While throughout this book we will be trying to avoid committing ourselves to one definition of culture or another, mostly by trying to
steer clear of the term culture as much as possible, if you were to force us to admit what we really think culture is, chances are we
would say something like “culture is a verb.” This rather provocative statement is actually the title of an article by an anthropologist
named Brian Street who is particularly interested in the idea of literacy. What he means by literacy, however, is a bit different from
what most people mean by it. Rather than just the ability to read and write, Street would define literacy as something like the
communicative practices that people engage in to show that they are particular kinds of people or belong to particular groups. Thus
the ability to sing or shop or dress in certain ways or operate certain kinds of machines, along with the ability to read and write certain
kinds of texts, would all be seen as kinds of literacy. The most important thing, though, is that these “abilities” are not just a matter of
individual learning or intelligence, but a matter of living together with other people and interacting with them in certain ways.