowered by the information she had been
given and we can say that for her the informed patient policy appeared
to have succeeded. This, however, is not always the case.
Information about medication

In view of the NHS policy to improve patient information, leaflets
and other texts should present medical knowledge in terms accessible
to the lay patient. This should include medicine package inserts. But for
Grace, a Chinese woman, this was not the case. When she had to take
medication, she only read the general instructions about how to take
the pills, which can be found on the outside of the box. She doesnt
read the insert, she told us, because she cant understand the informa-
tion. She wouldnt even read instructions in Chinese (when buying
Chinese medication) as it was the same there: she wouldnt be able to
understand what was said. Other informants shared Graces view or
simply did not see the relevance of the detailed information the inserts
contain.
Katherine, retired and in her fifties, too, did not read the information
about side effects. She explained that when medication is prescribed,
she doesnt like to read the information about side effects, because if
you read them you start worrying about what pains you might get, and
yet she knows she has to take the pills. Reflecting on the experience of
illness more generally, Katherine added that it was possible to know too
much. Her brother, she explained, had inherited a family health book
from her mother. Ever since they had this book, she commented, in her
brothers family they worried too much about illness. They looked up
things in the book and this just made them unduly anxious.
Katherines behaviour reveals a form of agency: shed rather not know
what to expect. At the same time, Katherine made it clear that she was
usually happy to trust the doctors authority. Like many other patients,
she trusts the physicians words and personal advice (Henwood et al.,
2003; Pollock et al., 2008). After all, the doctors, she explained, had
spent years in training and so they knew what they were talking about.
She had much less faith in her own abilities and when asked whether
she would look up things on health, she said she doubted she would be
able to understand. Medical knowledge, for her, was too complicated
and, thus, too powerful to be something she would go into or contest.
Katherine here is aware of her lack of agency in relation to the doctors
and their expert knowledge. But she also displays agency by rejecting
the view of the patient as the active and reflexive consumer who is
necessarily sceptical of expert views (Lupton, 1997) and who wants to be
a partner in her healthcare.
When Kate, a British woman in her 40s, was first diagnosed with lupus,
her GP gave her several leaflets. She was so frightened by what they
said that she no longer read any information that she was given or that
her family found for her. She didnt want to see herself in the descrip-
tions she found. Later on in her illness, she asked her sister to search
for information on her behalf. She explicitly told her that she only
wanted her to pass on the happy moments and that she did not
want to know about the details of her condition and how it might
develop. That patients, in particular those suffering from serious or life-
threatening diseases, request partial, selective, and edited accounts
(Pollock et al., 2008: 964) is not unusual. As Kates example shows, this
can lead them to rejecting the written information received from
their healthcare providers. Rejection here is a means of self-protection
(Pollock et al., 2008: 972).
Grace, Kate and Katherine are examples of patients who do not con-
form to the informed patient view, but who prefer to remain passive.
Lupton (1997) suggests that this is also a form of agency showing that
peoples reactions to illness are shaped by a variety of needs and emo-
tions. Amongst these may be fear of knowing too much, as indicated
above. An apparent lack of interest in written information can also be
the result of patients trusting their doctor completely.
Imposed texts
When Debbie, a 28-year-old mother of two boys, had a scan, the conver-
sation with the consultant rather than focussing on the ovarian cysts
he had detected unexpectedly turned to contraception. Debbie didnt
understand why the doctor insisted on talking to her about contracep-
tion and why he gave her a leaflet about the coil. She knew that her
condition could not become worse from her getting pregnant, so for
her there was no link between her reasons for seeing the consultant
and him talking to her about contraception. At the time, she had no
need for contraception, because she had separated from her childrens
father and was not sexually active. Thus, she was taken aback by the
doctors insistence on addressing this topic. When the consultant told
her that she could end up pregnant and that they couldnt offer her
sterilisation, she felt like a 10 year old that their mum and dad were
saying be careful. Debbie took the leaflet. But she was not interested
in its content. She did not throw it away though, but kept it for future
reference. It became useful to her much later, at the time of the research
interview, when she decided to have a coil fitted.
The above is an example of information that was given but not
solicited. We could even say that the information was imposed, as it was
clear from Debbies account of her conversation with the doctor that
she felt unable to refuse the leaflet. The consultants actions could have
been part of a general policy to discuss contraception with women of
child-bearing age. In that sense, it seems that the conversation might
have been schema-driven (Roberts et al., 2003: 196), informed by a
medical agenda that is applied systematically to patients of Debbies
age and that is driven through regardless of the patients reaction. In
addition, we may have here an example of patient labelling (Roberts
et al., 2003: 196) where a doctor perceives a patient in a specific way
and acts accordingly. Without doubt, Debbie felt labelled. When the
doctor gave her the leaflet about the coil, he ignored her own views on
her situation. In the doctors view the leaflet he gave her was about her,
but she disagreed. She opposed the identity of a young woman need-
ing contraception that he tried to impose on her. Debbies is a stark
example of the asymmetry that has been found to be characteristic of
much doctorpatient interaction: doctors talk much more than patients
during a consultation and physicians frequently follow their own insti-
tutionally driven agenda while paying little attention to patient-initiated
relevant issues (Sator, Gstettner & Hladschick-Kermer, 2008; Fisher &
Todd, 1986). Not surprisingly, this imbalance can lead to patient dissatis-
faction, as clearly evident from Debbies account of her experience. In
Debbies case the leaflet reinforced the doctors dominance and as
an artefact it became the symbol of the physician disrespecting her
concerns and situation.
Not enough time for talk: doctors limited time and the role of
paperwork in medical consultations
A recent study of doctorpatient communication in an oncological out-
patient department found that 22 per cent of the time of each consulta-
tion was devoted to non-verbal activities, such as the doctors looking at
the patients file, completing forms and writing letters (Sator, Gstettner
& Hladschick-Kermer, 2008). These activities take the doctors attention
away from the patient, who may feel they are not listened to. Shanaz,
a British-Pakistani woman in her 50s, talked about doctors as book
doctors: when you go there you explain and [they] look at the com-
puter, look up book and give you medicine. She carried on by saying
that they never listen to other things.
After several unhappy encounters with doctors in primary care and
accident and emergency, Shanaz turned to alternative medicine. She
bought herself a book on homeopathy and she consulted a doctor who
she explained was not a real doctor. Beneath Shanaz criticism of the
doctors looking at books, lies her dissatisfaction with the bureaucrati-
zation of modern healthcare that results in impersonal service and
doctors not having time to listen to their patients. When one night she
had to go to the accident and emergency department because of a
severe stomach ache, the doctors on duty found no cause for concern.
At other occasions, when suffering from pain in her leg and her back,
all she received was painkillers and an offer for an injection. Shanaz
found she could not identify with the doctors, in particular those in
accident and emergency who were too young to match her view of
medical experience and authority. To compensate, it seemed to her,
they looked in their books.
As mentioned above, Cicourel (2005) uses the notion of bureaucratic
medical rituals to refer to routinely followed administrative practices,
such as, for example, scheduling appointments. In the healthcare con-
text, such practices often include the use of written texts. When doctors
look at the patient file on their computer during a consultation, neces-
sarily their attention is turned away from the patient. Cicoural further
explains that medical rituals are a source of intelligibility and unintelli-
gibility for the patient. For Sonia, the nurses practice of printing out
a leaflet was a source of unintelligibility and misunderstanding, when
experienced the first time. For Shanaz, the doctors reading was a source
of dissatisfaction rather than unintelligibility: they lacked experience
and didnt care about her personal circumstances.
Two visits to the hospital with Sally, one of the mothers-to-be in my
ongoing research, allowed me to observe for myself the extent to which
doctors and midwives consult written texts while they are with a patient.
Sally was 7 months into her second pregnancy when her midwife referred
her to an obstetrician. A small risk of Sally developing pre-gestational
diabetes had been the cause for the referral. The consultation began
with the obstetrician asking Sally why she had come. Sally explained
and the consultant read through her Green Notes to make herself
familiar with Sallys situation. Throughout the consultation, the doctor
frequently had to turn towards these notes. Antenatal care in England is
midwife-led: mothers-to-be are regularly cared for by midwives and are
only referred to an obstetrician in case of any concern for their or the
babys health. Because Sallys pregnancy had until then been normal
the consultant had not had any prior contact with Sally and was not
familiar with her situation. The Green Notes are handheld: a patient
file that is in possession of the patient herself and which contains records
of all antenatal care visits as well as information for the mother-to-be on
various aspects of her pregnancy. As a literacy practice, the Green Notes
are central to the organization of antenatal care (Papen, 2008b).
After we had left the hospital, Sally expressed her dissatisfaction with
the consultation. Unlike Shanaz, she understood why the doctor had to
look at her notes. However, Sally also felt that the doctor had not been
a good communicator and that she had frequently not looked at her
while addressing her. A few weeks after this incident, Sally had an
appointment with a midwife. Pregnant women are frequently cared for
by a team of midwives and this can mean, as in Sallys case, that over the
course of the 9 months the mother-to-be might see up to four or five
different midwives. The Green Notes again played a crucial role during
the visit. In fact, the consultation started with a greeting and the hand-
ing over of the notes. The visits are quite routine, Sally remarked after-
wards, and the handing over of the notes, followed by the midwifes
reading them certainly felt like a medical ritual of the kind Cicourel
(see above) describes. The consultation ended with the midwife adding
a short report to the notes and handing them back to Sally. The midwife
then turned to the computer to complete the hospitals patient file.
Watching her writing first in the notes then on computer, we asked her
if she was writing the same both times. Yes, she explained, it was more or
less the same and the purpose of the computer file was to make sure
everybody involved in a patients care had access to the same informa-
tion and also in case a woman had forgotten to bring her Green Notes
to the consultation. As I have explained elsewhere (Papen, 2008b), the
Green Notes are an attempt to address this imbalance and to provide
mothers-to-be with more information about their pregnancy.
The above scenarios confirm what other researchers have found: that
during a consultation the physician frequently engages in reading or
writing activities, which necessarily turns their attention away from the
patient. As a literacy practice, this behaviour confirms the physician as
the party with privileged access to powerful knowledge. It emphasizes
the doctors role as the one who mediates or translates medical knowl-
edge, while the patients access to this information depends on the
doctors willingness and ability to fulfil this mediating role.
Patients Own Writing
Imposed identities: forms

Forms stand for and symbolize the institutions that issue them. Forms,
by the way they are written and through their functions in specific
contexts, can deny people access to resources and expertise. They may
require the applicant to take on an identity they are opposed to.
After several years with lupus, Kate applied for Disability Allowance.
When Kate and her husband sat together to fill out her disability allowance
form they struggled with the amount and detail of information about
her disease they had to supply. They did not know much about lupus. In
Kates words, the form was hopeless and an absolute nightmare. It
contained many gobbledygook questions, which she simply did not
understand. She did not understand the formal language used as she
had no familiarity with this kind of register. Kate resented that
she had to provide a lot of information that was already contained in
her patient file. Being in a lot of pain day-in and day-out, she could not
understand that there was a need for her to prove how ill she was. Kate
could not understand why her consultants verdict on her condition,
contained in her patient file, could not simply be passed on to the
Department of Social Services. But the states discourse of welfare
obliged Kate to take on the position of applicant having to make a case.
The completion of the application form including details of her illness
is another example of a bureaucratic procedure imposed on the patient.
Undoubtedly, the form itself and the fact that the patient is expected
to complete it herself, is a source of power of the system over the patient/
applicant. The form is the frontline piece of the Department of Social
Services, symbolizing the power of the state to grant or refuse access to
resources. The text replaces the facework of any officials who in an
older system might have received applicants in person to review their
case (Malan, 1996). Because for Kate and her husband, there was no
such person they could turn to, it was the form itself that became the
symbol of the power they felt subjected to.
Instrumental and emotional writing

Patients not only receive texts, they also generate them. Amongst the
texts written by patients that I found in my research were notes on a
procedure, lists of questions, vocabulary lists, records and diary entries,
contributions to internet sites and letters to organizations. These serve
a variety of purposes.
The writing that my informants told me about falls into two broad
categories: instrumental and emotional. The first of these is writing
that serves a specific occasion or task, for example, preparing a visit
to a doctor, writing notes about information found on the internet or
completing a form (see above). Another example of this kind of writing,
mentioned by two informants, is keeping a record of ones blood
sugar levels.
Pamela took notes of the information she found on the internet

about an endoscopy, a procedure her husband was to undergo. Maina,
a Japanese woman living in Britain, used a small notebook to help her
remember any important information related to her pregnancy. Peter,
who had to take up to 18 different tablets each day, had prepared for
himself a list of all the medication he needed. He took this list with him
whenever he had an appointment with a doctor. Many of the non-native
speakers of English I interviewed prepared lists of words and phrases
ahead of their visit to a doctor, to help them explain to the physician
what was wrong with them.
The above examples illustrate patients writing that is instrumental
(Drentea & Moren-Cross, 2005). This type of writing is responsive to the
demands of the healthcare context. Often, it was empowering in the
sense that it helped patients cope better with the communicative require-
ments of the health system or that it made them feel better informed
and prepared for treatment they were undergoing. Pamela explained
that the notes she had on the endoscopy were useful, as they now knew
what her husband had to expect. Mainas notebook contained informa-
tion received from the midwives, advice found on the internet and a
list of antenatal care services in the area of Scotland she was about
to move too. Her note-taking strategy helped her feel in control of a
situation that for her was in a sense rather unusual. As other well
educated, professional women expecting their first child, she had to
adapt to a context where she was relatively ignorant and bound to rely
on experts voices without necessarily being able to judge their knowl-
edge in the way she would usually approach other peoples verdicts
(Carolan, 2007).
For others, the writing they did was less empowering. Katherine
was invited by her husbands consultant to write down any questions she
and her husband might have about his cancer and the chemotherapy
he was about to start. Katherine did not find that writing down ques-
tions helped her in her efforts to communicate with the consultant.
Being aware that the doctors used big words, she felt compelled to
express herself well and she struggled to spell the words she needed and
never took her list with her to the doctor.
The second type of writing I found in my research serves more rela-
tional and emotional purposes, as in writing a diary and communicating
with other pregnant women through internet sites. At first sight, this
kind of writing is less shaped by the exigencies of the healthcare system.
However, it could also be constrained by what the writers deemed to be

correct language and the kind of writing that would give them authority
in a medical context. Kate struggled to express what she wanted to say
without sounding stupid. Her psychiatrist had asked her to write a diary
to express her feelings about the disease. But she found it hard to use
what she thought of as the appropriate words. For example, she wanted
to talk about her depression. But since she didnt know how to spell this
word, she ended up using a much more colloquial expression being
fed up. In her view, this made her sound like a child. Both Kate and
Katherines examples show how patients can feel obliged to adapt
linguistically to the institution they are dealing with. They both feel that
their own lack of ability to use a formal and professional register puts
them in a position of inferiority towards the medical professionals.
Throughout her pregnancy, Sally regularly communicated with other
pregnant women through an internet site. At one point in the early
stages of her pregnancy, she felt she received little support from her
midwives who thought of her as experiencing what for them were no
more than the normal symptoms of the first trimester. In talking to her
midwife, Sally felt constrained to play down her feelings and ended up
presenting herself as coping better than she thought she did. On the
website, communicating with other women, she felt no need to keep up
a brave face. As Drentea & Moren-Cross (2005) who studied an internet
mother site also found, for Sally the site offered a welcome space to
exchange those sentiments, which were not given space and recogni-
tion by the health service. Maina also mentioned the emotional support
pregnant women could receive from websites, but contrary to Sally she
had only looked at them occasionally and felt that she had no need for
the kind of sisterly support that was offered. But she found internet
sites useful for asking questions she found too mundane to bother her
midwife with. For example, she used the site to clarify some information
the midwife had given her regarding foods to avoid.
Internet sites such as those used by Sally and Maina offer a form
of healthcare which is controlled by patients themselves. On the site,
patients experiences and sufferings are situated within their lifeworlds
rather than within the constraining sphere of biomedicine and what
doctors and midwives deem to be pathological or not. On the internet
site, patients themselves act as healthcare providers (Hardey, 2001 in
Henwoord et al., 2003). They provide emotional support but also
formal information (Drentea & Moren-Cross, 2005: 932): information
taken from professionals and organizations. The sites flourish because

there is a need not only for such factual information but also for social
support. Instead of investing their agency in requesting more and
better or different care from their midwives and doctors, women like
Sally opt for a complementary form of care in the hands of women
themselves.
Patients writing can also be driven by resistance or rejection of the
experts point of view. For the first years of her illness, Kate had had
full faith in her general practitioner and consultant and was happy to
go along with the treatments they suggested. However, after 5 years
of suffering from lupus she found her condition increasingly difficult
to bear. Having been passive so far, an evening with her sister Jenny
proved to be a catalytic event triggering Kates resistance to the treat-
ments she had so far received. Kate put her sister in charge. Jenny began
to search information about lupus on the internet. She sent letters to
various sites asking for more information, ordered an alternative treat-
ment for Kate and got Kate moved to a different consultant. Jenny
also wrote to their local MP when Kate was refused a hip replacement
on the grounds that she was too young.
Conclusions
The data presented in the previous sections illustrates the many uses
and meanings of written texts in healthcare contexts. They support the
assertion that healthcare contexts are highly textually mediated envi-
ronments. The scenarios recounted above also demonstrate that texts
such as patient education leaflets are embedded in specific practices
of healthcare. In some instances, they appear to be given to patients
routinely and their use is part of a medical ritual.
Health texts do of course contain information that can be vital for
the patient. But patient information leaflets of the kind mentioned by
my informants are constrained in what they offer: they privilege the
dominant biomedical view and when and to whom they are given reflects
the institutions agenda, which may not necessarily coincide with the
patients needs and desires. Information can be for compliance rather
than for choice (Dixon-Woods, 2001). Debbies experience shows how
texts are implicated in the relations of ruling. Kates experience of the
form reveals the role of literacy as a threat (Barton & Hamilton, 1998).
The form contained a statement warning applicants that in case of

information withheld or wrongly presented support could be withheld.
Written texts need to be understood in relation to the practices and
policies they are associated with. Leaflets and internet websites such as
NHS direct online, an information service for patients, are central to
the NHS current policy of improving patients understanding of medi-
cal issues and empowering them to become partners in their healthcare
(Henwood et al., 2003). Patients, however, react to any texts received
from their doctors in a variety of ways, ranging from welcome accep-
tance to passive or active rejection. Leaflets can be useful and empower-
ing, as in Annas case. But for others, like Grace, the written information
received may be of no use. Whether written information, including the
kind of information patients find themselves, is empowering or not also
depends on whether the medical encounter itself favours or impedes
a more egalitarian relationship between physician and patient. Shanaz
may have been partially empowered by her use of a homeopathic book.
But her encounters with health professionals were not satisfactory. That
she turned to self-help should not be seen as evidence of the health
system having made her an active partner in her healthcare. Rather it is
the result of the system not addressing her needs. Sallys use of an inter-
active motherhood website provided her with a lot of useful medical
advice and the social contact the site offers was an invaluable source of
support throughout her pregnancy. But even a highly educated, infor-
mation literate and well-informed woman like Sally at times required
the physicians advice. When this happened, she was not always satisfied
by the response she got. We can conclude that despite a rhetoric that
professes the opposite, the literacy practices of information provision
and healthcare more generally continue to be grounded in a transmis-
sion model that privileges the institutions point of view.
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Part IV
Historical Perspectives
Chapter Nine
Edwardian Postcards: Illuminating

Ordinary Writing
Julia Gillen and Nigel Hall
People today wonder how our fathers and mothers got on without those useful
adjuncts of civilization postcards.
Anon, 1901
The Edwardian Postcard
During the reign of Edward VII (19011910) the total number of

postcards posted in Britain was 5,920,933,334, almost six billion, getting
on for 200 cards per person. Although the postcard had been first
developed in Austria in 1869 it was very quickly adopted across the
world. In Britain the postcards use was carefully circumscribed by the
British Post Office. The early postcards were preprinted, rigidly sized
and pre-stamped; the whole of one side had to be taken up by the
address and the other side could only contain the message. In the late
1890s this began to change and in 1902 one whole side was allowed to
be taken up with an illustration and half of the other side was used for
the message. Within 2 years postcard sending rose dramatically, reach-
ing almost a billion cards a year at the end of the Edwardian period.
To a large extent, 1902 was the year that writing was democratized in
the United Kingdom. By 1902 Britain had experienced almost 30 years
of compulsory education, and while literacy levels may not have neces-
sarily been high, the postcard did not make huge demands on writers.
Everyone could use postcards; they were cheap and attractive objects
and nobody was looking over a writers shoulder checking for errors.
Most people, save for the very poor and the totally illiterate, found
that postcards had great value in their increasingly fast and complex
social lives. The efficiency of the Post Office also contributed and one
historian of the postcard commented, The speed of the postal service

is such that Drop me a postcard was said in just the same way that
people today say give me a ring (Staff, 1979: 65).
It is because the postcard was so widely used during the Edwardian
period that it has great potential for anyone interested in the history
of writing. Ordinary writing from Englands past represents an elusive
quarry. The writing that has survived in archives, libraries and personal
collections is often that of elite writers, their clerks and scribes, or
belongs to distinctive educated individuals, often diarists. The absence
of other peoples ordinary writing is not only because limited educa-
tional opportunities restricted access to writing skills, but also because
any such texts were not seen as worth preserving. Exceptions to this,
such as the late-eighteenth-century pauper letters (Sokoll, 2001), are
amazing revelations of what could be achieved by relatively unlettered
writers. The potential of the postcard for studying ordinary writing
is so powerful because on one level ordinary can mean the everyday
writing of all people, even those who may be highly educated or from
a higher social class. However, it can also mean the ordinary writing of
ordinary people, people who may well not have normally used the
more formal and more expensive medium of letter writing to com-
municate; as the author of one letter to The Times made clear, Now
the postcard is the letter of the poor (The Times, 14.3.1896). Postcards
were used by almost everyone and they are evidence of ordinary people
engaging in ordinary writing. The Edwardian postcard reflects the more
informal writing of a very large section of the British population both
rich and poor and both higher and lower classes. James How (2003)
claimed that the establishment of the British Post Office system in the
second half of the eighteenth century represented an opening up of
a new epistolary space, with many consequences for the way in which
people communicated and related to each other. We want to claim that
the early postcard (and not just the Edwardian postcard) also repre-
sented a new epistolary space, one which perfectly suited the end of
the nineteenth century with its greater than ever social and physical
mobility. The Manchester Weekly Times predicted in 1890 (June 4), The
work of correspondence will be reduced to a minimum when one has
only to carry a pack of postcards in ones pocket, write ones thought in
pencil as soon as it occurs, and despatch it through the first messenger
or the first receiving box one comes across. And one writer in Girls
Realm of 1900 said, The picture post-card is a sign of the times. It belongs
Edwardian Postcards 171
to a period peopled by a hurried generation that has not got many

minutes to spare for writing letters (cited in The Picture Postcard, 1900: 9).
We want to consider the place of the Edwardian postcard within a
new communications landscape, deliberately borrowing a term from
Kress (1998) that he used to apply to the contemporary era of the
digital revolution. Examining the materiality and communicative affor-
dances of this new medium leads us to suggest that the postcard is
appropriate in a distinctive way to the Edwardian era, and also allows
us to make some direct comparisons with current communications
technologies.
The explosion in use of the postcard in Edwardian times, reaching
nearly one billion annually, bears a striking parallel to todays growth in
electronic communications. A downward shift in costs and improve-
ments in technologies led to a dramatic increase in writings that reached
their addressees quickly wherever they were. Multiple daily deliveries
in some centres meant that multimodal communications could be
exchanged more rapidly than ever before. The postal service was so
efficient that up to six deliveries a day were being made in major cities.
For the first time in British history there was a literacy-related object
that did not demand too much writing or reading, could be posted
extremely cheaply, in which a significant part of the overall message
could be conveyed by a printed picture and in its relative informality
was ideally suited to vernacular writing. The consequence was the use of
the postcards by most sectors of society for a great range of purposes.
In their easy multimodality, postcards may be seen to transcend the
comparable communicative tools of a century later. In the first decade
of the twenty-first century, it is very possible to send multimedia text
messages, but this is still a relatively unusual mode in comparison with
all the messages that feature words with a highly constrained range of
additional graphical features such as emoticons. Multimodal emails are
common for those sent by commercial organizations to their target
markets, but the majority of 1:1 emails we send in our personal and
professional lives are essentially verbal. By contrast, Edwardian post-
cards by default give the sender the opportunity to combine a choice
of image with their text, at very little cost: it has been estimated that
in real terms sending a postcard cost about one fortieth the amount in
this period in comparison with the 1970s (Monahan, 1980; Staff, 1979).
The postcard even offered the chance of avoiding writing at all. As one
writer in The Picture Postcard wrote, As a picture is far easier to read than
print, so superior is the pictorial card to the written word (1901: 145).
Indeed, many of the cards being sold during the Edwardian period
have a pictorial side that included a printed text (e.g. Why havent you
written? or Im sorry I havent written).
The Edwardian postcard did bring with it two issues that have also
affected digital communications. The first is privacy. Unlike the letter, a
postcard is a very open and public form of communication, and any
message written on a card will be exposed to scrutiny beyond that of
its intended recipient. This problem was identified very early on. Only
10 days after the first postcard appeared in Britain, The Times com-
mented, Cryptography, or the art of writing in cipher, will be practised,
new methods of expression will be studied, and many persons, no
doubt, will discover that what they have got to say to their correspon-
dents need be no secret at all. (The Times, 8.10.1870). The Times was
correct and most writers simply ignored privacy issues for as the Post-
card Collector in 1903 commented (p. 324), And as for privacy, who
expects it in these days. If he has secrets to hide from the light of day, by
all means let him use a sheet paper, enclose it in an envelope, seal it with
red wax, put on a penny stamp and be happy. But for those concerned
about privacy, proffered solutions to their problem abounded. Our own
collection reveals that people developed their own codes, borrowed
ciphers, wrote upside down or reversed text, and some constructed
rebuses. Eventually, postcard code books were published. Around 1908
Captain Bernard created The postcard code: a novel and private method of
communicating by postcard. By using this,
No longer will the servant or the Village Postman be able to read your
private messages, no longer will the mistress know of the tender
phrases sent by the maids followers, no longer will parents scowl, or
the sisters brother tease her, for when in possession of this book, by
simply placing a few figures on a post card, a private message can be
send to any part of the United Kingdom for a halfpenny, or for a
penny to any part of the world.
The second issue relates to concerns about standards. First, for some
the postcard transgressed social standards. When the postcard first
appeared, it was rejected by some as being below their dignity. The jour-
nalist James Douglas wrote in 1907, There are still some ancient purists
who regard postcards as vulgar, fit only for tradesmen. (cited in Staff,
1979: 81). For others, just as it is for some with todays texting and email,
the new medium was going to ruin the English language. Douglas (ibid.)
also claimed that The picture postcard carries rudeness to the fullest
extremity. There is no room for anything polite while another critic
said The postcard is utterly destructive of style (Sims, 1900). However,
one author suggested that The postcard with its entire freedom from
ceremony of formality, is such an obvious boon to thousands, if not
millions, of correspondents in these days (The Times, 1.11.1899, p. 13).
The Edwardian Postcard and Ordinary Writing
The project from which this article derives is beginning to explore

writing on Edwardian postcards; crucially this is not simply to examine
what writers wrote about but to investigate the nature of this writing as
social practice (Barton & Hall, 2000). Part of our thesis is that postcards
represent the kind of writing that has been characterized in a number
of ways by different academics, such as ordinary writing, (Sinor, 2002)
and vernacular and everyday writing (Barton & Hamilton, 1998).
So what kind of writing is it on Edwardian postcards? Is it ordinary
writing as defined by Sinor (2002)? She claims that ordinary writing is
writing that is typically unseen or ignored, and is primarily defined by
its status as discardable (p. 5). She borrows from Langbauers formula-
tion that it is an example of the very things we cannot read because
they are so commonplace as to be boring, to refuse our regard or inter-
pretation. (p. 126). On one level it may seem that her characterization
is not applicable, for postcards are read and sometimes kept; after
all, in any given month millions of Edwardian cards are available for
sale in British postcard collector fairs. However, it is worth looking
more closely at her definition, for the writing on postcards is not the
same thing as postcards themselves and it is very unlikely that many of
the millions of old cards now for sale each month would have survived
were it not for collectors interests that have focussed almost wholly
on the picture sides.
Out of the many hundreds of books that feature older postcards
we have found only two that make a specific and major feature of the
messages on the non-pictorial side? What The Postman Saw (Brooks,
Fletcher & Lund, 1982) did focus more on the messages than the
pictorial sides of the cards. It printed transcriptions of 234 messages

(complete with spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors where
they occurred, p. 4) and even reproduced 12 of the messages sides of
cards. However, its focus was on the topics of the messages rather than
considering them as a form of writing The Postcard Century (Phillips,
2000) contained reproductions of 2000 cards and alongside every card
was printed a transcription of the message, with all their disjointedness,
eccentric spellings and wayward grammar (p. 14). Precious in their
rarity, these two books are very welcome, but in neither of them does
the writing on postcards begin to be examined as the hugely significant
resource for understanding the social history of writing we believe it to
be. It is clear that while the handwritten messages have not necessarily
been physically discarded, they have nevertheless been largely refused
our regard and interpretation. Ordinary writing has been too easily
represented as mundane or insignificant, but as Thurlow, Jaworski and
Ylnne (in press) point out it is the apparent banality which makes
postcards so communicatively important. Being positioned as banal
obscures the complex range of functions embedded within such texts.
Barton and Hamilton (1998) offer another perspective that relates
to the ordinariness of writing on postcards. They discuss vernacular
literacies and describe them as essentially ones which are not regulated
by the formal rules and procedures of dominant social institutions and
which have their origins in everyday life. Postcards do not escape some
of the rules of dominant social institutions for in many respects usage
was regulated by the British Post Office; when they began they had to
be of certain sizes, cost a specified amount and certain parts of postcard
could only be used in certain ways (for instance only the address could
be written on one aside of the card, restricting to the other side the
illustration and message). However, vociferous campaigns, largely led by
an MP, Mr J. Henniker Heaton, gradually led to relaxations of these
rules (e.g. Henniker Heaton, Letter to The Times, 19. 8. 1899, p. 8). Post-
card writers developed many creative solutions to how they could write
on postcards and the composition of messages was restricted only by
Britains libel and obscenity laws. Most importantly, no-one sought to
restrict the quality of composition, spelling, grammar and punctuation.
No-one set acceptable standards for postcard writing and no-one
assessed what people wrote. We have failed to uncover a single manual
prescribing how postcards should be written, while across several centu-
ries there were many hundreds for letter writers (Poster & Mitchell, 2007)
and in its earlier days there was even published guidance for people
about using the telephone (e.g. Post, 1969 [1922]). The ways in which
postcards were written, while sometimes drawing on longstanding letter
writing conventions, often reflect oral language use in everyday life (see
below). Thus, postcard texts essentially evolved out of the practice of
writing them and these practices were situated in peoples ordinary,
everyday lives. Postcards might contain no writing, a couple of words
or up to, in some cases, well over a hundred words, they could have
drawings, codes, or symbols, and the writing could be oriented in many
different directions. The evidence of the millions of Edwardian cards
that have survived is that their authors took every opportunity to explore
their freedoms.
Looking at the Texts on Edwardian Postcards
In the section that follows, we examine a number of texts found on

Edwardian postcards. These examples come from a collection of 2000
Edwardian cards that we have assembled. Unlike almost all postcard
collectors we collect by price (very cheap) rather than image theme,
and do not seek cards in pristine condition. Our primary criteria for
inclusion are simply that the cards are clearly dated and contain some
written text. The overwhelming majority, 94 per cent of our sample, are
generally neat and readable.
Our collection is fairly randomized in that the cards have been
acquired in many different places and from many different dealers and
collectors; to a large extent it is time that has randomized them. Our
collection of 2000 cards is inevitably only a minute quantity of the six
million posted during the Edwardian period and we do not pretend
that our collection is statistically representative of all Edwardian cards.
Rather, we seek to examine the range and nature of our collection as
evidence of the writing practices among Edwardian postcard writers.
For the purposes of this article we concentrate on a sample of 100 cards
for which we have developed and implemented many analytical cate-
gories and transcribed the texts. Ultimately all the cards (and as the
collection grows, many more) will be analysed in the same way.
Three quarters of our sample are views or buildings; there is a scatter-
ing of other topics including comic subjects, photographs of ordinary
people and representations of fine art. We have categorized two thirds
as essentially photographic and almost all the rest as professionally

illustrated although the boundary between the two is impossible to
draw finitely. Very many cards feature adapted images: for example,
personal photographs turned into postcards or, very commonly, pro-
fessional photographic images that have been coloured, tinted or
improved in some way. So we see that a great deal of the image editing
that goes on today as part of both professional and personal practices
has clear ancestry in the practices of the Edwardians. Occasionally
we suspect that the image selected was of secondary importance; the
message was vital and the writer sent the first card that came to hand.
However, far more frequently, there is some relationship between the
image and the reason for sending it; some cards make explicit reference
to supplying the card as a gift to supplement the addressees collection.
Others draw some feature of the illustration to the addressees atten-
tion, for example: Do you not think this is a saucy card or My house is
further along on the right.
The very way that the limited space of the card is used demonstrates
choice. Our collection features great variation in orientation of the
writing with every possible way of using the space being demonstrated;
fewer than half in our sample simply write from top to bottom; some
write upside down, or diagonally, annotate the picture side as well as
write in the space allocated for the message, or start the message in one
direction and later decide to cram an additional line or two in with
another orientation.
The evidence from our collection suggests that postcard writing was
more common among women than men, although it is also clear that
men participated in both writing and reading postcards. Our sample
contains explicit references to collections held by females and males,
yet it is constituted by many more cards addressed to women than to
men. However, it is often unclear whether those cards written to women
are from other women or from men. External reference occasionally
suggests that picture postcard writing was more popular among women,
such as an article in The Postcard Collector of September 1903 (p. 227)
which remarked that in breach of Post Office regulations young women
were crowding the counters of the Llandudno Post Office to write their
postcards.
Before exploring the range of written messages on Edwardian post-
cards we will present some analysis of one randomly selected card in
more detail (see Figure 9.1).
Figure 9.1 An Edwardian postcard, picture side
Figure 9.2 An Edwardian postcard, message side
The card (as in Figure 9.1 ) has on one side a poor quality colour
reproduction of a church, St Peters in Bramley, Leeds. This church
still exists, now serving Anglican and Methodist communities although
it was re-ordered 30 years ago according to its web presence. There
are probably no contemporary postcards featuring this church. In its
day however, an extremely local publisher of postcards, Fairbanks
of Bramley and Pudsey issued the card which was sent by a Rob C to a
Mr Harry Jones of 47 Ermine Road, Hoole in Chester. The illustration
is not mentioned at all by the writer.
On the address side Rob C stuck the stamp on upside down, whether
by accident or intent. The postmark is of Bramley, Yorkshire, at 9 p.m.
on 29 August 1907, a Thursday (see Figure 9.2). We have began calculat-
ing the distances between sender and addressee on a random sample
of our cards and the distance of this one, 86 miles is actually very typical
of our results of this exercise so far. The layout of the card illustrates
the regulatory framework within which some elements of postcards
continued to be controlled after 1902 in specifying very clearly where
the message and address were to be written. The card was inland use
only as some other countries had different regulations about how cards
were to be laid out. The writer has stuck very precisely to the framing
of the card, although he does write right down the bottom edge of the
card. The cursive handwriting, written in ink, is fairly neat and very
legible (save for one word). The message contains 69 words.
Mr H. Jones
47 Ermine Rd
Hoole
Chester
Dear Harry
Pleased to hear
that you have had such a
pleasant holiday. We were
quite expecting to see you
on your way through, and
were very much disappointed
you did not turn up. I had
a grand holiday & will let
you know all about it soon.
My people are all well & join
me in kindest regards. Will
write soon. Yours to a cinder
(Rob) C.
The card begins with a salutation which both marks it as an epistolary

genre, clearly drawing from letter writing conventions, and informalizes
the rendition of the addressees name elsewhere on the card intended
for the Post Offices use. Such salutations shift the tone from (relatively)
public to (relatively) private, personalizing the communication. Typical

of postcard authors is the elliptical omission of self-reference in the
opening sentence, going straight into Pleased to hear; this structure is
mirrored in the pre-pre closing at the other end of the message: will
write soon (symmetries of structure in openings and closings have been
noted as characteristic of telephone conversations, [Hopper, 1992]). As
with contemporary written communications constrained by extremely
limited use of space, there is some use of abbreviation and short forms:
here use of the ampersand rather than spelling out and.
The body of the message, as typically with our sample, consists of fairly
short sentences, lacking amplification and moving rapidly from one
topic to another; underlying may be a sense that the receiver will make
use of their background knowledge in interpretation.
The card contains an interesting phrase at the end: Yours to a cinder,
a friendly catch -phrase of the Edwardian period. Although not appear-
ing in the 1898 Dictionary of Phrase and Fable it was used in the follow-
ing decade by Lord Fisher in many letters to Winston Churchill and by
Banjo Patterson, the Australian bush poet. In 1907 the phrase appeared
in a postcard at the centre of a notorious cause celebre: it was written by
a young commercial artist Robert Wood on a card to Phyliss Dimmock
who was murdered soon afterwards; he was tried for the crime but even-
tually acquitted (Hogarth, 1954).
Perhaps one of the most significant aspects of this text is how it vividly
demonstrates the ways in which postcards sustain personal relationships.
Each of the sentences, while brief and unrelated to surrounding sen-
tences, nevertheless affirms the relationship between the writer and the
receiver. The writer points to a shared past and the imputation of a
connected future; he involves a broader web of involved connections;
besides the two characters involved in the implied continuing dialogue
there is also mention of we and my people. So the personal relation-
ship between the two men, confirmed and developed through this dia-
logue, with its two promises of future continuation, is also placed within
a sense of its broader social networks.
The Postcard and Domains of Everyday Life
Barton and Hamiltons study of Local Literacies (1998: 247) identified six
areas of everyday practices where reading and writing were of central
importance. It seems to us that peoples ordinary writing using post-

cards can be considered in these ways, although, just as in Barton and
Hamiltons empirical investigation not necessarily equally and equiva-
lently. In what follows, we examine a selection of our sample using five
of their areas of practice. However, while considering our sample against
these categories provides a useful way of considering practices involving
postcards we would not suggest that the practices and hence categories
are wholly separable.
Personal communication
Vernacular literacies are generally concerned with writings at a personal
level and this is typical of those in our collection. Postcards are generally
used as a quick and relatively easy way to maintain and solidify social
relations with other people. Lehtonen, Koskinen and Kurvinen (2002)
point out that even the most mundane card, or even one without a
message, serves as a link in the chain of personal communications.
A very typical example of the postcard that conveys good wishes and
appears designed to cement already existing relationships, in a chain of
communication both written and face-to-face, reads:
Dr R.Thanks very much

for 2.P.C.s sorry I have not
dropped you a line before
but I guess you get all
the new, glad to hear you
are coming over to see
us all again, we had a
very nice week end at
Millers Dale. Glad to say
we have been very (?)
for Whit week. Hope you
are in the Best of
health. Best wishes and
Kind regards from
all yours sincerely (CHW)
Postcards then are examples of vernacular literacies and as such

are located in reciprocal networks of exchange (Barton & Hamilton,
1998: 254). The postcards are located in material networks of exchange

specifically and explicitly. Indeed one fifth of our sample mention
either having received from or sent to the current correspondent
another postcard.
I hope you enjoyed

yourself at London,
thanks for P.C. I wish that
I could see the Exhibition,
The postcard may be seen as an easy alternative to writing a letter, but

our sample suggests that postcards were not replacements for letters
but had a place alongside them. A quarter of the sample make explicit
reference to receiving a letter from the sender or promising them one.
However, postcard practices are clearly separated from letter writing
practices, for while some cards featured formal salutations, dates,
senders addresses and other letter-related conventions, most did not.
There are many other references to exchanges of postcards, as well as
face-to-face meetings; the postcard, very often represented as in some
way as standing in for a letter, was a quick way of maintaining a relation-
ship. Perhaps the promised letters did not always materialize in the
course of the correspondents busy lives. A whole subgenre of postcards
arose, that on the pictorial side contained versions of the message, Why
havent you written? and another subgenre had variations on the
message, Im sorry I havent written (Hall & Gillen, 2007). Postcard
writers show themselves then as sensitive to the nature of the medium,
making a clear differentiation between the kind of fast, ephemeral
approach to ordinary writing appropriate to the postcard and the some-
what more considered approach apparently reckoned appropriate to
the letter, with its socio-historical conventions. Of course, we are not
suggesting that every letter in Edwardian times was formal and lengthy
and every postcard informal and short, but it is evident that different
expectations existed around the two media. So Georgie writes to Miss
Cassidy in Morpeth:
Hows everybody at the

station. Very quiet here
just now though I am
settling down very nicely
I get home both to dinner

& tea. Remember me to
all the boys. Will probably
be at Morpeth in about six
weeks time. Kind Regards from
Georgie, x
Organizing life
In their personal communications, writers (and, it may be deduced,
their readers) were often concerned to arrange their affairs in the
here-and-now, in ways rather similar to those discovered by Barton and
Hamilton (1998). Postcards are frequently used to arrange or confirm
meetings, to initiate or respond to inquiries. In 1909 Charley with
what we surmise is likely to be intentional humour appears to parody a
conventional structure for a short business letter, while giving his mother
the information she seeks:
Dear Mother
Thanks for
letter recd. today.
I note the contents.
I take a 16 collar
that means inch less
for Neck Band.
I remain
Yrs affect
Charley
Occasionally these communications explicitly demonstrate the rapidity

of these written communications. There were up to six deliveries a day
in major cities and so in this era, before mass use of the telephone,
arrangements could be set up quickly, or failed meetings apologized
for, as in:
I am awfully sorry
I gave you all
that trouble this
afternoon. I waited under Boots for half-an

hour & then I strolled
about a bit (hoping to meet
you) & came home.
With the exception of the telegraph, the speed with which messages
could be exchanged with ease was not to be matched, let alone exceeded,
for many decades, until the arrival of digital communications and speci-
fically the text message. The following is a marvellous example of the
rapidity of written communication possible at the time:
Dear Mother just a

line to tell you if
George is not coming
today our George will
come and fitch the
peelinges and bring
you a bit of pork
so dont get any meat
hoping you are all well
Mother xxxx to Doris
So many writers made efficient use of the affordances and constraints

of the postcard. In extremely tiny yet wholly legible writing M.B. fitted
all this into the message space when writing to her uncle in York:
My Dear Uncle.
Many thanks for letter, its the
unexpected which always happens.
Do not trouble yourself about visit.
Blessed is she, who expecteth
nothing verily she shall not
s/be disappointed. & I did not
think it would be possible to
get what you suggest trying to
get. My visit in Dec. will be
short. I shall leave here by
2.25p.m. on Monday 11th. & shall
finish Wednesday afternoon.

Whether I may legitimately stay
in York until Thursday remains
to be seen. I shall get a longer
time in, at the April Exam I
hope; that is if I pass this
one. Hope you are better ere
this. Love to all from M.B.
Social participation
Barton and Hamilton (1998) note that vernacular literacies are often
involved in acts of social participation and so our card writers some-
times make mention of social activities held as common interests
between writer and sender. FS writes,
. . . just a few lines

two let you no that
we won the cup quite
easy by 7935 (754)
A Reverend Swanzy typed his postcards to relatives that included

such suggestions as:
. . . Can you come over

for the opening of my new Mis-
sion Room on the 20th? R.H.
Wilson is to be the preacher.
The bonds between people may stem from various kinds of shared
interests. While on a walking holiday on the Isle of Wight in 1904 a
Mr Anson sent a postcard back to a work colleague, at the American
Radiator Company in London. On the picture side he wrote, Did not
go to Wantage as expected. I have walked and then in the message
space continued:
nearly all over Isle of

Wight. It is a beautiful
place, quite a change
from the stuffy old

office. Had any
answers yet or seen
anything decent?
To-day I walked from
Sea.View to Ryde then to
Newport (Carisbrooke C.) thence
to Cowes.
Mr Ansons shared concerns, sandwiched between the reports of his

doings, were sufficiently pressing to make his message dialogic; he might
even be expecting a reply while he was still on holiday. The efficiency of
the Post Office during this period meant that postcard interaction could
be considerably greater than would be possible later in the century.
From our collection we know that it was common in the Edwardian era
for people to exchange cards while still on holiday. We have many cards
addressed to people care of some kind of holiday accommodation, for
example, boarding houses in Blackpool.
Private leisure
Many postcards document and share experiences of private leisure
pursuits and events, another of the domains of everyday life where
Barton and Hamilton (1998) found rich and diverse literacy practices.
C. Hudson alluded to a previous shared journey to another East Anglian
village when he sent this card from East Dereham:
The Tomb of St Withburga

daughter of (?)
king whose tomb (from)
showed us last week.
The very practices themselves of getting, sending and often keeping

postcards in themselves constituted a fashionable leisure pursuit in the
Edwardian Age. Magazines sprang up especially for collectors, and these
led to the formation of postcard collecting clubs (Carline, 1971). When
general newspapers and magazines ran competitions, it became the
norm for participants to send in their answers in on postcards. Publishers
promoted competitions to reward collectors of their cards; in 1902,
Mrs Eaton of Norwich won 100 for her collection of 20,364 Tuckers
cards (The Picture Postcard, no. 23, vol. III, May 1902). Many people today
are familiar with chain letters and emails, and the Edwardians had chain
postcards. Some could claim respectability by association with charitable
causes. In our sample, A. Harrison wrote to Miss Smith:
Please buy a packet

of six Tucks Post cards
and contribute to Tucks
Post Card chain for
Childrens Hospital Ealing
to help it to 1000 prize and
50 for yourself. Post the
cards according to Rules
supplied free by all dealers
The lack of any salutation or other personalization suggests that

perhaps Mr Harrison is making use of a chain formulation proposed
by Tucks in its entirety, copying out a set message rather than originat-
ing it. This writing is ordinary in the sense it is replicable, very possibly
thousands of times over, yet nevertheless illustrative of how it is valued
at the least by its writer.
Documenting life
The postcards that we have in our sample were preserved for many
years before we possessed them and so were certainly valued beyond the
point of receipt by their original addressees. It seems that holding onto
the cards was a practice of constructing a personal history, of building
up a sense of identity through the images and/or texts. Often the
picture side is referred to explicitly, especially when of a view, linking
it with the writers presence, although rarely in as much detail as the
following, sent from London to Manchester:
My Dear Louis,
Thanks for paper.
Looking from (erasure) left to
right on picture you see
National Gallery. St. Martins

s/be Church, Morleys Hotel,
Strand, Grand Hotel +
Northumberland Avenue
on the right curve of
the Grand Hotel +
Whitehall behind you
as you stand facing
the statue of Charles I
in the centre of picture.
Cockspur St. Haymarket
Pall Mall + Regent St to
my office behind bus on left.
Been very seedy lately
[change to side]
Love to (Jamey) + all from L (+) W.
The domain of documenting life is perhaps especially pertinent to

postcards as they were collected in albums, both those without writing
and those that were collected solely for their images, but then placed in
albums sometimes as reminders of past events, past communications
and at the very least as somewhat treasured objects that are set aside
from the flow of everyday correspondence into this special medium.
Sometimes, clearly, the main purpose of sending a card appears to be to
contribute to a collection.
Thank you so much

for the P.C you sent.
Ada thanks you also.
How do you like this?
I prefer. coloured views,
but you should not
send them or else I
shall feel in your
debt again.
The fact that so many millions of postcards appear in fairs today testifies
to their significance in documenting friendships, family relationships
and personal events.
Conclusion
Earlier in this chapter we considered ordinary writing as explored by

Sinor and vernacular or everyday writing as discussed by Barton and
Hamilton. What these characterizations have in common is the attempt
to unpack written language that has often been seen as inconsequential.
Written language that does not usually conform with the more literary
standards and expectations that are usually brought to examining
written texts is often described as banal or mundane and perceived as
having little or no value. We hope we have begun to demonstrate that
ordinary and everyday writing is in fact both complex and interest-
ing. The authors of the postcards in our collection demonstrate diverse
intentions and produce texts appropriate to a rich range of social
functions. They write not under pressure but for enjoyment and satis-
faction of their own needs and interests. It seems clear to us that the
popularity and persistence of the practices of writing, receiving and
keeping postcards testify to the value of ordinary writing in making
sense of ones everyday life in the Edwardian age.
In 1907 a London journalist wrote,
When the archaeologists of the thirtieth century begin to excavate the

ruins of London, they will fasten upon the Picture Postcards as the
best guide to the spirit of the Edwardian era . . . (Douglas, 1907, cited
by Staff, 1979: 76)
Our own twenty-first century excavation of Edwardian postcard

messages suggests that these previously discardable texts are actually
dynamic, engrossing and purposeful representations of social life at the
beginning of the twentieth century.
References
Anon. The Picture Post Card, July 1901, 101.
Barton, D. & N. Hall (eds.) (2000), Letter Writing as a Social Practice. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins.
Barton, D. & M. Hamilton (1998), Local Literacies: Reading and Writing in One
Community. London: Routledge.
Bernard, Captain (c.1908), The Postcard Code: A Novel and Private Method of
Communicating by Postcard. (British Library: 012331.de2301233).
Brooks, Fletcher, F. & B. Lund (1982), What the Postman Saw. Nottingham: Reflections
of a Bygone Age.
Carline, R. (1971), Pictures in the Post: The Story of the Picture Postcard and its Place in
the History of Popular Art. London: Gordon Fraser.
Hall, N. & Gillen, J. (2007), Purchasing pre-packed words: complaint and reproach
in early British postcards. In M. Lyons (ed.), Ordinary Writings, Personal
Narratives: Writing Practices in 19th and Early 20th-Century Europe. Berne: Peter
Lang, 101118.
Hogarth, B. (1954), Robert Wood, 1907. In J. Hodge (ed.), Famous Trials 4.
London: Penguin Books, 176221.
Hopper, R. (1992), Telephone Conversation. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
How, J. (2003), Epistolary Spaces: English Letter Writing from the Foundations of the Post
Office to Richardsons Clarissa. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Kress, G. (1998), Visual and verbal modes of representation in electronically
mediated communication: the potential of new forms in texts. In I. Snyder (ed.),
Page to Screen: Taking Literacy into the Electronic Era. London: Routledge, 5379.
Lehtonen, T., I. Koskinen & E. Kurvinen (2002), Mobile Digital Pictures the
Future of the Postcard? In V. Laakso, & J. stman (eds.), Postcard in the Social
Context. Korttien talo. Hmeenlinna.
Monahan, V. (1980), Collecting Postcards in Colour 19141930. Poole: Blandford Press.
Phillips, T. (2000), The Postcard Century. London: Thames and Hudson.
Post, E. (1969[1922]), Etiquette: The Blue Book of Social Usage. Facsimile of 1st edn.,
New York: Funk & Wagnalls, by Cassell, London.
Poster, C. & L. Mitchell (2007), Letter Writing Manuals and Instruction from Antiquity
to the Present. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
Sims, G. (1900), Untitled article in The Picture Postcard, January, 22.
Sinor, J. (2002), The Extraordinary Work of Ordinary Writing: Annie Rays Diary. Iowa
City: University of Iowa Press.
Sokoll, T. (ed.) (2001), Essex Pauper Letters 17311837. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Staff, F. (1979), The Picture Postcard and its origins 2nd edn. London: Lutterworth
Press.
Thurlow, C., A. Jaworski & V. Ylnne (in press), New mobilities, transient
identities: holiday postcards. In C. Thurlow & A. Jaworski (eds.), Tourism
Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Chapter Ten
Lawful and Unlawful Writings in

Lyon in the Seventeenth Century
Anne Broujon
Introduction
The city of the early modern period has been described by historians of
written culture as the refuge of the written word (Chartier, 1981: 151).
This writing is apparent in various forms: books, pamphlets, journals
and manuscripts, as well as public notices and inscriptions (Roche,
1993). However, unlike writing emanating from the private sphere, which
is now the subject of a great deal of research (Bardet & Ruggiu, 2005;
Mouysset, 2008) and extensive cataloguing endeavours, displayed writing
represents a field of study that is still largely unexplored in France.
By contrast, bibliographical traditions have become established in Italy
and the Iberian peninsular, since the pioneering work of Armando
Petrucci (Petrucci, 1993; Castillo Gmez, 1997 and 2006; Gimeno Blay,
1997). Defined as any type of writing designed to be used in open
spaces, or even in enclosed spaces, to allow a text written on an exposed
surface to be read collectively from a distance, either by small groups
of people or by crowds (Petrucci, 1993: 10), displayed writing is to be
found everywhere in the city; it saturates the citizens field of vision, and
constitutes a favoured mechanism of acculturation. It may be looked
at from two sides: the readers and the commissioners of inscriptions.
First, from the readers viewpoint, as it catches the eye, and invites
the passer-by, whose visual sense has been stimulated, to decipher it
(McLuhan, 1971: 6). However, here we come up against the problem
of deficiencies in the available sources, which offer little help in
deciphering lettering inscribed in public settings (Chartier, 1993: 87).
The deciphering gleaned from studies of bibliographical material can
only ever be an interpretation as to how the words were received at
the time (Jouhaud & Viala, 2002: 9). But we can consider the matter
Lawful and Unlawful Writings in Lyon 191
from the viewpoint of those who commissioned the inscriptions, and

analyse the practice of inscribing or commissioning lettering within
public spaces.
Three types of writing may be distinguished, according to the degree
of legitimacy accorded to them by institutions. First, there is official
writing, inscriptions on public buildings, on festive decorations, notices
issued by the authorities, which are read aloud in several city squares
and then put up on display, signs accompanying the condemned mans
walk to his place of execution, etc.; secondly, lawful writing produced
by members of the public, such as epigraphs negotiated with churches
and convents, the notices produced by certain guilds (such as the book-
sellers guild) for publicity purposes, and shop signs authorized by the
municipality. This category of lawful writings also includes tolerated
writing, such as signs displayed on houses offered for sale or rent, job
advertisements, etc. Finally, there is unlawful writing covered by the
term defamatory libel. By focusing on a particular form (monumental
inscriptions, shop signs, libel documents) representing each type iden-
tified in this way, this contribution seeks to ascertain the extent of
displayed writing, the people behind it and the motives driving them.
The sequence adopted, from legal through to illegal, should not imply
that the trend towards appropriation of the written word by private
individuals stems from an imitation of or reaction to the authorities
own writing practices. These forms of writing are concomitant. If there
is a trend, it tends to be one of heightened control of scripts produced
by members of the public, which may be explained by a desire to harmo-
nize and discipline the city, and the municipal institutions attempts to
create a monopoly and oust competing powers. It is therefore a ques-
tion of combining cultural, social and political approaches.
The city of Lyon in the seventeenth century may serve as a case
study. During a period traditionally regarded as that of mass develop-
ment of the written word (an increase in registration, control and
paperwork, creation of archives by institutions and private individuals),
the second city of the kingdom is distinguished by the fact that it is
undergoing extensive building work (Bologne-Piloix, 1990), and thereby
renovating its graphic spaces (Broujon, 2009: 25), and at the same time
experiencing strong demographic growth (its population rose from
3035,000 to 100,000 inhabitants between 1600 and 1700), mainly
through migration, that is, it is becoming a melting pot for a variety
of populations, with strong social and cultural differences (Bayard &
Cayez, 1990). The city has a mercantile tradition; it lacks a parliament

and a university, but it has a prestigious college, which was handed over
to the care of the Jesuit Fathers at the start of the century. It also has a
network of small schools for the poor, which was established at a very
early stage, and a dynamic printing industry. The city is governed by a
consulate consisting of a merchants provost and four aldermen, elected
by part of the population of Lyon. However, as the absolutist monarchy
affirms its position, the municipalitys power faces increasing competi-
tion by the men of the King, mainly the governor and his representant,
the lieutenant-general. In Lyon, they are chosen from an influential family
of lords, the Villeroy. While elsewhere the governor and lieutenant-
general are assigned to military and honourable tasks only, in Lyon they
are strongly present on the political scene and frequently they are in
conflict with the consulate over questions of authority and competence
(Lignereux, 2003).
The Authorities Own Writings
The city is adorned with numerous inscriptions. Those of which traces

remain emanate primarily from the authorities, either because they are
listed in their archives,1 noted down by local historians or remarked
upon by a few travellers in their printed guide. For the seventeenth
century as a whole, we have been able to find 73 such ceremonial inscrip-
tions emanating from an institution.2 Their solemnity is characterized
by their setting, which is usually high up on a prestigious building, by
their subject matter, form and language, in gilded capital letters, set in
black or white stone, usually in Latin.
The boom in epigraphs (16441670)

These inscriptions are particularly abundant during the 25-year period
between 1644 and 1670, which accounts for one half of the centurys
inscriptions. This period corresponds to the construction of a number
of public buildings, the most prestigious of which is the town hall in the
place des Terreaux (1646), to the creation of communication routes
(rue Sainte-Marie, lArchevch bridge, Port Dauphin) or to the rebuild-
ing and embellishment of a number of pre-existing structures (Htel
Dieu, Aumne Gnrale, la Trinit college, Saint-Just church, fountains,
etc.). However, all these construction, renovation or extension projects

are not peculiar to this quarter century. What distinguishes this period
is that any new or renovated construction projects are frequently
marked by the highways authority, that is, the consulate. These inscrip-
tions offered a convenient way for it to affirm its political aspirations,
to the detriment of competing authorities, such as the finance officers
who also tried to control the road network (Bayard & Cayez, 1990: 101),
but mainly the governor and his second-in-command, the lieutenant-
general. Previously, the municipality had not been so systematic in
pursuing its epigraphic policy. From the 1640s onwards, the consulate
appears to commemorate each of its construction or repair projects
with an inscription. In 1652, for example, it insists that the rector of
la Trinit college, in return for the sum of 6,000 livres awarded for the
completion of the establishment, should ensure that
the coats of arms of this said city and community are prominently
displayed, with an inscription stating that the said college has been
completed at the expense of and from the communal finances and
city tolls levied by the consulate of this said city, being the founder and
benefactor of the said college.3
From 1648 onwards, the consulate employed an engraver to execute

these epigraphic works (the first one, Pierre or Louis Lalyame, was
granted free accommodation at the town hall Rondot, 1889). When it
comes to designing the text of some Latin inscriptions, that is, those
adorning prestigious monuments, like the town halls fountain,4 he is
assisted by the Jesuit Fathers of la Trinit college, who enjoy an undis-
puted intellectual authority, and usually organize the citys festivities,
royal and princely entrances, receptions and merrymaking (Van Damme,
2005). These Jesuits take charge of the policy of consular representation,
via their publications, which are subsidized by the consulate. Here, Father
Claude-Franois Mnestrier plays a key role: in a book of imposing
thickness and format, which appeared in 1669, entitled Eloge historique
de la ville de Lyon, et sa Grandeur Consulaire sous les Romains, & sous nos
Rois5 and for which he was presented with 2,500 French livres, he listed
all consular inscriptions produced since 1595. The left-hand page shows
the year and the names of that years consuls, their works (mainly on
the highways) and the inscriptions commemorating these, in capital
letters. The right-hand page features their personal coats of arms.
The explanation put forward for the consulates strategy of deploy-

ment on the city walls and the pages of books, from the 1640s onwards,
has long been one of vexation: a policy of making formal assertions of
power, it is claimed, was merely a substitute for the loss of real power to
the kings men since 1595, clinging on to a lost glory, and exercising an
authority which by now only existed in the consulates imagination.
Arthur Kleinclausz writes: from an artistic point of view, the consulate
played an important role, because given its declining political role, it
now contented itself with wallowing in luxury and ceremonial, even
though the satisfaction it found in works of art was based on self-love
rather than genuine aesthetic pleasure (Kleinclausz, 1948: 118). This
explanation may be true, but we should still regard it as only a partial
explanation, as it does not take account of the desired effects of such a
policy: the epigraphic policy is not just a sterile refuge but seeks to
create belief, and convince people of the merits of the municipalitys
urban policy (Turgeon, 1990: 10). It forms part of the visual strategies
deployed by those who held power to legitimize their authority and
invite the populations to submit to them (Christin, 2004: 7), and uses
central display locations to pursue a communication policy played out
in two registers, aimed both at the literate and illiterate populations. The
first register is a symbolic one, contained both in the act of inscription
and the public ceremonial sometimes accompanying this, and in the
imposing look of prestigious writing (capital letters and expensive,
gilded inscriptions), which is designed to last (Fraenkel, 2007: 104).
Secondly, there is a verbal register, related to the text itself. Scrutinizing
this more closely may provide a better insight into the writers intentions.
The consulates position within inscriptions

In the early inscriptions, in 1600 and 1604, the consulate merely appears
as an institution, and in abbreviated form (coss. for consules),
whereas the kings name in first place, and the governors name in
second, are written out in full. From 1610 onwards, its members are
named individually: thereafter, the name of the provost and of each
alderman is cited in all inscriptions. From the outset, the provost is
entitled to have his stately titles spelt out in full, and is favoured with
the title of illustrissimus, whereas the aldermen are merely named
(Alex. Bollioud, Hor. Cardon, Cl. Pellot, Ant. de Pures). In 1622, the
first alderman sees his title spelt out in full (Iean Guignard, adviser to
His Majesty and Controller General of the war levy from the people of
Lyonnais. From 1644 onwards, all aldermen receive a brief mention
with their individual details, that is, title of nobility, any estate they
own, or important office they hold. A description is gradually added to
their position, setting out their merits, and taken from the former
Roman titles: clarissime, illustrissime (which was glorious enough for
the Archbishop of Lyon to adopt it too), vigilantissimes, dignissimes,
etc. All of these are combined at the end of the inscription in a
Consules, which is frequently written out in full from 1659 onwards.
These successive additions swell significantly the number of lines,
words and letters devoted to the consulate, and explain the increased
length of inscriptions, which on average were 204 characters long in the
first decade of the century, 739 in the 1640s, and around 500 during the
period 16601690. By way of comparison, we may take the inscriptions
on the 1611 Ainay gate and the 1670 Chana fountain, as in Figures 10.1
and 10.2. The first one, which is affixed to a large black limestone tablet
(measuring 1.3 meter high by 2.3 meter wide), on the pediment over
the door (Commarmond, 1846: 197), positions the consulate last, after
the king, his mother the regent, inscribed in the centre of the stone
in large letters (10 centimeter high), and the governor Charles de
Neuville. On the second inscription, engraved on the Chana fountain,
the consulate is described in 64 words and thus takes up more than
one half of the inscription; it has no rivals.6
Figure 10.1 Inscription on the 1611 Ainay gate

Figure 10.2 Inscription on the 1670 Chana fountain
There is a striking contrast between the first one third of the century,
when virtually all inscriptions brought together the names of those in
power, displaying a concord which, if not genuine, appeared to be a
discursive necessity, and the period commencing in the second half of
the seventeenth century, when the consulates details alone appear on
the city walls.
The municipalitys epigraphic offensive, to the detriment of other
political authorities (the reigning monarch and his representative, the
governor), is accompanied by a semantic change. The meaning of the
term public, which is used in 25 monumental inscriptions, undergoes
a transformation. From the second half of the century onwards, public
no longer simply denotes an undifferentiated community, but in adjec-
tival form, the term starts to refer to the built environment, and to
space. The first inscriptions used it as a grouping of people, a commu-
nity aspiring to security (seurt du public, 1619), to whom the provost
and the aldermen offer practical and agreeable benefits (for the con-
venience, necessity and adornment of the public, 1629, tum ad orna-
mentum, tum ad usus publicos, 1646, Utilitati publicae, 1669). In 1659,
the expression monumentum publicum marks a change: henceforth
publicum denotes the space itself, and not just any space the town
hall, which is the quintessence of the consulate. Twenty years later, the
place Saint-Georges is hanc publicam aream urbis. At the same time,
a distinction starts to be made between the term communis, or com-
munal, which in this same inscription denotes the recipient (pro com-
muni), in place of the former public, and that of publicus, referring
to the space (publicam aream), a developement that is also mentioned
by Anne Montenach (Montenach, 2009: 143).
From this time forward, the consulate has the public nature of certain
monuments and spaces inscribed on their walls, both in Latin and in
French. And it is the consulate, via the triple imprint of its coat of arms,
the institutions name, and the names of its members, which confers
this public nature on them. In a way, the names of the provost and of
each alderman, inscribed individually, have become synonymous with
public. The political struggles between the consuls and the traditional
representatives of royal power thus prompt the consulate to elaborate
its own epigraphic language of legitimation: in its dealings with other
powers, and with members of the public, it needs to affirm both the
coherence of a separate space, serving the public and needing to
be managed by a public authority, and its own pertinence to be that
authority. Its grip on the citys writings is also asserted via heightened
supervision of the inscriptions produced by members of the public.
Lawful Writings
The municipality not only marks the city with its members names,
but it also regulates any scripts displayed by members of the public, as
is evident from the signs erected outside shops and houses.
Regulated signs
In the seventeenth century, signs in a variety of forms, usually combining
an image (sculptured, engraved or painted) and an inscription mounted
on a wooden, metallic or stone base, suspended from a bracket or fixed
to the wall, indicate a shop or house. They are a long-established tradi-
tion, but take on particular importance in the 1660s, at least in the eyes
of the consulate. Like any architectural feature along the highway, they
are managed by the municipality, via the road surveyor, who is appointed
by the consulate.
The matter gradually starts to preoccupy the municipality. It is not

until 1636 that we find any trace in consular deliberation registers of the
first instance of permission to erect a sign,7 granted to a merchant whose
shop, on the bridge over the River Sane, had burnt down. Previously
such permission was issued orally by the road surveyor. In 1644, the con-
sulate issues a second written authorization, but the length of the text
and the need for the arguments to be discussed in detail, indicate that
such instances of written permission are still exceptional in nature.
There appeared before the court Claude Bonnet, being a merchant

and master dyer of fustians and buckrams of this said city, who repre-
sented that for the past fourteen years or so, he had been engaged in
the manufacture of the said fustians and buckrams, and long before
the heirs of the late Sieur Pincetty or anyone else from this said city
began to work in this trade since around the year 1636, he had had
this shop in his house located in the rue de la vieille monnoye, and
particularly since the said street is little frequented by merchants &
that there is no workroom or shop on the street to make the nature of
his occupation better known, he had begged the consulate to allow
him to erect a sign in front of it [. . .] and forbidden any other persons
to erect a similar sign, and the consulate had verbally agreed to his
request, but since no legal deed had been drawn up confirming this,
he begged the consulate to do so, so that he could enjoy the favour
they had been kind enough to bestow on him, the said gentlemen
having taken the above into consideration & after mature delibera-
tion, have given and give permission to the said Bonnet to erect the
said sign with the said inscription, and forbidden any other persons to
erect a similar sign, on pain of such penalties as they may see fit, as
witnessed by this deed.8
Signs continue to be logged occasionally, sometimes in the consular

deliberation registers, and sometimes in the highway registers, which
are kept from 1617 onwards, and sometimes they are duplicated. It is
only from 1664 onwards that the number of permits recorded really
takes off, as can be seen from a systematic study of highway registers
(see Table 10.1).9
We find 35 permits granted for that year alone, compared to just three
in the preceding four years. This peak does not indicate any sudden
Table 10.1 Number of shop signs 16501700
Shop signs in highway registers (DD)

45
Lawful and Unlawful Writings in Lyon

40
35
30
25
20
15
10
0
1650 1655 1660 1665 1670 1675 1680 1685 1690 1695 1700
no. of signs per annum
199
increase in the number of signs but shows the consulates determina-

tion to supervise the erection of signs, by keeping meticulous records.
So why does the municipality take over responsibility for dealing with
this matter? Several explanations may be advanced. First of all, it takes
account of the demand from merchants and master craftsmen who
want the consulate to play a regulatory role, notably by ensuring that no
two similar signs appear in the same street. The competitive thinking
motivating applicants for signs is obvious, and is clearly perceptible in
Claude Bonnets application in 1644. The situation remains like this
until the end of the century. Here is one example: in March 1664,
a cutler obtains permission to erect a sign outside his premises. Four
others submit their applications over the next 5 months.10 Subsequently,
just one more is recorded through to 1700. The Lyon consulate then
falls into line with what is happening in Paris, where the authorities
are introducing regulations to standardize signs (Farge, 1979: 241;
Roche, 1981: 231). The width, depth and height of shop signs are
standardized by rules laid down in 1658, 1665, 1666, 1669,11 and sub-
sequently 1683. Likewise, as early as 1664, a permit to erect a sign in
Lyon comprises an extensive series of obligations, covering its maximum
height (10 feet, that is, approximately 3 metres), projection into the street
(3 feet), its width, safety and uniqueness. In 1694, in a police order, the
consulate once again denounces the disobedience of those who are
failing to comply with these obligations.12 The systematic recording of
shop signs may thus stem from thinking at both local and national level,
regarding the importance of urban signs and the need to have supreme
control of them.
What does the sign say?

In addition to the standards imposed by the municipality, specifying
how much room these signs are allowed to take up, we may also wonder
about the inscriptions themselves. What does the sign say? The permit
registers of the highways department record the title obtained by the
applicant, so the 614 titles granted during the period 16501700 can be
related to their applicants, regarding whom a few details are available:
their surname and forename, place of residence, and occupation in
one third of cases. Even if they do not construct the sign themselves, we
may assume that they designed its text. In some cases of course, the
applicant is merely taking over a pre-existing sign, either because he is
becoming the owner or tenant of a dwelling that already has a sign,

and he wishes to take it on for himself, or because he has procured a
sign in the second-hand market, either at an auction or from a dealer.
However, this scenario does not encompass every single applicant.
What themes emerge? The most obvious one is tradesmen advertising
their occupation via the selected title, and this is the second-most recur-
rent theme after religion: 77 signs relate to the applicants known occu-
pation (there are 202 known occupations), via a description of his trade,
or the adoption of a particular patron saint, object or quality associated
with that trade. Thus, three tailors take a needle, scissors and a shoulder
sash as their shop sign. However, the signs also reveal phenomena asso-
ciated with conveying identity (Garrioch, 1994), which are less immedi-
ately apparent. We find word play involving the applicants forenames
or surnames, which may also duplicate the advertisement for their trade,
as demonstrated by two examples of applicants, who were probably
shoemakers: Jean Picquant, who obtains a sign entitled la botte beau-
jolaise picquante [at the Beaujolais picquant boot], thus combining
his name with an indication of his speciality, and Jean Bourgeois, who
thinks up the title la botte bourgeoise [the bourgeois boot]13 for his
sign. The name can thus be used as a framework, in compositions of
varying complexity. This is the case with the Fresne dor sign belong-
ing to Jean Dufresne; les quatre fils Aymond [the four Aymond sons]
(knights whose heroic deeds are recounted in literature) belonging to the
Emond brothers; saint Benot belonging to Isaac Beaunois; lAnnon-
ciation de la Vierge [the Annunciation of the Virgin] belonging to
Jacques Gabriel; le Panache belonging to Pierre Escoffier (whose name
means to conquer in old French), etc. This link applies to the signs
in at least 24 cases. A saint with the same forename as the applicant is
chosen in 39 cases, that is, slightly less than one half of the signs bearing
a saints name (97 occurrences). This assertion of the owners name via
their shop sign is a continuation of the mediaeval tradition in which
certain objects, coats of arms and seals, for example, were favoured
vectors for conveying nominal identity. There is a continuity from coats
of arms through to shop signs, within a long-established culture of
homophony, assonance and word play (Carruthers, 2002).
The name is not the only identity-conveying mark on which the sign
plays. It is striking to note, for example, the extent to which women
apply mainly for female sign names (Sainte-Vierge, Reine, Victoire,
Baleine, Tte de mort, Chapelle dor, Ancre, Brebis couronne, Cloche
dargent), and floral themes (e.g. bouquets of roses). We are familiar

with the example of a woman called Claudine Riboud, whose husband
Gilbert Glodin dies in 1697, 3 years after applying for a sign with the
title of la Roche des liqueurs in rue Saint-Marcel. He ran a shop selling
spirits. Her late husbands shop sign is brand-new, yet just a few months
after his death, the widow submits an application to replace it with
another, that of Sainte-Barbe. The convent of the nuns of Sainte-Barbe
is to be found a few streets before the rue Saint-Marcel, going upstream
along the Sane. The choice of a female sign may also be a revisiting of
the story of Saint Barbe, who is associated with thunderbolts: it may be
an allusion to the powerful intoxicating effects of some spirits.14 The
sign may also be modelled on a denominational identity. At least two
shop signs sound like reformed faith professions. First, the sign of le
Petit Suisse, belonging to Jacques Golais, and secondly la Ville de
Genve, belonging to the Calvinist Philibert Terroux,15 a title which was
discontinued, 11 years later, in favour of the less compromising name of
la Fleur de lys (a possible allusion to the Protestant temple called the
fleur de lys in Lyon). A few Catholics also display religious zeal, as is
apparent from signs entitled lHollande rendue [Holland handed
back], le Triomphe de la foy [the Triumph of Faith] belonging to
the tenant of a canon of Saint-Nizier, lAssomption de Notre-Dame
belonging to three private individuals, and at a more general level, the
many signs depicting scallops, saints and Notre-Dame. Needless to say,
not all Protestants and devout Catholics have a sign with a religious
identity, nor do signs necessarily reveal a sexual identity. Yet the shop
sign seems to be growing increasingly personal in nature.
This functional duality of the sign, depicting both the occupants
vocation and his or her identity, also emerges from the study of diction-
aries. While Furetire reduces the definition of the French word ensei-
gne [meaning a house or shop sign] to a public token enabling people
to find someone or something,16 Menage spoke of a particular token
helping to distinguish someone or something, to make them known,17
thus leaving some latitude as regards the identity-conveying function.
It is perhaps this trend towards the creation of a distinctive identity for
premises that the municipality wishes to clamp down on, even though
the archives do not state that shop sign titles come under its control. We
may surmise that the consulate, which as we have seen, posted its mem-
bers names at strategic locations within the city such as the approaches
to the law courts, the Archbishops palace, the main college, squares,
quaysides, gates, etc. does not wish to allow signs specifying names to
spring up, even in their own veiled way. Thus, it does not like to allow
premises to give themselves a distinctive identity, particularly since, in
the absence of any house numbering system, signs were frequently used
to identify addresses. Quite simply, the consulate did not allow any
rival scripts to assert themselves within the urban space. There are also
considerations linked to aesthetics (echoed in the theatre of Molire,
for example18), safety and prescribed standards. Consequently, any
affirmation of a persons vocation and/or identity within Lyons open
spaces is subject to approval from the second half of the seventeenth
century onwards. Municipal supervision of shop and house signs indi-
cates a lower level of tolerance towards scripts produced by members
of the public. As master of the highways, the consulate does not intend
to relinquish control of a field that it has gradually taken over, that of
displayed writing. It is assisted in its efforts to discipline the urban
space by Lyons main judicial authority, which, for its part, pursues the
perpetrators of unlawful writing.
Unlawful Writings
Where legal action is taken against displayed writing, it is on the grounds

of defamation by libel. Such writings come within a legal category that
also includes libel documents which are not publicly displayed, but are
either printed in a book or on a loose sheet of paper, or are handwritten
and brought to the attention of a small group of people by way of a legal
deed, letter or memorandum.
How Lyons courts deal with crime

Defamatory libel cases receive their own legal classification at an early
stage (Mermet, 1890: 89), but it is during the period when civil wars
are undermining the royal power that we find the most abundant and
harsh legislation (pain of death is stipulated in 1561 and 1563, and sub-
sequently in the reign of Louis XIV, in the post-Fronde period, Feyel,
2000: 325). The application of such legislation is probably limited in the
case of libel disputes between members of the public only, as with cases
tried before the Lyon seneschals and presidial court, both existing
since 1551. These two courts which judge civil and criminal cases, are
the highest legislative institution in Lyon, but their decisions can be

overridden by the parliament in Paris. Few sentences are recorded in
the archives of this court, because its registers have been lost. We only
know of one judgement on the grounds of defamation by letter, through
the whim of an insult: banishment for a fixed period of time.19 In all
likelihood, pain of death remains a distant prospect, yet Lyons courts
show themselves to be extremely vigilant in dealing with this crime.
Twenty-two defamatory libel cases are brought before the seneschals
criminal court over the course of the seventeenth century,20 and 14 of
these involve cases of publicly displayed writing, which is a fairly small
number. In contrast, Peter Burke identified 89 cartelli infamanti lawsuits
in Rome between 1565 and 1666 (Burke, 1989: 50). The way in which
the case proceeds shows that the lieutenant-general of the Lyon sene-
schals and presidial court dealt with them effectively: just a few days
separate the time of the complaint and his permis dinformer, his
decision to investigate based on the sworn witness statements and cross-
examination of the accused. Cross-examinations take place in 9 of the
14 cases mentioned (whereas most cases that come before the criminal
court go no further than the complaint stage). The seriousness of the
crime is apparent from the number of documents kept. From 1668
onwards, the exhibits, that is, the libel documents themselves, are care-
fully attached to the investigation file. The judicial archives contain five
of these (including one that was due to have been made into a notice
before going on display21) up to the late seventeenth century. In addi-
tion to these cases dealt with by the seneschals court, there is a case of
graffiti on the new town hall. This problem is dealt with internally by
the consulate, which appoints a concierge to watch over the building.22
Criminals and their writing skills

Who are the presumed authors of these defamatory libel documents,
which are scrupulously archived at the office of the clerk of the sene-
schals court? What skills do they possess, and what forms do they
choose? The most popular forms are printed notices (two monitories,
a judgement, an announcement of a public demonstration) and cri-
teaux (public signs). There are also a number of one-off forms, such
as a face with writing beneath it, a note written to someone, a song,
letters, a requisitioning order still at the handwritten stage (the defen-
dant appears to have intended to turn this into a public notice), graffiti
sketched in coal or red and black chalk on the town halls walls, but
without any particular description ([unknown individuals] write on the
walls & cover them with rude comments23), and unspecified writing.
The most rudimentary forms, such as the hastily sketched face of a hus-
band bedecked with horns, with his name and that of his wife written
beneath it,24 are to be found alongside the most sophisticated ones, for
example, a printed public notice bearing official coats of arms. This
reflects the wide range of people accused of this crime: artisans form
the largest contingent (six cases, ranging from the lowliest trades, such
as shoemakers, to those most highly ranked within the hierarchy of
occupations, for example, printers and gold-wire drawers); next come
the merchants (an orvietan seller, a fishmonger, a broker); and lastly we
find a scribe, a surgeon and probably one or more religious figures. In
most cases, plaintiffs and defendant are engaged in the same occupa-
tion, which tends to indicate that there are economic motives behind
the attempted defamation, and the perpetrators main aim is to damage
a competitor.
We may pause to consider the writing practices revealed by the
handful of defamatory documents added to the file and signed by the
judge, focusing on the effects of the methods selected to gain publicity.
How did the accused try to attract attention, and whose attention was
he seeking? What visual and textual processes are used? Two public
signs (placards) have been kept: one monitory and one announcement.
Put up in the public square, the public notice is guaranteed maximum
visibility. The alleged perpetrators by adopting this method seek to
publicize their defamation on a vast stage, therefore employ its tradi-
tional form, and are probably guided by the (unknown) printer of
their libel document. The coats of arms of several authorities appear
at the top of the page, followed by the text. For example, in 1669, a
monitory a solemn appeal issued by a priest from his pulpit, and
subsequently published in the form of an official notice, calling on the
faithful to divulge any information in their possession regarding a legal
case that might otherwise be dismissed due to lack of evidence bears
the coats of arms of the Pope and the Archbishop of Lyon, accompa-
nied by their name in capitals at the start of the printed text. In violation
of the rules, it bears the name of the person suspected of plundering
the estate of a deceased person.25 Displayed by a master scrivener (the
accused) at the citys crossroads, in the rue Ferrandire and on the
doors of the Fourvire, les Clestins and les Cordeliers churches, it is
particularly damaging to the plaintiff insofar as it is given credence

by the names and coats of arms of the ecclesiastical authorities. The
second defamatory public notice signed by the judge and kept at the
office of the clerk of the seneschals court26 also emanates from a pro-
fession familiar with the written word: an empiric, a charlatan, adver-
tises a public demonstration to prove the excellence of his remedy
and disparage a rival. Here again, the printed advice shows an excellent
grasp of the codes governing public notices (see Figure 10.3 below).
Figure 10.3 Defamatory public notice

Arch. Dp. Rhne, BP 2898, 1685
It is surmounted by four coats of arms: the arms of the king, the

governor and the Archbishop of Lyon, Camille de Neuville, are depicted
within a banner, while the citys arms appear below, in the centre, in a
cartouche supported by two lions. Once again, the number of patrons
and their importance is apparent at the beginning of the text (Mr de
Belletour, a favoured servant of the King, of His Grace the Archbishop
& of this celebrated City of Lyon); this endows the document with an
authenticity and guarantees its content, which is summarized in the
celebration of science issued by Mr de Belletour, who will put his
orvietan (an antidote) to the test in a theatre erected in the place Con-
fort, and demonstrate that, in contrast to him, a rival who is trading
across the road from his shop is totally incompetent, and is deceiving
his customers. This rival is identified by the location of his shop and
insulting descriptions (a charlatan, fallacious and deceitful experi-
ments, trickery, pure mischief, abuse of strangers, whose only virtue
is the right of novelty). The names and coats of arms of the authorities
undoubtedly prompt people to read the notice: no-one is supposed to
ignore a text emanating from sources like these. Nevertheless, the fact
that he is seeking to reach as broad a public as possible is apparent
from the apostrophe at the beginning of the notice, the simple title
messieurs written in capital letters, in a font five times the size of
the lower-case letters, which is addressed to everyone (further on he
addresses the readers more specifically as Messieurs les Habitants
de cette Ville [Gentlemen of this City]), and via a constant appeal to
the public (warns the public, publicly speaks out, public kindness,
publicly maligns, in public, enthusiasm for the public good). The
notice seems to have achieved its purpose and created quite a stir,
which extends through to the Presqule area of the city and beyond,
because one person who witnesses the spectacle lives in the Saint-
Georges district.27
The handwritten defamatory song, several copies of which are
collected by the plaintiff, shows a similar degree of skill. It appears to
have been written by a surgeon seeking vengeance on a debtor who
failed to pay him his due. It is very clever, both in the way rhymes are
invented, and in its grasp of writing (see Figure 10.4).28
Only the final exhibit appears inconsistent with the rest. It shows that
even modest and barely literate categories of the population plan to
use the instrument of public writing. This is a public sign: in itself, its
form is already far-removed from the learned public notice or the clever,
Figure 10.4 Defamatory handwritten song

artistically written song. A public sign (criteau) is defined as a title or

inscription in large letters, placed on something in order to provide
information about it.29 In the case in point,30 it comprises just 18 words,
written in capitals, interspersed with lower-case letters (see Figure 10.5).
This appears on a relatively small piece of paper, measuring 28 centi-
metre long by 22 centimetre wide, but it is still legible at a distance of
around 10 metres, in view of its large letters: the first three lines are
4 centimetre high, while the last three are around 2 centimetre high,
Figure 10.5 A public sign

that is, much larger than the letters on any official notices. The text is
brief, and the form chosen is also one traditionally employed by the
persons being defamed: here, those who are attacking them turn it
round and use it as a way to slander them. In 1668, the libel document
is attached to the door of an inn, called the Chasse Mare, on the place
des Terreaux, to which the new town hall has just moved. It starts out as
an offer of employment: ceans on prend quiziniers [cooks wanted
here]. The presumed writer of the defamatory libel, a rival cook accord-
ing to the plaintiffs, is therefore using a well-established formula, which
is typical of their trade. Several clues indicate that he is semi-literate.
The writing is poor: the words are separated by crosses or stars, as in
mass-produced printed forms; the letter I is surmounted by crosses or
strokes instead of a dot; the letter e, which the writer appears to find
difficult to execute, appears first in capitals, then in lower case. From
the fourth line onwards, as the letters move closer together, the lower
case r is joined up to the e, giving the capitals an imperfect look. The
spelling also becomes careless in this second part, though admittedly
no firm rules were laid down at that time (leurs rather than leur used
for their, maistre rather than mettre used for to put, san rather than
sans used for without), and by the very end it is completely phonetic
(lorsquillaisout for lorsquil est saoul [when he is drunk]?). Once recreated,
the message appears to be as follows: Ceans on prend quiziniers pour leurs

evaser le coup le viedaze de maistre [mettre] san ious [joues] lorsquil laisout
[lorsquil est saol], with a presumed English rendering of Cooks wanted
here to have their heads chopped off and their sex cut off cheeks when
they are drunk.31 The popular insult Viet daze (viedaze), which is
frequently encountered in the work of an author like Rabelais,32 denotes
the donkeys male member (vit dne). Yet this does not seem to be
consistent with the cheeks referred to later on. The writer seemingly
changed his mind as he wrote the text, and by way of some kind of
phonetic contiguity, pursued the idea of viedaze-visage mettre sans
joue [donkey dick-face with his cheeks sliced off]. When read, the
notice gives the impression of being a joke (an allusion to drink and
virility, using assonance with the ou sound, that is, cou, joues, saol
[neck, cheeks, drunken]), but it is also menacing: the next cook is
threatened with beheading and emasculation.
Yet the persons who testify that they have seen this text do not read
the libel. Taking it as a job offer, they would have looked no further,33
demonstrating how hard it is to retain the readers attention. The seven-
teenth century city seems to be overloaded with signs on display, such
that the form they take allows instant recognition (both of the nature
of the document issued and the social position of the person advertising
themselves), and also that some individuals do not hesitate to remove a
neighbours sign so that people can see their own.34 Faced with open
writing practices, which are accessible to the greatest number, including
those with only limited skills, the municipality seeks to turn the urban
space into a disciplined space, and, in its dealings with other political
authorities, a reserved space. It marks the names of its members on the
city, and exercises closer control over private scripts, while Lyons courts
move to stamp out defamatory writing. In due course, the eighteenth
century would turn its attention to inscribing and civilizing street names,
numbering houses, banning suspended signs and only allowing signs
mounted on walls, before the Revolution sought to turn a journey
through the city into a didactic experience (Milo, 1986), dedicated to
the glory of revolutionary heroes and values.
Notes
1
Register DD 369 of Lyons Municipal Archives (AML).
2
For details of these inscriptions, please refer to our thesis: Broujon, A. (2006),
Lcrit dans la ville. Espaces, changes et identits Lyon au XVIIe sicle. Typed thesis:
Lyon 2 University, appendix No. 13, 497500.
3
AML, BB 206, 455456, 5 December 1652, appearance in court by the Rector
of la Trinit college.
4
Bussires, J. de (1661), Basilica Lugdunensis sive domus consularis. Lugduni:
Guillelmus Barbier, 3644.
5
Mnestrier, C.-F. (1669), Eloge historique de la ville de Lyon. Lyon: B. Coral,
1669, 418.
6
We do not know the format of the 1670 inscription, other than the line breaks.
The inscription recreated here should therefore be viewed as hypothetical (AML,
DD 362, p. 30, s.d.). The underlining corresponds to the section occupied by
the consulate.
7
AML, BB 189, f 55, 13 March 1636.
8
Ibid., BB 198, f 3838v, 26 February 1644, permission granted to Claude
Bonnet.
9
Ibid., DD 26 to DD 45, 614 permits granted between 1650 and 1700. Permits
to erect signs gradually disappear from the records of the consulates
deliberations.
10
Ibid., DD 26, 4 March 1664; 13 March 1664; 6 May 1664, 10 July 1664.
11
Continuation du trait de la Police, Vol. 4, De la voirie. Paris: J.-F. Hrissant, 1738,
336337.
12
AML, BB 252, f 8586, 5 August 1694.
13
Ibid., DD 29, 9 August 1667, permission granted to Jean Bourgeois.
14
Ibid., DD 41, 4 October 1697, permission to erect a sign.
15
Ibid., DD 31, 28 August 1670; DD 45, f 274 v, 15 July 1659.
16
Furetire, A. de (1690), Dictionnaire universel. The Hague: A. and R. Leers, n. p.,
enseigne.
17
Menage (1750, 1st ed. 1650), Dictionnaire Etymologique ou Origines de la langue
franaise. Paris: Briasson, 534.
18
Molire (1662), Les fascheux. Paris: G. de Luynes, Act III, Scene II, 6062.
19
Departmental Archives of the Rhne (ADR), BP 2898, 16 January 1685,
complaint lodged by Jean-Baptiste Boudrenet, master scrivener, referring to the
case of a defamatory letter 3 years earlier.
20
All of the criminal archives have been examined (ADR, BP 2838 to BP 2955,
16091700).
21
ADR, BP 2930, 30 January 1689, beginning of the Dodat case.
22
AML, BB 206, f 262 and sq., 18 June 1652, consular order declaring that Severin
de Bauze will be appointed as concierge and receive a salary of 600 livres per
annum plus accommodation in the town hall.
23
Ibid.
24
ADR, BP 2925, 18 May 1688, complaint lodged by Andre Desvignes.
25
Ibid., BP 2853, 13 April 1669, appearance in court by Pierre and Ren Vrard.
26
Ibid., BP 2898, 1 January 1685, complaint lodged by Joseph Toscan Ferrante
Orvietan.
27
Ibid., BP 2898, 2 January 1685, sworn statement by Antoine Rivire, of rue
Saint-Georges.
28
Ibid., BP 2942, 9 June 1691, complaint lodged by Claude Gurin.
29
Furetire, A. de (1690), Dictionnaire universel. The Hague: A. and R. Leers, n. p.,
escriteau.
30
ADR, BP 2851, 29 October 1668, summons to appear in court sent to Antoine
Bard.
31
Translators note: This translation is uncertain, but it is likely that at first the writer
had put viedaze as an insult but because viedaze sounds similar to visage [face]
he then carried on with a different idea, that of visage. Viedaze was commonly
used as an insult.
32
It is encountered early on, in the preface of Gargantua: Rabelais, F. (1993, 1st ed.
1534), La vie treshorrificque du grand Gargantua. Paris: Flammarion, 39.
33
ADR, BP 2851, 17 November 1668, testimony signed by Claude Fricholet (he
saw a notice between the passageway leading to the said house and a saddlers
shop, and the friend that he was with told him that he believed the house attached
to the said Inn of the Chasse Mare was available to rent).
34
Ibid., BP 2886, 18 February 1683, complaint lodged by Jean-Baptiste La
Chapelle.
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Chapter Eleven
Sexuality in Black and White: Instructions to

Write and Scientia Sexualis in the Nineteenth
and Twentieth Century1
Philippe Artires
The circumstances under which texts are produced, meaning the ways
in which writing is requested, or in extreme cases, demanded, have been
a major focus of work on personal writings in France for some years
now. There have been studies of a variety of situations where the act
of writing is not spontaneous but encouraged by a third party: thus
Batrice Fraenkel has done work on the French President Franois
Mittrrands invitation to his fellow citizens to write to him, showing
how the presidential mail service is organized and its different functions
in the relation between the President and citizens (Fraenkel, 1997);
Anna Iuso has been interested in the many autobiography competitions
that have been launched in Europe (Iuso, 2005); Jean-Franois Lae has
studied the self-evaluation reports of patients in alcohol treatment
centres (Lae, 2008), while others have looked at how autobiography is
used in university courses (Simonet-Tenant, 2002). The majority of this
anthropological and sociological research has involved what Daniel
Fabre and his fellow anthropologists in France have termed ordinary
writings, that is, uses of writing that are defined as specifically non-
literary, as domestic, work related or personal (Fabre, 1993; 1997). What
these researchers mean by ordinary writings are the result of a variety
of practices and take many different forms: office paperwork2 (notes,
administrative or commercial forms, contracts, etc.), personal papers
and records (letters, diaries, autobiographies) and work-related writ-
ings (files, etc.). They were particularly concerned with the nature of
the writing acts performed within vast apparatuses of command such as
the State, the workplace or the school.
From a historical point of view, this work came from a new and rather
different perspective, adopting Foucaults positions on the power of
Sexuality in Black and White 215
writing to demonstrate that writing practices had not necessarily always

been on the side of liberation and the construction of intimacy but
were also a disciplinary tool for the production of power and knowl-
edge. The first volume of Foucaults History of Sexuality, The Will to
Knowledge (1977), suggested that power did not limit itself to prohibit-
ing, preventing, or destroying, but also had an extraordinary ability to
produce: to produce new objects and new subjectivities. The dominant
approach during the 1980s was to see personal writings of the past as
privileged sources for documenting a history of the subject, of the indi-
vidual rather than the collective. The issue of writing on command
allows us to reconnect with a particular social history. Whether in the
practices of writing demanded by parents, like the young girls diary
studied by Philippe Lejeune (1993), or by academics in search of
biographical material (e.g. the use of autobiography in social science),
but mostly by social care institutions, the act of writing has been at the
centre of a microphysics of power.
Before writing apparatuses can be analysed, research is needed in
order to document and reconstitute all the stages of this process. In
methodological terms, this usually entails taking a corpus of manuscripts
and looking at the acts of writing performed, in order to understand
how, in material terms, this writing was produced: With what tools? On
which materials? But it also involves asking questions about how these
writing practices relate to their contemporary writing culture: What
kind of events are they? What are their effects and what knowledge(s)
do they produce? And what do these writings tell us about the history
of literacy in European societies?
This kind of historical investigation invariably means confronting the
problem of sources; the archives of this microphysics of power were
rarely preserved, and when they exist they are widely scattered. Often
they are what I have termed minor archives (Artires & Lae, 2003): docu-
ments which were not thrown away only because they were part of a
valuable collection that of a writer, an intellectual or a scientist. These
other archives, often relegated to the bottom of the box or drawer, are
seldom properly inventoried. Moreover, it is sometimes difficult to find
the traces of these writings ordered into being in the past.
A favourite location for forced autobiographies in the nineteenth
century was the prison. The prisoners, a captive population, were
subjected not only to detailed study of their bodies, their speech and
their feelings, but were also often encouraged to become observers of
themselves, as recommended by the criminologists of Lyon and Turin

(Renneville, 2003). Although there was no question of force being used,
their captive situation made it virtually impossible for them not to
comply with the writing exercise demanded by the doctor. Dozens of
prisoners filled school exercise books with poems, songs and drawings,
but also with autobiographical writings for doctors in the institutions
where they were held (Artires, 2000).
In parallel to the books of guilty lives based on accounts written and
collected in prison, there were other books being written, but because
they were not written within the prisons which kept the other writings,
they are more difficult to find. These are the diaries written by afflicted
men, like the one Michel Foucault cites in The Will to Know, whom
doctors compelled to write a series of accounts not of their crimes but
of their sexuality.
In fact, within the extraordinary enterprise of research on sexualities
which developed from the mid-nineteenth century, we find the inven-
tion of new apparatuses of discursive production, particularly of writing
practices. What was then being invented, and whose traces are recorded
in the monographs of this scientia sexualis and the archives of its theo-
rists, has had a long history which includes very different actors. Far
from being anecdotal, this history constitutes the archaeology of a
little-known aspect of contemporary literature and social science. For
at least a hundred years, in France, Italy, Germany and elsewhere in
Western Europe, doctors, writers, and latterly sociologists in the age of
AIDS have been soliciting autobiographical writing about sexuality.
Georges and His Doctor
This case history, which began at the beginning of 1902, features a

doctor and a young man; it is certainly one of the first occasions on
which the practice of inviting patients to write became visible. The fact
that the doctor was a famous professor of legal medicine in Lyon,
France, Alexandre Lacassagne (18431924), an expert in the major
criminal cases of his era who had examined the corpse of the president
of the French Republic Sadi Carnot no doubt accounted for this visibility.
How did the doctors demands operate? During the consultation a
number of issues were raised which the patient subsequently expanded
on in writing. These instructions thus took the form of letters relating

to the young mans sexual biography and also a table of auto-erotic
practices and their relationship with his thoughts. The subject was not
browbeaten into carrying out either operation: it was important that he
felt he was carrying out this research on himself as a free agent. You
were true and you understand our nature so well, for you grant to those
who consult you regarding their sexual nature that independence of
thought, encouragement, and aimiability which give courage to this
feeble homosexual nature a step towards a cure. Thus Apitztch
thanked him in a letter written on the 16th of March 1903. The young
German placed all his trust in this attentive doctor.
Apitzsch even surpassed his doctors expectations and adopted a
medical form of notation in the table of his masturbationary episodes
and other auto-erotic practices during a specific period. This list item-
izes Georges Apitszchs sexual practices: hence each night he notes the
number and time of his masturbations and nocturnal emissions and
relates them to his erotic thoughts.
The list is written with a lawyers meticulousness in black ink on a page
folded in two (nothing is crossed out). No doubt this is a clean copy
that the young German made in June 1904 to send to his doctor.
1 January 1904
} 1 pollution
26 at the beginning of the month
sexual state quite good, the
second half very good, the end bad
(very excited)
4 February 4 February
12 2X } 2 pollutions {
18 21 February
23 beginning of the month: excited, my
surroundings sometimes calm,
sometimes excited. At the end, busy,
so things go better
12) I receive a letter from my brother.
He tells me of his love affairs. This
excites me greatly. Violent yearning
to be with soldiers.
18) conversation with my brother on

sexual matters.
23) excited by an excess of prostatic liquid.
The young patient wants to go even further as he decides that, given the
paucity of same-sex literature, he should take up his pen to show the
life of a serious-minded invert, a male who is respectable and has
retained his dignity [. . .] Why not recount the joys and sorrows of a
man who lives truly, seriously, who does not waste his time in childish
pursuits [. . .] perhaps I shall find time to publish some truthful impres-
sions, generally on the love of soldiers. (Letter of 23rd July 1904). To the
best of my knowledge he never did this.
Nevertheless, once he had been encouraged to write, he began to
encourage Lacassagne to read. Apitszch stopped writing to the doctor
about his own life story, but he regularly sent him books which he
thought would be useful and enlightening for him to read. He sent them
to the scholar in Lyon so that when Lacassagne wrote a new article on
sexual perversion he would have available the most relevant documen-
tation. It is as if we are seeing a gradual reversal of the original instruc-
tions to write: the homosexual becomes the doctors informant and it is
the latter who is henceforth obliged to write in response to his patients
instructions to read the books he sends him.
If the Apitzsch case whose letters I have edited is valuable, it is
precisely because of this reversal and the fact that the archive of this
two-way instruction has been preserved. It is very rare for documents
like these to survive; more often we only have the resulting article pub-
lished by the doctors, as in the famous case of Charcot and Magnan
(Charcot, Magnan 1873). Moreover, this is an exchange of letters, that
is, personal writings, which are not normally included in medical
archives, and most probably a number of such letters have not been
preserved or else are in private archive collections. However, instruc-
tions like these, forming part of a medical investigation of sexuality,
were not always in the medium of letter writing.
Scholars and Patients
The psychiatrists Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Magnus Hirschfeld

utilized the same practice of soliciting writings which the young Apitzsch
might have encountered in his native country, Germany, where he also

consulted doctors and scholars. In particular, Hirschfeld was engaged
in building up his Museum of Homosexuality in Berlin at that time
(burned down by the Nazis in 1938, see www.hirschfeld.in-berlin.de)
(Wolff, 1986) and he was also the originator of a questionnaire contain-
ing over a hundred questions (as discussed in Hirschfeld, 2000:
290315), from which the historian Laure Murat has published extracts
(Murat, 2006: 188189).
Question 35: Do you indulge in ipsation, that is, in satisfying yourself
by means of onanism? When did you begin to masturbate? How did you
acquire this habit? Were you impelled into it by persons of your own
age, or by those of a different age, by persons of the same sex as yourself
or those of a different sex? [. . .]. In this case the instruction to write
comes in the form of questionnaires where the subject has to answer
each question. We can see here the similarity to nineteenth century
interrogation forms and even guides for confessors which have been
preserved. These questionnaires do not yet come in the format of a
form with limited spaces for the answers, but the sheer number of ques-
tions discouraged the subject from expatiating at length in their written
replies. The German doctors hoped that the boredom, tiredness and
lassitude resulting from this lengthy writing exercise would discourage
their patients from excessive personal expression.
The solicited autobiography, on the other hand, did not take the form
of a questionnaire; it took quite diverse and unexpected forms. Thus, in
the course of certain doctors enquiries into tattooing among prisoners,
sailors, soldiers in punishment brigades and prostitutes (Caplan, 2000;
Artires, 2004), their questions on this topic are interspersed with those
on sex between men: often, getting people to talk about the writings on
their bodies meant asking them to engage in sexual confessions. This
time the consultation, this private interview between doctor and patient,
becomes the opportunity to solicit an autobiography. Of course, this
same demand was sometimes made in the theatrical setting of a lecture
where the professor would interrogate a naked patient in front of the
assembled students.
The notes and medico-legal observations of a certain Dr Boigey on
tattooed inmates published in 1910 are good examples of this type of
enquiry. A typology of sexual attitudes and behaviours emerged from
his presentation of 23 observations which detail at some length the
designs and inscriptions borne on the skin of a sample of the prisoners
whom Boigey, a military doctor, examined. He concluded that in condi-

tions of imprisonment there emerged an occasional homosexuality
which was the result of the imprisonment itself, as opposed to true
homosexuals. The doctor himself committed these life stories to
writing but he had also asked some of the tattooed men to write their
own memoires (Boigey, 1910).
The context of such encouragement of writing was sometimes broader
than the doctors consulting room or the lecture theatres of medical
faculties, and some journals also adopted these practices. We know that
at the time of the First World War some publications (e.g. the famous
Revue Blanche)3 frequently initiated surveys among their readers. This
also occurred in the case of the journal Archives danthropologie criminelle
(Archives of Criminal Anthropology). Several surveys were launched
during the last decade of the nineteenth century at the request of the
journals sponsors. Thus, in 1895 Andr Raffalovitch published an
appeal for replies to a questionnaire on the development and manifes-
tations of the sexual instinct in the blind-from-birth and deaf-mutes.
The first of the nine questions is: No. 1 Are there boys blind-from-birth
and deaf-mute boys who show a particular predilection for and who seek
out persons of their own sex, either adults or children? (Raffalovitsch,
1895: 764). But it is particularly the survey on sexual perversion launched
the previous year, in 1894, with its questionnaire which is of interest
here. Prefaced by a letter to the readers which emphasized the impor-
tance of this question, it continued as follows:
Therefore, Monsieur, we sincerely hope that you will find it in your

heart to assist us, at the earliest date you may find convenient, with
the observations, notes, documents, confessions garnered by you in
the circumstances in which your talents as writer, lawyer or doctor . . .
have led you to observe or to study [. . .] We are counting, Monsieur,
on your willingness to reply to the first paragraph. We have followed
this with a form for replies, designed to facilitate the relation of the
facts which you may be willing to communicate to us, but which
you are at liberty to depart from and to ignore in whole or in part.
(Laupts, 1894: 106)
And this letter goes on to give very detailed instructions to the

respondents: write answers, if possible, only on the back of the page,
mark clearly the passages for which they wish to remain anonymous,
or whether they wish the whole to remain so.
There follows a very detailed questionnaire from Dr St Paul (known as
Laupts) at the end of which he makes clear that the survey will use all
the replies sent in, even if they relate only indirectly or to a limited part
of the programme of Archives danthropologie criminelle. We can see
here how in this type of survey the doctor veers between very clear
instructions and wide-ranging enquiries, as demonstrated by the first
question: What are your ideas, your theories, your hypotheses on the
issue? What do you think are the causes of the malady, its extent and its
remedies?
It was in response to this survey that Emile Zola, the author of Germi-
nal, sent Dr St Paul a series of letters written to him by a young Italian
homosexual which were published in the journal under the title Le
Roman dun inverti-n (The Tale of a Born Pervert) (Lejeune, 1987). The
apparatus which produced these letters was soon forgotten although
the letters themselves were to become classics, no doubt because of
the writers concern for precision and exactitude in writing about his
sexuality, beginning with his childhood memories.
What is interesting in this apparatus compared to that of the young
German and his doctor is that the instruction to write is mediated by a
third party, who is none other than another writer: the novelist. The
young Italian felt inspired or invited by Zolas reputation as an author
to write to him. It is as though this encouragement to write comes
not from its instigator, the doctor, but from literature itself as an institu-
tion of writing. We should recall how central the figure of Zola was
within French intellectual and political life the Dreyfus affair had
further radicalized his position. But it was in the wake, at the edges
of the famous writer that the ordinary writer set pen to paper. This is
no doubt one of the strongest examples of encouragement to write that
we find in the last years of the century. An impressive discourse emerges
at this time, which we can term the literature of testimony or the case
study for which literature formed the receptacle. To express oneself by
describing ones experience in writing down to the least detail and to
entrust it to a writer seems to have been a common practice if we are
to believe the historians of sexuality. (See, for example, the work on
Raffalovitch by Cardon, 2008, and on Georges Hrelle by Goldschlger
& Thomson, 1998).
Uses and Researchers
We should not think that these invitations to write about ones sexuality
have disappeared today along with the Scientia sexualis: not only have
they survived but some social scientists do not hesitate to use them as a
methodological tool. Witness the instruction to write about sex that has
emerged from the AIDS epidemic, particularly in relation to individual
prevention: making people write to gain information on whether they
are taking protective measures or not. The British researcher A.P.M.
Coxon thus developed a sexual diary which he used during his work on
English male homosexuals (Coxon, 1999). See also the website of that
Coxon Project: www.sigmadiaries.com. He emphasizes that
self-completed sexual diaries have the advantage of reducing retro-

spective bias. In a validation study of homosexual behaviour, sexual
diary counts and subsequent questionnaire estimates (together with
ratings of the reliability of the estimates) referring to the same month
are compared and the discrepancies analysed. Main findings include:
questionnaire data yield consistently higher average estimates than
diary counts, but have the same ordinal profile; individual difference
(diary-questionnaire) scores show that 55% of questionnaire estimates
of acts are higher than diary counts, 20% are identical and 25% are
under-estimates; discrepancies are differentially located in different
sexual acts. Masturbation and fellatio are systematically overestimated
in questionnaires and anal intercourse without a condom is the major
source of inaccuracies. (Coxon, 1999: 221)
The sociology of health has been highly receptive to such uses of

writing and some researchers have tried to promote interest in them.
Milligan, Bingley and Gatrell stress that To date, solicited diaries have
been relatively neglected as a social science research method. This is
particularly true within the field of health research. Yet these narrative
approaches can provide invaluable insights into the health behaviours
of individuals and how these are played out across time and space
(Milligan, Bingley and Gatrell, 2005: 1883). Therefore, the researchers
draw on recent research in the north west of England that investi-

gated the potential benefits of communal gardening as opposed
to other social activities in maintaining the health and emotional
well-being of older people. As part of a wider study using largely

qualitative techniques, our analysis revealed that, contrary to the
findings of earlier studies, diaries can be used effectively over rela-
tively long periods of time and are equally effective in exploring
health issues amongst both older men and women. With the benefit
of good researcher support, we argue that diary techniques can
offer some unique insights into the ongoing health routines and
coping strategies of older people and can prove invaluable in uncov-
ering those, often hidden, aspects of their daily lives and routines
that impact on their health histories. Through the gathering of
chronologically organized data about daily activities, diaries can act
as both a record and reflection of the health experiences, activities
and life-worlds inhabited by older people. (Milligan, Bingley &
Gatrell, 2005: 1883)
Hence, we can see how the apparatuses of command of autobiographi-

cal production were gradually refined, although there was no change in
their goal, which was to produce new knowledge about an individuals
behaviour, based not on statistics but on the analysis of a cohort. While
at the beginning it was the notion of the case study which was impor-
tant, later it was the set of writings as a whole that created meaning.
There was a shift from the control of individuals to the management of
populations. From the individual case to the group, there was a change
in how the data and the norms were interrogated.
In conclusion, I want to emphasize the strength of this practice of
invitation to write as a tool of knowledge production. One of the rea-
sons it is interesting to examine this specific aspect of the history of
sexuality in Western Europe is because of its move from medicine to
social sciences. It shows how ordinary people become the producers
of new knowledge, how by reversing the disciplinary dispositif of
Foucault, it becomes an extraordinary tool for investigating human
beings. The most important aspect is that this transformation has
writing as central.
Notes
1
This chapter has benefited from the comments of David Barton and Uta Papen.
Im also grateful to David Pontille and Aissatou Mbodj.
2
The French term paperasse translated here as paperwork has similar deroga-
tory connotations to those of the slang term bumf, used of paperwork perceived
as unnecessary
3
A famous literary and artistic magazine (1891-1903) founded by the Natanson
brothers which featured the work of artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec and
Bonnard, and published work by prominent foreign authors including Tolstoy,
Checkov, Ibsen, Kipling and Wilde and French writers such as Gide, Proust
and Mallarm as well as Zola. (Translators note) See www.sdmart.org/lautrec/
RevueBlanche.html
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Afterword
Brian Street
It is interesting to see colleagues from different disciplines such as

applied linguistics and history and different countries such as France
as well as the United Kingdom and United States expanding what is
meant by an anthropology of writing. Barton and Papen in the first
chapter track what the terms mean in both the Anglophone and
Francophone traditions and indicate how many of the contributors to
the present volume might be located with respect to such labels. The
book is termed the anthropology of writing rather than the anthro-
pology of literacy because the authors with whom Barton and Papen
are concerned both those who contribute to this volume and those on
whom they are drawing in their accounts are focussing in particular
on writing. This is evident in the historical tradition prominent in
France, where historical interest in the uses and meanings of writing has
been especially influenced by the work of Chartier. Many of the authors
in the present volume build on that historical perspective but also link
it to contemporary studies of the kind prominent in the Anglophone
tradition. Within UK anthropology, the issue of writing has been part
of a wider interest in literacy. Debates in this field were for a long time
dominated by the supposed great divide between oral and written
culture, particularly highlighted by the Cambridge anthropologist Jack
Goody. This was, however, supplanted in both the United Kingdom and
the United States the Anglophone tradition by what came to be
termed the New Literacy Studies which offered contemporary ethno-
graphic accounts of literacy practices in a cross cultural perspective. In
Francophone studies, Goodys work continued for a time after it had
been sidelined in the United Kingdom, and the volume attempts to
demonstrate how these different traditions are moving on, as authors
build upon what they perceive to be the most productive aspects of the
field across both time and space.
For both traditions, as Barton and Papen point out, the notion of
literacy practices is crucial, whether dealing with contemporary or with
Afterword 227
historical uses of reading and writing. Bourdieu here is clearly signi-

ficant and we are called upon to consider whether he is appropriately
located in the sociological or the anthropological tradition. A forth-
coming volume that considers Bourdieu and Literacy Studies (Grenfell
et al.) notes that Bourdieu felt the need to distant himself from the
contemporary French tradition of anthropology which was dominated
by Levi-Strauss and the structuralist approach. Being more committed
to a social practice account, Bourdieu referred to himself as a socio-
logist in order to avoid the structuralist brand. But to many looking
back and also looking across from the United Kingdom it was always
apparent that he belonged to the more social dimension of the anthro-
pological tradition as his ethnographic work in both Morocco and in
the French education system demonstrates. Here he addressed issues of
writing directly, especially the French Academys use of particular kinds
of academic writing to stratify and control. This strand of the anthro-
pology of writing tradition meshes very closely with the New Literacy
Studies approach, which focuses especially on literacy and power and
on the ideological model of literacy and has in recent years developed
a particular strand on writing in Higher Education referred to as the
academic literacies approach (see Lillis & Scott, 2008 for a compre-
hensive summary of this approach). Barton and Papen show how, in
addition to Bourdieus seminal contribution that is recognized equally
strongly in the Anglophone tradition, the work of other scholars in the
Francophone tradition, such as Chartier and Lahire, can be seen to
mesh with this movement.
The reader of this volume, then, is provided with a kind of trajectory
that points them from previous major figures in the field across both
traditions and across historical and anthropological studies, to the cur-
rent work of the authors in this volume as they take those traditions
forward. For such scholars, everyday literacy in distinct contexts
whether within contemporary France (as in Lahires work and here
evident in the accounts by Fraenkel, Pontille and Joly), England (as in
Barton and Hamiltons earlier work), Africa (as in Papen, Bourdieu,
Mbodj-Pouye, Prinsloo and Breier, etc.) has become the central focus
of the anthropology of writing and the present volume then offers us
a contemporary but historically grounded view of how this tradition
is going forward. Some of the new researchers in the Francophone
tradition, then, can be seen to be calling upon not only these French
historians (as in the chapters by Anne Broujon (Chapter Ten) and
Philippe Artires (Chapter Eleven) in this volume) but also on Goody

and on the New Literacy Studies (as with the work of Pontille (Chapter
Three) and Mbodj-Pouye in this volume). One gap, then, that the
editors hope the volume will fill is exactly the relationship between these
different traditions. Partly perhaps because of language differences,
authors on both sides of the Anglophone and Francophone traditions
have not tended to cite each other very much. Ironically, given his rejec-
tion by many in the Anglophone tradition, Jack Goody has been one
of the few authors to bridge the divide and Barton and Papen point
out how it is different aspects of his work that have been prominent
there his call for close attention to inscription and to specific local
practices (Goody himself worked in West Africa and was also involved
for a time in the study of Vai literacy by Scribner and Cole that became
one of the earliest testimonies to the social practice approach). At
a conference in Paris convened by Batrice Fraenkel and Assatou
Mbodj-Pouye, contributors to this volume, and held at the Ecole des
Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales where the research group Anthro-
pologie de lcrit is located, Goody gave a keynote address in French
that was a tribute to such cultural and methodological bridging. And
the editors of this volume indicate their desire to further such bridging:
Part of the aim of this book is to make the work of Francophone
researchers more widely known and to promote dialogue between
French and English speaking academics interested in writing as a social
and cultural practice.
A measure of the timeliness of this volume is that similar contribu-
tions are to be found in other parts of the world. A volume recently
published in Spanish (Kalman & Street, 2009) addresses Latin American
Literacy Studies, bringing together in a similar way to the present
volume new social practice approaches to reading and writing across
a range of contexts in that continent. That volume is shortly to be
published in English also and I would hope that, likewise, the present
volume edited by Barton and Papen, can be published in both of the
languages of the various contributors, in this case French and English.
It is indeed in such ways that the cultural and intellectual bridging
which the editors are aiming for can be accomplished. I also look for-
ward to future volumes of such studies, in other parts of the world across
other traditions, exploring what the notions of literacy and of writing
mean to both researchers and to people on the ground a classic
anthropological approach that addresses comparative and contrastive
Afterword 229
cases and suspends and problematizes key organizing concepts such

as reading, writing, literacy as it attempts to develop a language
of description for such contentious but seminal meanings. One might
envisage a series The Anthropology of Literacy with sub headings
to address the different traditions; writing in the Francophone and
Anglophone traditions as with the present volume; reading and writ-
ing in Latin America for the Kalman and Street volume (currently enti-
tled in Spanish Lectura, escritura y matemticas como practices Sociales;
Dilogos con Amrica Latin where exactly the linguistic dimension of
how to translate terms such as literacy and writing are addressed);
anthropology and the multiplicity of writing as Eduardo Archetti (1994)
terms the field, publishing in Scandinavian but referring to writing
practices both there and in Latin America, the South Pacific, the West
Indies, etc.
The uncertainty regarding translation of terms and the associated
question of how international policy might address literacy issues that
the present volume raises, are apparent in the tensions to be found
between the research approaches signalled here and the dominant
policy perspectives evident for instance in Global Monitoring Reports
by UNESCO (EFA, 2006) and literacy policy pronouncements by the
World Bank. Whilst researchers have moved on and mostly now sub-
scribe to a social practice view, or what I termed back in 1983 and would
still maintain, an ideological model, policy accounts still tend to sub-
scribe to what I termed the autonomous model of literacy. The auto-
nomous model, as Barton and Papen make clear in their Introduction,
highlights a deficit view of literacy and illiteracy, measuring the number
of illiterates in a given country and proposing policy for overcoming
illiteracy and improving the statistics an issue addressed by Hamilton
and Barton (2000) in an earlier critique of the IALS scheme, with its
attention to measurement of decontextualized literacy skills and the
ranking of individuals, groups and whole nations on scales. The auto-
nomous model drawn upon in such policy approaches is, of course,
itself ideological. As Bourdieu amongst others has powerfully demon-
strated, one of the major features of ideology is its use of the strategy of
appearing to be neutral, of denying its own ideological preconceptions;
indeed much of the power of dominant positions derives exactly from
their appearance of neutrality and universality rather than particularity,
of offering a view of the world whether regarding literacy, education,
gender, religion, etc. that hides its local and cultural positioning and
claims to be general and beyond partiality. Education is especially prone

to such moves and the ways in which Literacy is addressed within
educational institutions and policy pronouncements offers an extreme
example of such a tendency. Many of the chapters in the present
volume address this tension and build upon the explicit recognition of
an ideological model of literacy. Indeed, one of its contributions is in
building on such theoretical grounding to help us move beyond the
present somewhat narrow agenda of Education Policy, whether at
national or at international level. One of the centres for UNESCO work
in the field of literacy across international boundaries is, as it happens,
in Paris where the current Decade of Literacy initiative is housed.
A recent Global Monitoring Report on Literacy (EFA, 2006), produced
by a different group also in Paris, illustrates the level of complexity that
this research/policy tension has entered, as different chapters and dif-
ferent authors advocate traditional measurement scales on the one
hand and social practice approaches on the other. All find themselves
struggling with the translation issue a focus on crit for French
authors, on escritura for those in the Spanish speaking world, on
letramento as opposed to alfabetizao in Brazil. In the Middle East
and Asia very often there has been no single term for what in English
is referred to as literacy and indeed avoidance of the term altogether
amongst many agencies, such as ASPBAE, the Asian South Pacific
Bureau of Adult Education and its partner organizations such as
Nirantar in India, Plan in Bangladesh, Bunyad in Pakistan, etc. all con-
cerned more with Education, often of an informal kind, than with
literacy as such.
How academic researchers can help these policy debates, regarding
both the object of study and the terms used to describe it, is a theme for
many of the authors in the present volume and readers from both aca-
demic and policy perspectives will find much of value here. The present
volume, in this sense, offers a pointer to future work in the field that can
extend its specific focus on Francophone and Anglophone traditions to
wider international comparison with respect to both academic research
and Literacy policy.
References
Archetti, E. (1994), Exploring the Written: Anthropology and the Multiplicity of Writing.
Oslo: Scandinavian University Press.
Afterword 231
EFA (2006), Global Monitoring Report; Literacy for Life. Paris: UNESCO.
www.portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=43283&URL_DO=DO_
TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Grenfell, M., K. Pahl, J. Rowsell & B. Street (forthcoming), Language, Ethnography
and Education: Bridging New Literacy Studies and Bourdieu. London: Routledge.
Hamilton, M. & D. Barton (2000), The International Adult Literacy Survey: What
does it really measure? International Review of Education, 46, 377389.
Kalman, J. & B. Street (2009), Lectura, escritura y matemticas como practices Sociales;
Dilogos con Amrica Latin. Mexico City: Siglo XXI editores, and CREFAL.
Lillis, T. & M. Scott (2008), Defining academic literacies research: Issues of
epistemology, ideology and strategy. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 4, 532.
Index
Note: Page references in italics refer to figures and illustrations.
academic literacies approach 226 notion 89

accountability of work 67, 103n. 1 scope 10
in agriculture 912 Apitszch, Georges
in early years education 69, 73 solicited sexual biography of 21517
enforcement 901 Artires, P. 23
farmers existing system of records Austin, J. L. 34, 42n. 2
and 91, 1003 on normative writings 378
actants 21 autobiographical writings
activity theory 812 forced 21415
actor network theory (ANT) 13 solicited 21517, 21819
acts of writing 24, 39
encouraged/demanded by third Barton, D. 19
party 26, 21315 areas of everyday practices 17980,
graphic force of 336, 39 188
official performative force of 367, 39 notion of literacy event 87
performative force of 369, 42n. 34 notion of vernacular literacy 174
power and 21314 Bernard, Captain 172
adult literacy bibliography 17
Individual Learning Plan 85 biographical interviews
in Mali 1289, 130 farmers 100
AIDS biomedical database writing practices
solicited writings on sexuality in the 24, 478
context of 221 backup of database 612
Ainay gate (Lyon) data collection 4950
epigraphic language 195, 196 data consolidation 53, 558
anglophone writing research 3, ethnographical perspective 513
1114, 225 quantitative and qualitative variation
francophone influences 201 in collected data 53
francophone writing research spatial organization of documents
vs. 1516, 18, 21, 23, 24 535, 63
ANT see actor network theory transformation of data into reliable
anthropology information 5862
classical structural-functionalist updation and 501, 645
period 45 birth records
contemporary 5 notebook keeping on 137
anthropology of writing 3, 2256 blogs 112
methodologies 910 Blommaert, J. 127, 139
need 67 Boigey, Dr. 21819
234 Index
book of reason 96 17th century Lyon consulate,

Bourdieu, Pierre 1314, 226 position within inscriptions 1947
conception of pratiques 16 Common Agricultural Policy (2003) 93
cultural field 18 Compagnie Malienne pour le
British Post Office Dveloppement des Textiles
efficiency 16970, 1823, 185 (CMDT) 139
regulation of postcard use 169, 174 role in fostering literacy in
Bhler, K. Mali 1289, 130
attachment at a distance 38 context-specific practices 17, 18, 20
bureaucratic influences culture
childcare workplace writings 69, 70 notion 18
farmers writings 912, 1001 study of writing and 1819
healthcare related writings 1569
data collection
calendars on childcare centre writings 68,
farmers writings 99100 779
Camitta, M. 111 on notebook keeping practices 129
ceremonial inscriptions 192 on online writing practices 115
chain postcards 186 on patient cohort construction 4950
Chana fountain (Lyon) Davies, K.
epigraphic language 195, 196 Swedish day nursery paperwork
Chartier, Roger 8 study 867
influences of 1518, 20, 225 defamatory libel cases 2023
childcare daily feedback sheets 73 people accused of 204
childcare individual play plan 73 defamatory libel documents 256,
childcare observation sheets 703 191, 203
challenges in writing 779, 801 forms of 2034
longer-term policy systems and 836 writing practices 2049
childcare workplace writings 24 defamatory public notices 2056
attitude of local management 757 defamatory songs 206
audit culture and 69, 73 Denis, J. 22, 23
data collection on 68 diaries
demands on staff and 74, 79, 84, farmers 957
867 patients 1601
difficulties 68, 87 solicited 2212
interruptions by children 7981 displayed writings
material realities 737 17th century Lyon 256, 192, 209
multiple activities and goals 836 commissioners of inscriptions
paperwork types 73 viewpoint 1901
Clifford, J. 5 definition 190
CMDT see Compagnie Malienne pour le readers viewpoint 190
Dveloppement des Textiles typology based on legitimacy 191
codex 140 doctorpatient interaction
Cole, Michael 11 bureaucratic medical rituals
collective forms of writing 22 and 1568
commissioners of inscriptions 1901 role of written-texts in 146
17th century Lyon consulate 1934 schema-driven 1556
Index 235
document handling farm diaries

updation of biomedical database nature and style 956
and 535 temporal buffers 967
documenting life farm list making 97100, 102
postcards role in 1867 farmers writings 223, 245
Douglas, J. 1723 bureaucratic influences 912,
1001
early years education case study 923
accountability 69 incompleteness of daily records 101
continuous provision approach 69 language and style 103
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. plethora of documents 1013
Anthropologie de lcriture 23, 227 types of documents 93100
Ecologies and Politics of Writing fieldnotes
project 23 on childcare workplace writing 779
Edwardian postcards 25 Flickr (photo sharing website) 109,
chain of 186 11213, 122, 123
documentation of everyday life imagined audience 11920
1807 language choice 11819
explosive use of 16971 new practices 116, 121
new communication landscape 171 profiles 11415, 11718
popularity amongst women 176 reasons for using 120
privacy issue 172 researching 11516
research sample 175 sets 117, 121
texts on 1759 tags 117, 121
electronic communications writing on 11315, 11618
and Edwardian postcards compared folksonomies 117
171, 176, 186 forms
Eloge historique de la ville de Lyon, et sa patient 1589, 1623
Grandeur Consulaire sous les Romains, Foucault, Michel 21314
& sous nos Rois (Mnestrier) 193 Fraenkel, B. 20, 213
emotional writing of patients 15960 francophone writing research 3,
Engestrm, Y. 82 1213
epigraphs 1924 anglophone influences 212
language of legitimation 1947 anglophone writing research
ethnography 910, 17 vs. 1516, 18, 21, 23, 24
biomedical database updation major themes 223
practices 503 theoretical concepts used in 1522
healthcare related writing
practices 1478 Global Monitoring Reports 228, 229
personal writing practices 1268 glocalisation 124
Every Child Matters 69, 70 Goody, J.
everyday writing see vernacular writing great divide between oral and
exercitives 378 written culture 14, 225
influences on francophone
Fabian, J. 127 research 212, 225, 227
Fabre, D. graffiti 335, 39, 2034
notion of critures ordinaries 1920 green notes 157, 158
236 Index
Hamilton, M. 19 on monuments see monumental

areas of everyday practices 17980, inscriptions
188 institutional sponsors 1213
notion of literacy event 87 instrumental writing of patients 15960
notion of vernacular literacy 174 International Adult Literacy Surveys
healthcare related writings 25, 1457, (IALS) 19
1623 interpersonal relationships
bureaucratic influences 1568 childcare centres 84
empowerment of patients and 160, interviews
163 farmers 100
ethnographic perspective 1478 health-related writing practices
forms as symbols of state power 1478
1589, 163 notebook keeping practices 129
internet sites 1612, 163 Iuso, Anna 213
paternalistic model of healthcare
and 145, 158 Joly, N. 234
Heath, Shirley Brice 11 judicial culture
definition of literacy event 87 polygraphy and 41
Heaton, J. Henniker 174
Hermant, E. 38 knowledge construction
highways department (Lyon) role of writing in 24
marking of monumental inscriptions transformation of data into reliable
1934 information 5862, 63
position within monumental Koutsogiannis, D. 124
inscriptions 1947 Krafft-Ebing, R. von 217
regulation of shop and house signs Kress, G. 171
1989, 2012
Hirschfeld, M. 217, 218 labelling practices
historical studies 78, 9, 15 notion 38
Hymes, Dell 11 personal notebooks 1345
road signs and signposting 379
IALS see International Adult Literacy laboratory technicians
Surveys document handling 535, 63
identity ethnography of writing 513
childcare workplace writing identification of relevant data by
and 745, 85 reading 558
healthcare related writing invisible work 624
and 1556, 1589 production of reliable information
online writing and 11820, 123 5862
shop signs and 2001 writing and scientific contribution
urban spaces and 2012 48, 645
illiteracy Lacassagne, Alexandre 21516, 217
Lahires critique of dominant Lae, J.-F. 213
discourses of 1819 Lahire, B. 15, 20, 23
immutable mobiles 13 criticism of dominant discourses of
inscriptions 48 illiteracy 1819
inscription devices 21 Goodys influences 21
Index 237
Lalyame, Louis 193 magical incantations

Lalyame, Pierre 193 notebook keeping 137
language and style Marcus, G. E. 5
farmers writings 956, 103 McKenzie, D. F. 17
French epigraphic language of medicine package inserts 1534
legitimation 1947 memorials in public spaces
online writings 11516, 11820 mass writing and 401
personal notebooks 1323 Mnestrier, Claude-Franois,
Language and Work network 48 Father 193
Latour, B. 13, 21, 38 methodologies 17, 20
Laupts, Dr. 220 in anthropology of writing 910
lawful public writings 191 minor archives 214
17th century Lyon 197202 Mitsikopoulou, B. 124
learning Mittrrand, Franois 213
of vernacular literacy practices 110, monitor posters 2045
120, 1223 monumental inscriptions 191,
leisure 1937
documentation in postcards 1856 multilingual literary practices
Leontev, A. N. 82 notebook keeping and 1323
letters online writing and 11516, 11820
medical investigation of sexuality multimodality 14
and 21517 emails 171
libel documents see defamatory libel online writings 11315, 171
documents postcards 1712
linguistic anthropology 6, 1278 multiple activities and goals 812
linguistic ethnography 14, 68, 127 childcare centres 836
lists
farmers 97100, 102 naming of shops 38, 2001
literacy 8 new literacy studies 3, 225
autonomous model 18, 19, 228 overview 1114
ideological model 18, 226, 2289 notebooks 24, 126, 127, 142
in Mali 1289, 130 ethnographic perspective 1289
literacy events 11, 12, 13 genres used 1378
definition 87 graphical separation of entries
in Mali 129 1357
literacy practices 1112, 126, 146, 2256 languages used 1323
Bourdieus conception 16, 226 materiality of 13941
healthcare related 146 models for 1389
in Mali 128 organization of entries 1401
notebook keeping and 133 patient 160
notion 11 as personal property 141
see also pratiques de lcrit thematic heterogeneity 1302, 135
literary studies 7 titles of 1345
Luria, A. R. 82
Lyon 1912 obituaries
17th century displayed writings 256, notebook keeping on 1378
192, 209 observation 20
238 Index
observations of children in childcare postcard(s)

centres 703 criticism 1723
challenges 74, 7781 multimodality 1712
longer-term policy systems and 845 ordinariness of writing 25, 170
official displayed writings 191 representation of epistolary space
17th century Lyon 1927 1701, 178, 181
Ofsted 69, 73 use in Britain 169
online writing practices 25, 109 see also Edwardian postcards
healthcare and 1612, 163 The Postcard Century (Phillips) 174
identity and 120, 123 The Postcard Code: A Novel and Private
imagined audience 120 Method of Communicating by Postcard
multimodality 11315, 171 (Bernard) 172
as voluntary and self-generated 1212 postcard code books 172
see also Flickr (photo sharing website) pratiques de lcrit 1516, 126
oral texts 4 see also literacy practices
ordinary writing see vernacular writing prisoners
forced writings on sexuality 21415
La Panetire Gaec 923 privacy
paperwork see farmers writings Edwardian postcards and 172
Papen, Uta 127 professional identity
patient(s) childcare workplace writing and
authority of health practitioner 745, 85
and 14950 public signs
disability allowance forms 159 definition 207
informed view 150, 153 libel 2079
passive view 145, 1535 subways 22, 23
patient labelling 1556 public writings 22, 23
texts generated by 15962, 163 see also displayed writings
patient information leaflets 145,
14853, 162 questionnaires
imposed texts 1556 on sexuality 218
performative utterances 34, 42n. 2
personal communication 1803 Raffalovitch, Andr 21920
personal writing 126, 134 rational thinking
ethnographic perspective 1278 writing impact on 21, 22
models of 139 reading
notebooks and 25, 127, 131, 135, 141 Chartier on 1516
Phillips, T. 174 identification of relevant data and
photography 558
social uses of 122 relational goals 84
see also Flickr road signs 378
pixaao graffiti 34, 35 Rolin, J. 34
political activism
writing acts and 334, 356, 39 school notebooks
polygraphy as model for personal notebook
city-wide scale 401 keeping 138
judicial culture 41 scientia sexualis 21520
Pontille, D. 22, 23 scientific management 104n. 2
Index 239
Scribner, S. 11 urban writings

September 11, terrorist attacks anthropological perspective 412
memorials in public spaces 401 graffiti 336
sexual biographies 26, 21417, labelling 379
21819 polygraphy 401
sexual diaries 221 regulation in 17th century Lyon 23,
shop signs 38, 191 2012
female sign names 2001
functional duality of 2001 vernacular languages
regulation and standardization vernacular literacy and 133
1979, 2012 vernacular writing 10, 12, 10910,
signs 11112, 213
road 378 Camittas conception 111
shop 38, 191, 197202 dominant literacy vs. 11011
street 389 Fabres conception 1920
subway 22, 23 informal learning of 110, 120, 1223
Sinor, J. 173 language choice and 11819, 133
notion of ordinary writing 173, 188 multiplicity of 19
slogans 34, 356 new technologies impact on 21,
Smart, Graham 13 109, 112
Smith, Dorothy 13, 18 postcards as 25, 170, 1735, 1808
social networking post-colonial societies 23, 127
impact of new technologies on 121 re-evaluation of 25, 1204
social networking websites 112 Sinors conception 173
social participation Vygotsky, L. S. 82
documentation in postcards 1845
social standards Wenger, E. 13
postcards and 1723 What the Postman Saw 1734
solicited diaries Whitehand, Kelly
healthcare research and 2212 invisible contribution 5065
solicited writings 26, 21314, 222 widgets 115
on sexuality 21517, 21819, 221 wikis 112
speech act theory 34, 42n. 2 Wittgenstein, L. 38
Street, Brian 11, 18, 19, 23 women
street signs 389 informed view of healthcare 150,
subway signs 22, 23 153, 160, 163
surveys passive view of healthcare 145,
on sexuality 21920 1535
patient labelling 1556
Taylor, Frederick 104n. 2 postcard writing practices 176
technologies pregnancy and health related
globalizing effects of 1234 information 148, 1578, 1602,
role as active agents 21 163
tolerated writings 191 shop sign names and 2001
workplace writings 245
UNESCO 228, 229 accountability and 67, 901, 1003
unlawful displayed writings 191 impact on professional identity 745,
17th century Lyon 2029 85
240 Index
workplace writings (Contd) writing on command 26, 21315, 222

material and mundane features of writing research
work organization and 86 approaches 79
research studies 20, 223 cross-cultural and global
writing phenomenon 5
as an act see acts of writing cultural and intellectual bridging
impact on rational thinking 21, 22 2268
role in knowledge construction 24 relevance 5
as social practice 1617, 18, 20, 24, 121 traditions 3, 2267
Writing Culture (Clifford and
Marcus) 5 Yahoo 122, 124
writing events
polygraphy and 401 Zola, Emile 220

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The Anthropology of Writing

Also available from Continuum

Discourses of Endangerment, Alexandre Duchene and Monica Heller

David Barton and Uta Papen 2010

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

ISBN: 9781441108852 (hardcover)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India

List of Contributors vii

Part I: The Anthropology of Writing: Writing as Social and

Part II: Writing in the Workplace Institutional Demands

Part III: Writing by Individuals and Institutions

Chapter Eight Writing in Healthcare Contexts: Patients,

Part IV: Historical Perspectives

Philippe Artires, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.

are barely known in the Francophone world. Beginning in 2006, a

to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of Lancaster University and to

The Anthropology of Writing:

What Is the Anthropology of Writing?

Writing is an everyday communicative practice which pervades our

The Study of Writing within Anthropology

We are participating in broad cultural shifts in the nature of knowledge

Writing was something which belonged to the anthropologists and they

The case for studying writing from an anthropological perspective

What is the anthropology of writing?

Anthropology of Writing and what makes it specific and distinguishable

and Clanchy (1993). Historians of culture approach the study of writing

notion of exoticism. This is also important for the anthropology of

The scope of the anthropology of writing

Having discussed the nature and scope of the anthropology of

The Anglophone Tradition of Literacy Studies Research

configurations of literacy practices in different contexts which can then

where researchers have utilized concepts including habitus, field,

Francophone Research on Writing

Writing has long been a topic of interest in francophone research.

and academic disciplines, including history, anthropology, sociology

of the processes of the production of books and other texts (Chartier,

is inscribed and what is received is always a dialectic one and that

the notion of literacy as a uniform set of skills applicable to different

of writing). The other French academic whose work is drawn on by

institutional contexts, without however pre-judging what these might

Prominent themes in francophone research

The Current Volume

The chapters in this volume are united by their approach to examining

posters containing defamatory statements about specific individuals.

Barton, D. & M. Hamilton (2005), Literacy, reification and the dynamics of

Reder, S. (1994), Practice-engagement theory: a sociocultural approach to literacy

Writing Acts: When Writing Is Doing

Writing Acts: Slogans, Pixaao and Graffiti

Figure 2.1 Pixaao graffiti in Brazil

writing is recognized as a meaningful act in itself. The inscriptions

Acts of Writing, Acts of Reading

Another scene from the same sphere of activity, political activism,

I remember seeing this inscription written on the wall of the post

posters announcing citizen mobilization in time of war. But others

Signposts, Notices and Street Signs: Labelling as Writing

warnings of this nature. Elsewhere, Austin mentions another case: Even

writings and agents involved in placing a street sign in Rue Huysmans in

Writing Events and Writing Acts: When the City Writes

At this point in the investigation I have put forward certain arguments

In these two specific cases and more generally, it seems to me essential

When describing an event of this nature, one cannot avoid questions

Throughout this chapter I have demonstrated that urban writings

Updating a Biomedical Database: Writing,

D. Barton & U. Papen - Anthropology of Writing

D. Barton & U. Papen - Anthropology of Writing