What’s behind a literacy war? A discursive and political analysis of the neoconservative Brazilian literacy policy

ABSTRACT This paper aims at addressing the intrinsic relationship between literacy and politics by presenting a discursive analysis of the new National Literacy Policy under the Brazilian far-right neoconservative government. In doing so, the text departs from a brief genealogical exercise in which the theorizations on literacies studies in Brazil and elsewhere are compared and contrasted, with emphasis to the evolving notions of critique and citizenship. Analysis has shown that the new Brazilian National Literacy Policy is part of an orchestrated set of actions in which neoliberal, religious, ideological and militaristic driving forces operate despite official claims of discursive neutrality. By advocating in favor of socially-just literacy pedagogies and by cherishing the notions of critique as ‘reading as we read ourselves’ and ‘active citizenship’, this paper calls for a reimagined self-critique along with a set of collective actions if literacy researchers and teachers wish to tackle the challenges and complexities surrounding literacy wars in neoconservative times.