This paper is concerned with the implications of a social view of literacy for the policy and practice of adult literacy. Taking the example of a recent literacy project in South Africa and comparing this with the author's own ethnographic research among learners from the National Literacy Programme in Namibia, the paper discusses the possible difficulties to be experienced when designing a literacy project based on the concept of literacy as a social practice. The main argument put forward is that these difficulties are likely to be grounded in the difference between potential learners’ uses of literacy in everyday life and their understandings of literacy and how this orients them towards particular forms of literacy education.