This post is excerpted from Kara Poe Alexander鈥檚 article 鈥淔orwarding Literacy in I Am Malala: Resisting Commodification through Cooperation, Context, and Kinship鈥� (College English, January 2019)
In 2013, one year after being shot, Malala Yousafzai published a memoir, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. Cowritten with journalist Christina Lamb, the book tells the story of Yousafzai鈥檚 life and education growing up in Pakistan before, during, and after 9/11.
Written primarily for a Western audience, the book has been read by critics as an 鈥渦nabashedly doting鈥� account (Ryder 175) of how one girl and her campaign for education could overcome Taliban cruelty, end the War on Terror, and promote Western ideals (Hesford; Rahman; Thomas and Shukul).1 Fauzia Rahman summarizes, 鈥淢alala and her campaign for girls鈥� education were framed as the greatest and most effective weapon against the Taliban, and a potential turning point in the 鈥榳ar on terror鈥欌�� (154).
In contrast to the Pakistani media that was mostly critical of Yousafzai, the Western media has idolized her鈥攆raming her as an education hero, a subject of violence caused by terrorism and the Taliban, and a victim of a society hostile toward women (Bennett; Khoja-Moolji; Thomas and Shukul). Yousafzai has been depicted as 鈥溾�榚mpowered,鈥� 鈥榚nlightened,鈥� and, most importantly, connected鈥� (Rahman 162).
The New York Times repeatedly addressed Malala as 鈥渢he girl shot by the Taliban,鈥� and other magazines and newspapers characterized her as 鈥渢he girl saved from her 鈥榮avage people鈥欌�� (Thomas and Shukul 234).2 As the face of anti-Talibanism and girls鈥� rights and education, Yousafzai was portrayed as a martyr for the cause, even being likened to Joan of Arc for her 鈥渦ndiminished bravery and defiance of the Taliban鈥� (Bennett).
The problem with these representations is that they commodify Malala, using her as a tool for particular arguments to mobilize populations and agendas rather than seeing her in her own right and personhood.
Women鈥檚 studies scholar Emily Bent argues that these depictions reinforce a colonial power structure through the dangerous image it constructs of 鈥淭hird World vulnerability鈥� (qtd. in Thomas and Shukul 236). Not only do these interpretations conveniently bypass the indictments Yousafzai makes in her book of the American government, drone strikes, war, civilian deaths, and poverty鈥攚hich alone cast doubt on claims that she promotes Eurocentric ideals and agendas鈥攖hey also fail to account for the ways Yousafzai incorporates and performs literacy in her book, a fact that upsets commodification claims.3
In fact, when I Am Malala is read as a literacy narrative鈥攁 story that foregrounds issues of language and literacy (Eldred and Mortensen; Scott; Soliday)鈥攖he book resists commodification through its rupturing of the 鈥渓iteracy myth.鈥� The literacy myth is the idea that better literacy necessarily and automatically leads to success and progress (Graff).
Instead of endorsing a view of literacy as an independent variable or a neutral set of skills that assumes a single direction of literacy development, as is the premise of the literacy myth and prominent in Western literacy narratives (see Chandler; Eldred and Mortensen; Graff and Duffy; Street), I Am Malala promotes literacy as a collective, universal achievement situated within a cultural ecology of literacy that is inextricably linked to social, cultural, and political power structures and contexts.
Read more of Alexander鈥檚 analysis of Yousafzai鈥檚 memoir in the full College English 补谤迟颈肠濒别,听听
Kara Poe Alexander, 起点传媒member since 1998, is an associate professor of English in professional writing and rhetoric and director of the writing center at Baylor University. Her research explores literacy, identity, and writing pedagogy within composition settings.