An Emerging Methodology (continued)
Three additional questions then emerge from our analysis:
- How do the narrators position themselves in relation to the physical context of the spaces and places they inhabit? How do their descriptions of place—whether represented with voice, images, or alphabetic text—contribute to their literacy experiences?
- How do the narrators make use of their tools of reportage and how do their tools of choice—alphabetic text, video camera, audio recorder, or some combination—influence their audiences’ responses to their literacy narratives? How do the material affordances of each tool contribute to the narrators’ telling?
- How do the narrators convey, or not, the multiple languages or language varieties that shape their positioning within multilingual thirdspaces? How do the various languages seem to influence their literacy development?
Each of these three questions has allowed us to examine more deeply the intimate connections among literacy, language, culture, and place, and we hope will be useful to other researchers seeking to understand transnational literacy narratives.