ABSTRACT
In his account of literacy practices in Morocco, Wagner commences with a story that we find repeated in its general principles across the world and that characterises the difficulties new researchers are having in challenging the dominant accounts of ‘illiteracy’ in the world:
Oum Fatima has labored virtually every day of her 55 years. With four children and a chronically ill husband unable to help financially, she could only hope to bring in money by doing housecleaning in the wealthier homes of the labyrinthine medina (or old city) of Marrakech.
