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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
https://doi.org/10.1007/s43638-023-00085-z
cultura & psyché: Journal of Cultural Psychology (2023) 4:85–106
“Paperwork is so important!”: processes of literacising
in bureaucratic contexts in Benin and Bolivia
Issifou Abou Moumouni · Rebekka Krauß
Received: 6 November 2022 / Accepted: 3 November 2023 / Published online: 24 November 2023
© The Author(s) 2023
Abstract In both Bolivia and Benin, the state presumes that citizens can navigate
its bureaucracy even if it does not provide them with the requisite literacy skills.
However, bureaucratic procedures are highly characterised by literacy and digital
literacy and people with little or no literacy require alternative strategies to manage
them. This article contributes to debates on (il)literacy and bureaucracy studies by
looking at the learning practices of persons with little or no literacy competence
in La Paz and El Alto, Bolivia, and Parakou, Benin. It investigates their ways of
coping with such bureaucratic requirements and especially how they manage to ac-
quire specific literacy abilities in order to complete procedures. Our conclusions are
based on empirical data obtained through various kinds of interviews and participant
observation that we carried out during more than 12 months of fieldwork.
Our article shows how participants have independently acquired literacy compe-
tence on their own to achieve their goals and resolve highly relevant issues. For them,
literacy is not so much an end in itself but a means of dealing with the state. During
bureaucratic procedures, concurrent processes of illiteracising and literacising, as
well as processes of learning and unlearning literacy, take place. We conceptualise
and amplify the notion of this learning and unlearning with the terms “literacising”
and “illiteracising” as processual and relational. Thus, we interpret literacising in the
context and during the experience of bureaucracy as an instrument through which
individuals try to affect, cope with and control bureaucratic procedures.
Keywords (Un)learning · Literacy · Illiteracy · Digital literacy · Administrative
procedures
Issifou Abou Moumouni · Rebekka Krauß
Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence , University of Bayreuth, Universitätsstr. 30, 95447 Bayreuth ,
Germany
E-Mail: rebekka.krauss@uni-bayreuth.de
Issifou Abou Moumouni
E-Mail: Issifou.Abou-Moumouni@uni-bayreuth.de
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„Papierkram ist so wichtig!“: Literalisierungsprozesse innerhalb
bürokratischer Kontexte in Benin und Bolivien
Zusammenfassung
Sowohl in Bolivien als auch in Benin unterstellt der Staat,
dass seine Bürger*innen sich in seiner Bürokratie zurechtfinden können, auch wenn
er sie nicht mit den erforderlichen literalen Fähigkeiten ausstattet. Bürokratische
Prozeduren sind jedoch in hohem Maße durch Literalität und digitale Literalität
gekennzeichnet. Gering oder gar nicht literalisierte Personen bedürfen alternativer
Strategien, um mit solchen Prozeduren zurecht zu kommen. Der vorliegende Artikel
ist ein Beitrag zu Debatten um (Il)literalität und den bureaucracy studies. Dabei wird
der Fokus auf Lernprozesse von Personen mit geringen oder keiner literalen Kom-
petenz(en) in La Paz und El Alto (Bolivien) und Parakou (Benin) gerichtet. In dem
Beitrag werden Formen des Umgangs mit bürokratischen Erfordernissen untersucht.
Dabei wird gefragt, wie diese Personen spezifische literale Fähigkeiten erworben
haben, um bürokratische Prozeduren abschließen zu können. Unser Artikel basiert
auf empirischem Material, das wir mittels unterschiedlicher Interviewverfahren und
teilnehmender Beobachtung im Rahmen einer insgesamt gut 12 Monate andauernden
Feldforschung erhoben haben.
Unser Text zeigt, wie sich die Teilnehmer*innen unabhängig und auf sich al-
lein gestellt literale Kompetenzen angeeignet haben, um ihre Ziele zu erreichen und
hochrelevante Angelegenheiten zu lösen. Für sie stellt Literalität nicht so sehr ein
Ziel an und für sich dar, sondern ein Mittel, um mit dem Staat umgehen zu können.
Im Zuge bürokratischer Prozeduren finden gleichzeitig Prozesse der Literalisierung
und Illiteralisierung sowie Prozesse des Lernens und Verlernens von Literalität statt.
Wir konzeptualisieren und erweitern die Idee dieses Lernens und Verlernens mit
den Begriffen des „Literalisierens“ und „Iliteralisierens“ als prozesshaft und relatio-
nal. Damit interpretieren wir Literalisieren im Kontext und während der Erfahrung
von Bürokratie als ein Instrument, durch das Individuen versuchen, bürokratische
Prozeduren zu beeinflussen, zu bewältigen und zu kontrollieren.
Schlüsselwörter (Ver)lernen · Literalität · Illiteralität · Digitale Literalität ·
Administrative Verfahren
1 Introduction
“My son was falsely accused of being the murderer of a girl. He wasn’t of
course. I stood up for him—we spent about three years in legal proceed-
ings—and I didn’t have much formal education. I cried when I had to manage
all the paperwork and sorted the papers: this one is for the trial, that one for
the mayor, they explained to me. At least I won in the proceedings. Because
I invested a lot of money, I saved my son from prison. I knew some letters,
of course, and during the procedures, I learned by effort. By effort: it took
me time. In this way, I also struggled. Well, I read it, I knew the first letter,
and the next was difficult, this other letter is that. In this way I succeeded.
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Sometimes I was wrong: no, this is another letter, this should be that letter,
I said. I suffered, but as I know how to work, there was no lack of money. Work
dominates, money dominates. (Jairo, El Alto, March 2022)”
This is how one of our research partners described his experience with the justice
system when he defended his son against allegations that he had murdered a girl in
El Alto, Bolivia. This portion of his story implicitly evokes his relational experience
with his country’s judicial institutions. Other actors we met during our research in
El Alto and La Paz (Bolivia) and Parakou (Benin) had other relationships with state
institutions. The administrative sphere appears to be an environment where liter-
acy skills are required. In general, the daily life of citizens with little or no formal
schooling is marked by challenges related to mastering bureaucratic procedures and
applying them to engage with state services. During those bureaucratic procedures,
some find the learning processes imposed on them by specific situations in con-
nection with state institutions challenging. This article proposes to examine these
learning processes of people with little or no formal schooling in a bureaucratic
context. There is a rich body of literature on bureaucracy and bureaucratic prac-
tices in social anthropology, psychology and the science of education, but almost
no attention has been paid specifically to the encounters of citizens with little or no
formal schooling with state institutions and bureaucracy.
Relations between the state (public services) and citizens are structured around
bureaucratic practices. To demonstrate their citizenship or benefit from state services,
citizens with any educational background must familiarise themselves with the bu-
reaucratic practices needed to interact with state institutions. To obtain documents
such as marriage, birth and death certificates, passports, or personal identification
cards and to initiate court proceedings, bid for public contracts, or receive services
including health care, justice and education, citizens must confront bureaucratic
practices in order to address the state according to predefined norms or procedures.
These practices have become even more complex with the emergence of digital tech-
nology, which is perceived as an instrument for the functioning and strengthening
of the efficiency of state institutions.
Such relations based in bureaucratic practices demand effort on the part of cit-
izens, especially those with low or no literacy, to discover the right strategies to
deal with bureaucratic demands. They must manage their situations through specific
strategies and learning processes, which also include processes of acquiring literacy
competences that are linked in turn to processes of unlearning literacy. Based on
field data, we want to use a concept that reflects the processual dynamic of this
learning and unlearning of literacy. To energise largely static and linear conceptions
of “illiteracy” or literacy, we thus introduce the neologisms “literacising” and “illit-
eracising”. With these concepts, we aim to emphasise the contextual and dynamic
nature of literacy and also the individual and societal processes that shape literacy
and illiteracy over time. We expect these terms to reflect the processes of learning
and unlearning literacy, which constantly move in both directions.
In bureaucratic contexts, we argue, literacy and practices of literacising are per-
ceived as an instrument for people to affect and control bureaucratic procedures.
Here, the need to learn reading, writing and the use of the digital tools appropriate
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to the specific context arises. We develop our argument based on examples from
two different countries in the Global South, the Republic of Benin and the Plurina-
tional Republic of Bolivia, whose bureaucracies, dominant state languages (despite
multilingual populations) and alphabetic writing systems derived from colonial state
systems.1 Furthermore, both states have addressed illiteracy in various ways and
through various campaigns.
In Benin, the need for digital literacising arises in response to bureaucratic de-
mand as the process of bureaucratic reform obliges people to engage in digital
literacising. Here, state digitalisation encompasses entire procedures, including the
standardisation of interactions between the citizen and state in virtual spaces. Dig-
italisation in Bolivia is limited to administration itself and individual interactions
still take place on paper.
As our research participants’ experiences show, learning and acquiring literacy
skills are embedded in very concrete situations and seek to achieve specific pur-
poses and resolve issues that are highly important to them. Furthermore, neither
state guarantees the level of literacy training required to understand and make use
of documents and forms. Literacy campaigns, despite their extensive aspirations,
provided participants with little more than the ability to read texts and sign them.
To highlight these learning processes, this article asks how bureaucratic practices
influence the learning processes of illiteracised people in Benin and Bolivia and,
furthermore, how they deal with bureaucracy demands. Starting from these ques-
tions, it explores how people with little or no formal schooling experience manage
to acquire literacy abilities in Bolivia and Benin.
In these contexts, learning and acquiring literacy skills encompass strategies such
as trial and error, relying on existing cognitions, and drawing conclusions. Some-
times, people may ask others for explanations or help. However, they do not describe
that process as at all easy but find it difficult and arduous. Thus, processes of literacis-
ing and illiteracising are related: the experience of illiteracising in the bureaucratic
context brings about the need for literacising. Learning is not so much voluntary or
shaped by individual interest as the result of state expectations or pressures.
After discussing different theoretical approaches on (digital) bureaucracy and
(digital) literacy, we present our methodological approach and discuss our concept
of literacising and illiteracising. Next, we describe the bureaucratic contexts in the
two countries that constitute the setting of our study. We approach literacy processes
that take place in such contexts based on case studies, which we will first present
and then discuss.
2 Perspectives on bureaucracy and (digital) literacy
In an article on the semantic evolution of “bureaucracy”, Fred (1979) observes that
despite the term’s original negative connotations Max Weber gave it positive nuances
1 The aim is not a strong comparative analysis but to bring data and analysis together to develop and
deepen the argument of the identified phenomena of the processual character of literacy skills acquisition
in the specific context of bureaucracy.
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by using it to designate both the power exercised by civil servants and civil servants
as a governing class (bureaucrats) (Fred 1979, p. 606). Bureaucratic administration
continues to appear, not only as a set of modernisation techniques but also as the
actual expression of this modernisation (Darbon 2002, p. 2). As one of the leading
social theorists of bureaucracy, Weber also considered literacy-based bureaucracy,
characterised specifically by hierarchical structures, distance and secrecy between
others, as the most efficient means of governing. Bureaucracy is a topic that has
aroused a certain curiosity in researchers from various disciplines. Since the nine-
teenth century, it has become a classic subject of social science discourse (Caillosse
2016, p. 677). Many analyses have sought to describe its dynamism, highlight its
limits and examine the effectiveness of bureaucratic organisations, the reasons for
their expansion in the different spheres of lives, and the place occupied by citizens
within systems that seem to exclude them (Péron 2016, p. 119).
Several scholars have approached bureaucracy by focusing on administrative cul-
tures and the rules (formal and informal) that show how citizens represent the
administration and its methods of action. This approach re-imagines administrative
cooperation and engineering as an adaptation of all procedures to the forms of per-
ception available locally (Darbon 2002, p. 6). In the anthropology of development, its
expansion in Africa is interpreted as the transfer of a bureaucratic model that devel-
opers consider universal, both in terms of legitimacy and of effectiveness (Chauveau
1992, p. 4). However, bureaucracies and the meanings of documents differ from state
to state and from context to context. Thomas Bierschenk and Jean-Pierre Olivier de
Sardan (2019, p. 253) view bureaucracy as an itinerant model, subject to different
historical changes and accumulated layers of bureaucratic reforms. This also applies
to the specific issue of literacies within bureaucratic systems. The current state of
bureaucracy in Benin is the result of two overlapping historical changes: the French
colonial bureaucracy, whose practices visibly persist in contexts including organi-
sational charts, official procedures, writings and reports (Olivier de Sardan 2004,
p. 156) and the digital bureaucracy. Meanwhile, the Bolivian bureaucracy has been
shaped by 300 years of feudal colonial administration and also incorporates some
elements of pre-colonial bureaucracy (see Abercombrie 1998, p. 176). The colonial
state bureaucracy was an important basis for the republican state, despite the dis-
continuity in public administration following independence in the early nineteenth
century (Klein 2011). The contemporary plurinational state retains various elements
and practices from both these eras (see Ellison 2018, p. 202): for example, in its
administrative practices related to villages (Abercombrie 1998, p. 90). However,
Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan (2019, p. 253) emphasise that the heterogeneity
of different, inter-bureaucratic segments is especially visible in postcolonial bureau-
cracies in the form of “policies and reforms”. Bureaucracy cannot be reduced to
something static that merely translates law into practice and decisions (Bierschenk
and Olivier de Sardan 2021, p. 6). However, the definition and administration of
resources and access to rights are linked to processes of normalisation, categori-
sation and statistics, which are sensitive to the forms of implementation of power
and power relations. The idea that bureaucratic relations are arenas where strategic
groups try to pursue their own interests is also related to power relations, although
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hierarchies can change, and in some cases powerful (economic) clients can exert
pressure on bureaucrats (Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan 2021, p. 7f.).
In some studies and theories on bureaucracy and bureaucratic practices, literacy
is mentioned as a central feature in state bureaucracy, albeit with varying depths
and concentrations. Weber strongly links the two, stating that “the management of
the modern office is based upon written documents (the files), which are preserved
in their original and draft form, and upon a staff of subaltern officials and scribes
of all sorts” (Weber 2006, p. 50), but he does not profoundly analyse its role as
Goody claims. Indeed, Weber’s Economy and society, in which he discusses differ-
ent forms of government and endorses a bureaucratic state, does not discuss the role
and function of literacy. In contrast, Goody elaborates on literacy as a functional
means of communication for bureaucracy and state administration, a precondition of
democracy, and entirely a technology of government (Goody 1990, p. 194; 196). In
his eyes, it is not only the precondition of the emergence of specific states (implying
a dichotomy between so-called oral and literate states) but also of a specific rela-
tionship between a territory’s inhabitants and its rulers (Goody 1990, p. 158; 195).
He argues that bureaucracy makes the state more efficient and rational by producing
documents about tax revenue and expenditures (Goody 1990, p. 179).
In contrast to Weber and Goody’s seminal but controversial and somewhat dog-
matic and dichotomous perspectives on the role of literacy, actor-oriented studies,
which focus on the daily practices of bureaucrats and their interactions with users
of public services, place bureaucratic paperwork in a field of power relationships
but also consider the protective qualities of documents (Bierschenk and Olivier de
Sardan 2021, p. 7). Some authors focus explicitly on the oppressive aspects of bu-
reaucracy and documents in bureaucratic practice (Matusov and St. Julien 2004;
Graeber 2017, p. 100f.). However, Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan argue that al-
though documents do not reflect an objective reality, they do produce an official one
(Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan 2021, p. 15). We consider this constitutive of the
relationship between service seekers and officials.
Furthermore, the relation between state and citizens can also be mediated and
shaped by the materiality of bureaucratic literacy products. In his review of an-
thropological works on documents within bureaucracy and document encounters,
Matthew Hull argues that although different approaches emphasise aesthetics, emo-
tions, or signs, all address the problems of administrative control and the construction
of entities (Hull 2012, p. 254f.). Eva Muzzopappa and Carla Villalta (2011) take
the documents produced by the state as the result of those power relations and as
constituting the state itself. This refers to the way in which they are produced, to
the knowledge that they imply, and to access to that knowledge by, for example, the
police, social workers and the justice system. Max Weber had already emphasised
the role of secrecy in bureaucracy: officials not only possess specific knowledge
but secure their power through the principle of official secrets (Weber 1990 [1921],
p. 126f.) that citizens are obviously denied access to, even when they concern them
personally. In many countries, only an officially recognised lawyer is granted access
to the file.
The current digitalisation of administration can be regarded as another turn to even
greater standardisation and expected efficiency. Since its emergence, the importance
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of digital technology in social and administrative practices has progressively in-
creased. Digital tools have become omnipresent in daily life, even for people with
no schooling. The digitalisation of administration is no longer exceptional, but has
become widespread in administration and public services in both the Global North
and the Global South. Digital technology’s development and deep penetration into
the bureaucratic practices of public services and administration has provoked re-
searchers’ interest and theoretical reflections. The development of digital tools and
their gradual adoption into everyday social practices has spurred the development of
concepts such as “digital literacy”, a term first used by Gilster in the 1990s. Since
then, the concept has evolved, changed and expanded, becoming increasingly central
to cultural, civic and economic participation (Meyers et al. 2013, p. 356).
In their book “Digital Era Governance: IT Corporations, the State, and E-Gov-
ernment”, Dunleavy et al. (2006) show that these changes have brought about a new
paradigm in which changes in how governments use information technology are no
longer viewed as peripheral or routine aspects of contemporary public management
and policy. They argue that influences from computing and information systems are
as salient for current public sector management as they are fundamental to con-
temporary Weberian rationalisation processes (Dunleavy et al. 2006, p. 217). They
conceptualise this transition as Digital Era Governance (DEG) to highlight the cen-
tral role that developments in computing and information systems are playing in
a wide range of changes in how public services are organised as business processes
and provided to citizens or customers.
E-government and digital-related reforms are analysed mainly from a macro per-
spective as a new way of organising public administration and public service delivery
(Margetts and Dunleavy, 2013). However, there is some noteworthy empirical work
on bureaucratic encounters in the digital age. This includes that of Pors (2015,
p. 178), who looks at the impact of e-government reforms on the professionalism of
frontline agents and their relationship with citizens in a bureaucratic encounter. She
describes how digital reforms reorganise the tasks and skills involved in bureaucratic
encounters. She concludes that, at the level of the first-line agents in the delivery
of public services, contemporary political demands in terms of e-government im-
ply a de-specialisation of tasks and an intensification of informality in relations
with citizens. Meanwhile, Peeters Rik (2023) draws on a literature that conceptu-
alises digital administrative burdens as a specific form of administrative burden to
show how the digitisation of administrative practices is changing the nature of cit-
izen–state interactions. In addition, he notes that digital administrative burdens are
not distributed evenly but depend on variations in cognitive skills, digital literacy,
self-efficacy, perceptions of fairness in digital government and convenient access
to information technology (Peeters 2023, p. 10). Therefore, the shift from paper to
virtual documents underlies both the loss of physical contact and the shift of control
mechanisms from humans to algorithms, which he also describes as shifting labour
from officials to citizens: digital bureaucracy may increase everyone’s workload, but
it especially increases that of citizens. Even without referring to virtual bureaucracy,
David Graeber questions the efficiency of contemporary bureaucracy given the very
time-consuming paperwork it imposes on them (Graeber 2012, p. 108).
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Finally, Döring (2021) adopts a citizen-centred perspective to address the inter-
actions between citizens and street-level bureaucrats and proposes the important
concept of “administrative literacy2” to understand citizenship skills that are ac-
quired outside the educational system in general and other socio-economic variables
in particular (Döring 2021, p. 1157). This multidimensional concept integrates the
functional, communicative, structural, procedural, media, and civic dimensions and
shows how they cover three essential phases of citizen–state interactions from the
point of view of citizens: collecting and evaluating information; sharing it, and
making personal decisions (Döring 2021, p. 1164).
Despite their richness, their relevance, and the diversity of their approaches to
the description, understanding and analysis of the dynamics around bureaucratic
encounters, these works remain almost silent when it comes to the actual learning
processes of citizens. However, bureaucratic encounters following administrative re-
forms pose challenges to citizens and bring out specific forms of interaction between
them and the state that impose forms of learning. By favouring a comparative and
actor-oriented perspective, our article is aimed at analysing the learning processes
that arise from bureaucratic encounters. We argue that, faced with the demands of
bureaucratic practices and the state’s inability to provide opportunities to acquire the
literacy skills demanded by bureaucracies, citizens individually take the initiative in
specific literacising.
Although some accounts and approaches describe how the distance inherent in
bureaucratic structures was mitigated by bureaucrats’ emotions when they met with
their clients, in digital bureaucracy this has become limited as personal contact is
almost impossible in virtual spaces. Impersonality, which Weber considered one of
the most important achievements of bureaucracy, is characteristic of such bureau-
cratic practices. In addition, decision-making is far from an individual process: it
follows what he imagined to be highly standardised procedures (Weber 1990 [1921],
p. 129; 561; 579).
To account for these processes, we analyse examples from two countries of
the Global South, Bolivia and Benin. These states appear to have insufficiently
prepared their citizens to face bureaucratic challenges that are largely dominated
by specific writing and procedural practices. The programmes they have planned
and implemented have enabled few of their citizens to acquire appropriate literacy
skills. In Bolivia bureaucratic practices are dominated by paperwork, whereas Benin
is experimenting with a process of dematerialisation of public services during which
paperwork and digital media coexist in public services.
(Digital) literacy is an instrument of bureaucracy that results in the storage of
knowledge not accessible to citizens and is generally characterised by a specific
form of bureaucratic terminology. Literacy, especially digital literacy, produces and
expresses distance between state and citizens. Digital literacy shifts bureaucratic
encounters to virtual spaces and relationships mediated by virtuality are even more
2 According to Döring (2021), Administrative Literacy refers to “a set of skills and knowledge applicable
on formal public encounters that result in either status-changing decisions based on discretion or formal
service encounters such as consultation for unemployed”.
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rationalised. Managing literacy tasks in bureaucratic contexts requires bridging this
gap in order to obtain (digital) literacy skills.
3 Research approach and methodology
Starting from the idea that “illiteracy” is not a phenomenon of the past but an
ongoing one reproduced through universal literacy standards, our research looks at
the practices of persons whose life trajectories are developing in a world of globalised
schooling and literacy. We try to look beyond statistics on literacy and illiteracy rates
to identify strategies and methods of responding to various challenges, and examine
the role that literacy takes through the life course in specific social settings. By
following research partners3 with low or no reading and writing skills or formal
schooling, we focus on the processual character of learning and unlearning literacy
over individual life courses. We approach those processes of learning and unlearning
literacy through the neologism of literacising and illiteracising. These concepts are
based on our preliminary research findings and, although continually developed and
tested in the field, must still be understood as a work in progress.
Processes of literacising and illiteracising are neither linear nor unidirectional.
People may acquire and assign meanings to reading and writing competences at
specific moments. Self-literacising for a certain purpose takes place when, for ex-
ample, people acquire some literacy skills to meet bureaucratic demands. Here, we
are referring to autodidactic learning practices and/or processes in which individuals
take responsibility for their literacy learning. When we refer to literacising through
others or being literacised, we mean learning that includes or is based on specific
interactions with professionals or others and entails the transmission of literacy abil-
ities. In contrast, self-illiteracising happens when individuals do not practice or use
their skills and their literacy competence loses relevance. However, people may later
and for different reasons again feel a need to literacise. Furthermore, illiteracising
can take place if people with low or no reading and writing skills are asked to fill
out forms or sign documents but cannot follow written instructions and may then
rely on “translation” by others. Thus, those processes do not correspond to a linear
growth or accumulation of competences and knowledge. Furthermore, it becomes
clear that the process of illiteracising is connected to the materiality and aesthetic
of scripts and access to paper and literacy—but also to features such as decreasing
interests and need.
To these concrete practices of learning and unlearning we add another dimension
of literacising and illiteracising. This dimension is located on a discursive level:
literacising and illiteracising also take place through processes of internal and exter-
nal attribution to both the individual and specific groups and by general statements.
This refers to the notion of literacised or illiteracised subjectivity. Whenever people
3 We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our research partners for their availability and collab-
oration in this research. We are grateful for their willingness to share their experience with us. We want
to adress our thank also to the members of the Research Section “Learning” (Africa Multiple Cluster of
Excellence/ Bayreuth University) for their constructive comments on a first version of this article.
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are confronted with literacy demands, they become aware of a lack of literacy and
may perceive themselves, in that context and moment, as illiteracised subjects. Even
those who have acquired solid literacy abilities are illiteracised in racist discourses
if others attribute low literacy or lack of education to them as something essential
to their (imagined) “culture” based on ascribed ethnic features. Thus, processes of
literacising and illiteracising can take place at the same time and are often entangled.
Literacising by others on a concrete level can be strongly connected to discursive
illiteracising: sometimes, it is at the moment when literacy abilities are transmitted
that learners become aware that they lack them.
Hence, our research partners are illiteracised and illiteracise themselves and in
turn are literacised and literacise themselves—all in rather complex and intertwined
ways and, of course, with deep interactions with their lifeworlds and the chances
and limitations these provide. By using the concepts of literacising and illiteracis-
ing, we take a relational perspective. On the one hand, literacising and illiteracising
relate strongly to each other; on the other, both take place in relation to specific
contexts: that is, to the demands, interests, behaviour and discourses of several ac-
tors. Thus, far from perceiving the phenomena of “illiteracy” or “literacy” as static
conditions, we understand them as entangled processes that happen over time and in
specific contexts: therefore, relationality and processuality shape our research part-
ners’ modalities of learning and unlearning. When we talk about literacy, we refer
to reading and writing skills, as well as those skills needed in digital environments
related to texts and text production, which (as discussed in the theoretical section)
also involve a different and specifically virtual materiality. The latter are acquired
through processes of digital literacy linked to digital illiteracy. However, this con-
ceptual division between paper-based literacy and digital literacy may be arbitrary
in some contexts and should be considered as more of an analytical tool.
Our article is based on over 12 months of qualitative research in and data from
Parakou, Benin, and La Paz and El Alto, Bolivia.4 In both sites, we conducted formal
and informal interviews with individual actors and participant observation in various
social micro-fields such as government offices, police stations, cybercafes and public
spaces such as cemeteries, bus stations and markets, to observe the role of literacy
and how people dealt with literacy tasks there. We also conducted interviews at
additional public places where bureaucratic encounters take place involving lawyers,
notaries and private entrepreneurs applying for public contracts.
In our research within bureaucratic contexts, we were ourselves confronted with
bureaucratic procedures whose type determined the possibility of access. Although
in most cases we could gain access by submitting a formal letter that received an
informal response, a few sites kept adding more and more formal requirements
and we decided not to keep trying. In still other spaces, we could conduct infor-
mal interviews and brief periods of observation without authorisation in advance.
Furthermore, we could use personal connections to bypass some procedures or avoid
4 Issifou Abou Moumouni carried out fieldwork in Benin, specifically in Parakou, whereas Rebekka Krauß
collected data on Bolivia during fieldwork in El Alto and La Paz. The research took place within the Inter-
disciplinary Project “Learning beyond the classroom: Coping with illiteracy in urban literate environments
in Benin, Bolivia (and Germany)” at Bayreuth University.
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the need for formal applications (see also Muzzopappa and Villalta 2011, p. 24).
This mirrors what Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardin (2021, p. 7) describe as the
tensions between formal and informal in offices’ internal and external relations and
also reflects something of what our research partners experience in different proce-
dures: the bureaucratic context as an arena (Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardin 2019,
p. 248) in which they must seek appropriate strategies to pursue their aims.
Our analysis of these strategies, including self-literacising, is based specifically
on parts of the formal and informal interviews we conducted during the different
research phases.
4 Bureaucratic context in Bolivia and Benin
In Benin and Bolivia, bureaucratic contexts related to literacy have evolved in dif-
ferent directions. In Bolivia, bureaucratic practices remain largely dominated by
paperwork: digitalisation has been slow, only began in 2022, and is optional and
only available for very few procedures. In Benin, we observed a different dynamic,
with a strong orientation towards the digitalisation not only of internal procedures
and administration but also of interactions with service seekers and clients. However,
neither state properly prepares citizens to deal with bureaucratic tasks.
4.1 Bureaucratic context in Bolivia
Despite the Bolivian state’s claim to have eradicated illiteracy in 2008, a signifi-
cant number of inhabitants still lack (or have low) reading and writing skills5 and
a follow-up campaign is still active. One important feature of state campaigns was
teaching the alphabet and basic reading and writing competences. Another specific
goal that adult education activists used to emphasise was, importantly, the ability
to sign and write one’s own name, which has become Bolivian society’s common
understanding of literacy. Literacy promoters refer to the ability and the satisfaction
to act autonomously within legal-bureaucratic contexts6 and the ability to sign and
write one’s name is in fact crucial when interacting with the state bureaucracy and
state-regulated sectors. In comparison to the UN and UNESCO definitions, which
emphasise literacy’s importance for functioning within a specific society and oppor-
tunities for self-fulfilment, the Bolivian campaigns seem to concentrate only on the
ability to function at a very basic level within the bureaucracy. However, even this
capacity offers only limited possibilities for acting in the bureaucratic context, as
many persons who have achieved low literacy through courses or elsewhere do not
5 In 2006, the new MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo/Movement to Socialism) government started a na-
tionwide literacy campaign. After only 2 years, the UN and the state declared Bolivia free from illiteracy.
Nevertheless, a follow-up campaign, including alphabetisation, basic education and training of reading
and writing competences, is still running. However, its impact has been questioned by several NGOs and
scholars (see Hernani-Limarino et al. 2015, p. 151) owing to the evaluation methods it used in generating
statistics on illiteracy and Stefanoni (2011) observed a significant level of “functional illiteracy”.
6 Personal communications with literacy promoters 9 December 2022.
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have sufficient capacities to read and understand the documents themselves or the
rather complex procedures that they may be part of.7
Another aspect of paperwork is aesthetics (see Riles 2006; Hull 2012). This
includes the design and format of documents and features such as headline style,
institutional logos, the number of seals and the place for the signature. During
bureaucratic encounters, we see that the ability to sign also requires knowledge about
the structure and appearance of documents. People sometimes need explanations or
directions to know where on the paper to put their names and signatures, which
suggests the importance of the material and aesthetic part of documents.
Furthermore, as service seekers our research participants see three main features
as constitutive in bureaucratic encounters and having an impact on many of their
experiences. First, mistrust is central to the relationship between service seekers
and officers. Second, discrimination has marked and continues to mark significantly
bureaucratic encounters. Third, people complain about informal paradox rules and
a lack of transparency concerning issues such as payments and submitting records.
Service seekers experience much mistrust over the quality of officers’ work, and
whether their duties are compromised by their own interests (see Ellison 2018,
p. 197f.). Participants in our research claimed that officers often do make errors
that clients must solve themselves. Therefore, people with low literacy, especially
older ones, mistrust such data on the new identity card, which they ask third parties
to check. Our research participant Catalina criticises the state for not carrying out
its duties. She claims that the state has taken no responsibility for her own case or
innumerable others. Extending the mistrust to the next level, she says that the state,
instead of protecting citizens, often exposes them to additional harm.
Aymara inhabitants of El Alto often experience discriminatory practices in such
offices (Wanderley 2009; Bohrt 2019) that Catalina’s experiences and observations
also reveal. Here, ethnic identity, gender, class and language all affect those prac-
tices together. Many Aymara inhabitants only acquired informal Spanish language
competence after moving to El Alto (Wanderley 2009; Albó 2006). Despite the
city’s multilingual majority, the state mainly continues to operate monolingually
and in many of its offices this perpetuates discriminatory practices (Wanderley 2009,
p. 68, 71).
Those discriminatory practices include refusing services, dismissing service seek-
ers or giving them the run-around, and demanding additional payments. People also
experience demands for further documents to deliver as discriminatory as even those
required by law are often, paradoxically, impossible for the recipients to obtain. For
example, getting a national identity card now requires submitting a school enrolment
certificate that many elders and others who were never enrolled cannot possibly get,
as one service person of an informal money transfer shop in El Alto explained
to me. Officials are often not inclined to help persons with specific difficulties and
send many service seekers away to gather further evidence and copies of documents.
Service seekers often perceive such bureaucracy as dysfunctional, yet obtaining doc-
uments and completing paperwork seem preconditions for registration and getting
support in offices and institutions (see Wanderley 2009, p. 70f.).
7 Participant observation of basic literacy courses in El Alto 10 December 2021 and 9 December 2022.
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4.2 Digitalisation of public services in Benin
Benin’s bureaucratic context is currently marked by the digitalisation of public
services. Indeed, in 2008 the minister in charge of ICT (Information and Commu-
nication Technology) announced the government’s intention to dematerialise public
services and implement “e-government”. The purpose of this commitment is to align
public sector operations with current changes at national, regional and international
levels, where businesses are increasingly adopting ICT for commercial reasons:
efficiency and productivity. Subsequent initiatives at the top of the state have been
aimed at operationalising this government vision. A new government elected in 2016
renewed this vision of public service reform, supported it, and made it more visi-
ble in the Government Action Programme (PAG 2021–2026), which clearly states
a strategic objective of strengthening services to citizens and businesses by general-
ising e-services and increasing the digitalisation of public administration—a reform
that the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated. Through this initiative, the Beninese gov-
ernment aims, according to the Minister of Digital Affairs, to ensure that “public
services come to the citizen rather than the citizen always going to the public
services”.8
Implementation of this project began as of 2020 and many platforms have been
created by the state. These include platforms for downloading tax bills and making
remote payments; platforms dedicated to financial transactions and land transfers;
a platform for accessing public markets; a popular e-service; an electronic securities
directory; an Extract from the Commercial Register. The Beninese state has thus
undertaken a systematic process of digitalising its services and thus created a new
context to which citizens now must adapt.
At the same time, this process of digitalisation for public services appears to be
a springboard for a contradictory process leading to the emergence of new types of
illiteracised people forced to engage in a process of digital literacising to benefit
from state services. This new context, which is dominated by the state’s attempt to
implement and stabilise digital technology, is generating new bureaucratic practices
based on skills unknown to many Beninese citizens, as the platforms themselves, be-
ing new, are unfamiliar to everyone, even those familiar with other digital platforms.
These citizens now face new challenges that make digital literacy an imperative for
many who wish to communicate with the administration. The challenges can only be
met by adding specific new learning processes to the strategies that they used before
the digitalisation of public services in Benin. Cossi’s case, which we analyse later,
shows how bureaucratic practices force some citizens to engage in digital learning
and literacy processes to fully integrate into this new context.
8 Our translation from French: “Le service public aille vers le citoyen plutôt que ça soit toujours le citoyen
qui aille vers le service public”.
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5 Processes of and multiple motivations for literacising in bureaucratic
contexts in Bolivia and Benin
Starting from the multiple vision of (il)literacy, the issue of motivations and reasons
that impel an individual to literacise regains all its relevance and complexity. It brings
out a multiplicity of motivations that translate into specific and contextual forms of
literacising. In bureaucratic contexts, the reasons for literacising are closely linked
to the objectives of each actor and strongly depend on the difficulties/challenges of
each in their relations with state institutions.
Nevertheless, people rely on different strategies and literacising oneself and con-
trolling literacy products is only one. Some rely on mediators to “compensate for”
their own difficulties in dealing with those demands and carrying out other strate-
gies, but many try to manage their own (digital) bureaucratic demands by literacising.
Simultaneously, several also stress that setting aside money to invest in legal pro-
cedures ensures that they advance. To this, we could add further non-literacy-based
tactics, such as trying to influence events through spiritual means and challenging
specific, intentional actions of officials. Many combine different strategies.
5.1 Learning to read in order to confront the state in Bolivia
Literacy practices in bureaucratic contexts seem to motivate people to become self-
literate as they try to protect themselves by perceiving and trying to master them.
Literacy, here, is seen as an instrument that helps individuals to confront and respond
to the bureaucratic state, which uses literacy to both materialise and exercise power.
During highly emotional court proceedings, many discover that they need to be
able to read bureaucratic paperwork. Their previous strategies in oral contexts seem
insufficient and limited in impact. The different aspects of literacy that now come
up call for new actions. Catalina comments:
“Reading is important because you have to understand all the notifications, re-
quests, reports, etc. Paperwork is so important. You have to pay for everything;
you have to make efforts yourself. If you don’t, nobody will help you. There-
fore, you have to buy law books. Those little books with articles and clauses, on
family law, human trafficking, in order to understand what lawyers say. I save
some money to buy updated law books, to also be informed about amendments.
I don’t use the internet. I just read the books. Before, I couldn’t read. However,
since my daughter disappeared seven years ago, I learned to read gradually.
What’s more, I slowly started to grasp the significance of terms. I continue to
read, always: that helps me not forget. (Catalina, February 2022—El Alto)”
Catalina learned to read (but not so much to write) to advance the case of her
disappeared daughter9. She wants to make sure that she does not miss any opportunity
9 Human trafficking is quite present in Bolivia: in 2018 and 2019, respectively, more than 600 and 500
reports were filed under Law 263 against Human Trafficking—an average of almost two victims, persons
of all ages, each day. (see: https://www.defensoria.gob.bo/noticias/defensoria-del-pueblo-evidencia-que-
victimas-de-trata-quedan-sin-posibilidad-de-recuperarseante-la-falta-de-atencion-y-proteccion-estatal).
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to locate her daughter and to know what she can demand and what to expect from
state authorities. Therefore, she has started to accumulate expert knowledge. Catalina
has invested a lot of time, money and energy in these learning processes. The hope of
finding her daughter or those responsible for her disappearance motivates her to make
great efforts. Her explicit knowledge about articles and clauses and the certainty that
she can understand the contents of official documents creates self-confidence and
self-reliance. It has become possible for her to influence the procedures, to take
positions and to legitimise and argue for her claims. She can also keep up with
amendments to the relevant laws, in which she is again investing time and money.
In doing so, she tries to confront the state and the authorities in various institutions,
who, as she constantly stresses, do not comply with or care about the law. Catalina’s
study has focused on the issues related to the files and laws concerning the loss of
her daughter. She clearly feels the need to acquire specific knowledge so that she
can claim and act in a competent way.
Other participants only attach importance to literacy after experiencing defraud.
For example, as a dirigente (leader) of a neighbourhood self-organisation Eloisa
was prompted to authorise what later turned out to be a fraudulent real estate trans-
action, which involved her in complex legal proceedings. She was convinced that
had she been able to read, she would have detected the fraudulent intent and would
not have been confronted with additional economic and legal problems. This belief
also implies notions of responsibility. Reading and writing, for Eloisa and others in
such situations, are abilities that the individual themselves must care about. Further-
more, those who lack literacy competence are themselves responsible if they become
victims of literacy-based fraud.
5.2 Digital literacising to get access to public market and official documents in
Benin
We illustrate this form of motivation starting with the experience of Cossi, whom
we met in May 2022 in Parakou, Benin:
“Cossi is a 31-year-old master mason who never attended school. In his work,
he started to face problems of digital literacy as soon as bidding for public
infrastructure construction contracts started to require documents to be submit-
ted online. Before the digitalisation of public procurement procedures, Cossi
could apply by providing all the required papers. For a long time, he worked
with a literate mason friend who did not have the financial resources to make
a bid on his own and therefore helped him, showing him how to prepare the ap-
plications. Cossi believes that, with excessive digitalisation, illiterate workers
will eventually lose their businesses and abandon their trades. To adapt to the
new administrative requirements of the tender process, Cossi has identified an
institution, called ‘Le Pélican’ where he can get training in this area.”
Cossi’s experience highlights the profound changes that have taken place in ad-
ministrative procedures and their effects on users of public services following e-ser-
vice reform. As noted, the dematerialisation and digitalisation of public services
introduced new bureaucratic practices that were unfamiliar to citizens. Before the
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procedures for submitting applications for public contracts were digitalised, Cossi
could submit everything on paper. He always had several copies of the most fre-
quently needed documents and could routinely assemble a dossier as soon as he
knew what was required. He would photocopy, collate and staple the documents and
had arranged with a computer centre to have a staff member generate invoices based
on a template. He no longer even needed to carry around a paper copy, just a photo
on his smartphone.
However, when the new procedures were instituted in 2016 he could no longer
gain access to the many public contracts he had once been awarded. Bidding on
public infrastructure contracts required documents such as commercial registrations,
professional licences, unique identification tax certificates (IFU), criminal clearances
and invoices to be submitted in standardised electronic formats. In addition to obtain-
ing documents that are almost exclusively distributed online, responding to a request
for proposals now requires being able to use the public services platform. However,
many entrepreneurs and other citizens do not even have an email address or web
skills: their ability to use the internet is very limited and sometimes even extends
only to using WhatsApp and Facebook. The state has clearly defined and imposed
a new context for interaction where a specific literacy has become essential. Like
many others we encountered, Cossi has embarked on the process of digital literacis-
ing so that he can meet the new requirements. In his case, literacising is not linked
to a desire to confront the state or influence bureaucratic procedures but an adapta-
tion to a new environment with new kinds of bureaucratic practices. Cossi believes
that excessive digitalisation will result in illiteracised tradespeople losing work and
eventually going out of business. He and his peers must meet new challenges to
apply for public contracts and remain active in their professions.
However, it is not only unschooled people who face these challenges. Citizens
with formal schooling have also become digitally illiteracised and been forced to
acquire digital skills to meet such demands. During our fieldwork in Benin, we
observed many schooled people asking institutional mediators to help them cope with
bureaucratic procedures. This was the case of Malik, whom I (Issifou) met during
my observation at the SED ONG (Solidarité Education Développement Organisation
Non Gouvernementale) digital centre on 20 September 2022.
Malik is a trained geographer in his late 30s who does consulting for a living and
was making observations at the SED ONG. He entered the centre at 10:13a.m. and
immediately approached the agent at the front desk. After they greeted each other,
he explained that he wanted to apply for a passport but had been unable to attach the
required documents. The agent offered him a chair, but Malik insisted on sitting next
to him so he could watch the process on the computer. The agent initially resisted
and then agreed; however, he was unable to complete the process as the platform was
not working well. After waiting for about 2 h for a secure birth certificate (which
was required to continue the process), Malik left for another appointment but said
he would return the next day. The agent then explained to me that he had not wanted
Malik to see the screen to keep him from learning the process himself and no longer
needing their services. If that happened, he would even be able to help his parents!
The ANIP (Agence National d’Identification des Personnes) platform contains
features that not all users master or understand. Malik’s problem was that it delivers
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documents in PDF format, but does not accept this format for attachments: he thus
needed to convert them to a JPG version before uploading them. His lived experience
allowed him to know his technical limits in using this platform and led him to embark
on a learning process of taking advantage of SED ONG’s services and observing
what they did in order to learn to do it himself. Thus, he had insisted on staying in
front of the screen next to the agent: he illiteracised himself before trying to digitally
literacise himself.
The computer centres set up as institutional mediators receive daily requests for
help dealing with bureaucratic procedures and particularly requests for administra-
tive documents and civil records, not only from unschooled people but also from
those with reading and writing skills like Malik, even state officials. According to
Madjidou, one of our informants working in a computer centre called Wassangari
Labs, most requests concern the NPI (Numéro Personnel d’Identification, personal
identification number) and CIP (Certificat d’Identification Personnelle, certificate
of personal information) application procedure, which have become prerequisites
for all other administrative documents: secure birth certificates, criminal records,
passports, and trade registrations. Many civil servants who attempt online applica-
tions become victims of their limited digital skills and must resort to institutional
mediators. Madjidou explains:
“In our centre here, Wassangari Labs, we get illiterate people as well as edu-
cated people, and even civil servants. Just yesterday, I had clients who work
at the CEB (Communauté Electrique du Bénin). They visited the platform for
certain administrative documents, but they had problems importing files. The
platform always sends PDF files, but it asks users to attach only jpeg files. So,
you have to convert to the desired format, which many people can’t do, and that
discourages them, and they give up.”
This testimony from Madjidou shows that the digitalisation of public services is
a factor in illiteracising and the creation of new types of illiterates. In the current
context, it is essential to embark on a specific learning process to keep up with the
new bureaucratic practices. Most civil servants have computer skills because they
use computers and email in their offices. But these skills are not sufficient to use
the various e-service platforms, which always seem to be under construction and
sometimes require structural changes to make them more efficient and secure.
6 Learning processes in bureaucratic contexts
The bureaucratic environment is mainly characterised by literacy practices, which
require reading and writing skills. In addition, in a context of (progressive) digitali-
sation and dematerialisation of public services, such as Benin, digital literacy skills
are also necessary. Literacies10 are dominant in bureaucratic encounters, for instance,
where literacy is perceived as an instrument through which the state performs it-
10 We use the plural here to recognise the multiple literacies that prevail in bureaucracy contexts. The emer-
gence of and penetration of ICT into the bureaucratic environment has led to new forms of (il)literacies.
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self—whether the environment is analogue or digital—and by which it regulates
its relations with citizens. However, neither country’s state literacy campaigns and
programmes reached the whole population as claimed, they failed to enable persons
to develop a reading capacity that is sufficient to deal competently with bureaucratic
matters and they have never transmitted the techniques or skills needed for digital
bureaucratic practices. Nor does the state seem sensitive enough to the emergence
of new forms of illiteracy to offer such programmes and give people a chance to
adapt to the new context, leaving it to individuals to engage in learning processes
according to their specific challenges and needs.
In a bureaucratic context, the acquisition of reading and writing skills becomes
something specific, precise and circumstantial, even if the competences can be used
over time. These learning processes in literacy move from self-directed learning to
the use of mediators. Catalina explains how she acquired literacy skills so that she
could defend her daughter in court.
“Life taught me a lot. It is not the only important thing to obtain school and uni-
versity degrees. Sometimes, I know more than the law students whom I used to
help (since I often spend night and day in the courts). I memorised everything.
I know what is important. I only lack writing. Everything else is stored in my
head. (Catalina, February 2022—El Alto)”
These statements clearly show that her literacising took place through immersion
in the environment whose language she wanted to understand, the justice system.
Learning is here part of an autodidactic perspective that mobilises personal resources,
such as the capacity not only to memorise, but also to identify what is important,
necessary or indispensable. To our research partner, writing seems less important
than understanding the legal process, recognising which documents are needed, and
knowing who to contact about specific issues.
Beyond the differences described, learning obviously concentrates on reading
and the ability to write seems less significant. Catalina delegates writing to a lawyer
(who is herself searching for a missing daughter of her own) and it seems more
important to her to be able to control written documents than to be able to produce
letters and documents herself. Her efforts are not directed at producing persuasive
letters on her own or at demonstrating her achievements.
Jairo’s learning experience of struggling to decipher one letter at a time, cited in
the introduction of this article, is temporally related to the period of court procedures.
Later, his interest in reading and writing decreased. Literacising and illiteracising are
connected insofar that the experience of being illiteracised in bureaucratic encounters
and procedures leads not to self-literacising as an ongoing process but to flexibly
managing the acquisition of competence in relation to the significance it is assigned.
This does not exclude applying these competences in other situations: Catalina
uses the flyers found in public places to practice reading, whereas many years
after his legal procedures Jairo is participating in a small Bible study group that
includes some independent reading. In contrast, actors regard knowledge acquired
by experience or by reading differently. Catalina is well aware that she possesses
significant competencies that she appreciates and shares with others. In addition,
students and professionals look to her for advice.
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Some literacising processes in bureaucratic contexts also involve the use of media-
tors. Although the learners in Bolivia relied on more autodidactic learning practices,
Cossi is a good example of someone literacising with support from other actors.
Although he had been able to compile and submit routine files on his own, changes
in administrative procedures made him illiterate again and he was forced to take the
initiative to acquire digital literacy competences. To do this, he first had to resort to
a training centre to learn the basic elements he needed to adapt to the requirements
of the new bureaucratic context. It should be noted that it is not only people without
school experience who have been forced to engage in digital literacising. The intro-
duction of this reform has created a new type of illiterate. Many educated actors have
become digitally illiterate and therefore forced to digitally literacise themselves.
The mediators used by those research partners are either institutional or personal,
depending on the urgency and the resources available. Cossi used a personal mediator
first, before being trained by an institution. In the absence of financial resources for
such training, the only alternative is to call on a familiar person like a close relative
or friend. Sometimes, the illiterate person can become the expert and mediate. Our
research partner Catalina played this role to the full at the local court, where she
mediated to help law students who were supposed to be literate in this field. Cossi
also played this role after his training at the Pélican centre.
Furthermore, we can observe that in the context of the digitalisation of public
services the learning process follows two paths, depending on the actors. Although
those without literacy skills turn directly to mediators, civil servants prefer to proceed
by trial and error, trying out the procedures themselves. Only in case of difficulty
do they seek the help of an intermediary whom they observe during his or her
performance. This is learning by observation.
The process of (digital) literacising is an external imposition, not merely a vol-
untary decision. It is related to paperwork and also the new conditions imposed
by the state in Benin that triggered the need to embark on the (digital) literacising
process to comply with the challenging bureaucratic demands. At the same time,
the (new digital) literacy demands also show limits of networks and collaborations.
With digitalisation, Cossi was obliged to find new networks made up of new actors
with the skills required to meet its needs. Thus, people in some circumstances must
search for new arrangements for (digital) literacising.
The experiences of our partners clearly show that it is insufficient to just be
able to read and write. Only expert knowledge can ensure success in one’s case.
Although those striking experiences motivate self-literacising, the learning processes
are strongly related to the aim of solving urgent problems. Grappling with those
highly emotional and existential problems takes high priority, at least during the
period of bureaucratic proceedings. Under those specific conditions of high pressure,
people make efforts to acquire literacy competences. However, the expectation of
being able to manage challenges within bureaucracy remains in the foreground.
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7 Conclusion
The examples from both Benin and Bolivia demonstrate that people without literacy
or with low literacy may respond to challenging tasks in bureaucratic procedures
by going through processes of literacising to achieve their goals and pursue their
interests. Processes of literacising and illiteracising are related and are based on the
experience of illiteracising in the bureaucratic context, where the need for literacising
arises. The bureaucratic environment involves selective literacies. Literacy is less
a mean in itself than a means of dealing with procedures in the state bureaucracy
or to “compensate” for one’s own difficulties in dealing with bureaucratic demands.
People acquire skills to ensure that they achieve their goal in issues of high relevance.
People take on the responsibility for their own learning.
The state does not guarantee literacy training at the level required to deal with,
understand and manipulate documents and forms in either country. The adminis-
trative procedures and standards they must follow ignore the existence of citizens
without literacy skills. They apply to all citizens regardless of their literacy abil-
ities and despite the selective schooling aimed at training individuals capable of
serving in the state that took place in (most) colonial states (Goody 1990; Graeber
2012, p. 114), and the fact that subsequent mass literacy campaigns and reforms
promoting education for all have never succeeded in imparting (sufficient) literacy
skills to all citizens. Literacy campaigns, though intended to be far-reaching and
extensive, provided participants with little more than the ability to read and sign
short texts. Although states do not provide sufficient literacy skills, they seem to
assume that citizens are able to deal with bureaucracy. However, this does not mean
that there is a long-term movement towards continuous literacising processes that
starts at a determinate point. Those reflections are embedded in a process in which
the need arises step by step. It is not so much about a unique temporal, sudden
situation and they may finish when the problem is solved. Furthermore, owing to
the dynamic nature of digital technology and its deep penetration into bureaucratic
practices, the emergence and adoption of new tools—as well as the introduction of
new digital-related reforms—will certainly lead to new needs for digital literacising
in both countries.
Bureaucratic challenges made these abilities necessary and impelled those lit-
eracising processes. The often-repeated expression “learning the hard way” (apren-
der a la fuerza, literally “forced learning”) connects the pressures leading to that
“autodidactic” learning to the effort required. Owing to discriminatory experiences
related to low skills—and, we suppose, to the lack of support in those processes—the
learning is embedded in stressful experiences. In contrast, people do not use the ex-
pression about other (autodidactic) processes such as learning artisanal skills. Under
different conditions, those learning processes might not have taken place.
Funding This article is the outcome of research conducted within the Africa Multiple Cluster of Ex-
cellence at the University of Bayreuth, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German
Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy—EXC 2052/1—390713894.
Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
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