"Mjaya's research provides valuable reading for literacy theorists and practitioners alike. [the] hope is that this book will inspire those engaged in literacy work with adults to renew their commitment to exploring new approaches to their fundamentally important task, complex though it is." -- International Review of Education "This book will be a rich and interesting source for students of international development, adult learning and literacy. It makes for accessible reading for policy-makers and teachers, as well as being a useful guide for others planning to carry out ethnographic studies in international settings. As a study by an African scholar of an under-researched country it is ground-breaking and illuminating. As long as literacy continues to be a focus of international agencies and funding, it is essential that policy learns from such studies." -- Mary Hamilton, Emeritus Professor, Lancaster University, UK "Mjaya renews theoretical and methodological perspectives on social studies of literacy with an exceptionally detailed ethnographic insight into the everyday literacy of adult learners in rural Malawi. The book challenges some of conventions of Western-dominated anthropology in a highly reflexive discussion of the meaning of "being there" while also carving a new space for Africa's qualitative social sciences in their engagement with national policies.

" --Yann Lebeau, University of East Anglia, UK.