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The Nicaraguan Literacy Crusade Revisited: The Teaching of Literacy as a Nation–Building Project
Author(s) -
Baracco Luciano
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
bulletin of latin american research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.24
H-Index - 33
eISSN - 1470-9856
pISSN - 0261-3050
DOI - 10.1111/j.0261-3050.2004.00112.x
Subject(s) - nationalism , literacy , national identity , front (military) , identity (music) , literacy education , gender studies , nation building , political science , sociology , law , politics , aesthetics , geography , philosophy , meteorology
This article draws on the ideas of Anderson (1991) in discussing the role played by the National Literacy Crusade of 1980 in imagining the Nicaraguan nation. As the article demonstrates, the National Literacy Crusade had the potential to create a sense of communion with a mass of anonymous others that is, according to Anderson, the hallmark of modern nations. At the same time, it was also a project that sought to foster a particular national identity centred around the anti–imperialist and socialist nationalism of the Sandinista National Liberation Front.