Literacies that Move and Matter

"In this brilliant new book, Karen Wohlwend draws on two decades of her scholarship to provide us with a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the conceptual and methodological tools of nexus analysis. Wohlwend guides readers through how to understand, track, and change educational literacies across time, space, and contexts. Literacies that Move and Matter shows us the versatility of nexus analysis to intervene in the most complex global practices of our times."

—Rebecca Rogers, Curators’ Distinguished Research Professor, University of Missouri-St. Louis

"If a nexus is both a series of connections, and a central point, then Karen Wohlwend’s most recent book is truly a nexus of ‘literacies that move and matter.’ As a series of connections, these chapters bring together a vast range of experiences, texts, data, technologies, encounters, and theories in ways that invite us to see connections and movements that we might never have considered across our personal and professional lives. Simultaneously, nexus as central engages us with what matters, what makes sense, and how meanings are constructed. This essential book is for both novice and experienced researchers who want to engage, navigate, change, and reassemble the nexus that surrounds early childhood being, becoming, and literacy."

—Catherine Compton-Lilly, John C. Hungerpiller Professor, University of South Carolina Columbia, USA

"Literacies that Move and Matter serves as an analytical playground and learning space for new and experienced researchers. As we have come to appreciate over the years, Wohlwend is a remarkable researcher of micro-interactions between children and literacy tools. In this pedagogical book, she helps readers understand the theoretical underpinnings, overlaps, and nuances of analytical tools such as nexus analysis, multimodal analysis, mediated action analysis, and critical discourse analysis. Each chapter is rich of examples and inquiries for readers to participate in ‘trying-out’ these methods for themselves. Literacies that Move and Matter is a text, much like Wohlwend’s other books, that researchers will keep close by for years as they engage ethnographically with people and literacies."

—Candace R. Kuby, University of Missouri, USA

"Karen Wohlwend offers an incisive and much needed expansion of the conceptualization of literacies—moving them beyond verbal and written communication. She thoughtfully takes up nexus analysis and offers a clear and useable roadmap for conducting this kind of analytic work. Scholars interested in deepening their understanding of how to analyze data in ways that attends to materiality will be particularly interested in this book. Further, students of discourse analysis will find Wohlwend’s book to deepen and expand their conceptualizations of what counts as ‘language’ and ‘analyzable data.’

—Jessica Nina Lester, Associate Professor, Indiana University, USA