Arts Of The Contact Zone Essay Example For Students

Arts Of The Contact Zone Essay For the twelfth grade English curriculum, we had to read and learn about the Arts of the Contact Zone by Mary Louise Pratt. This essay opened up a whole new concept for us. The new term contact zone appeared and Pratt defined it as social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today. The idea of the contact zone is intended in part to contrast with ideas of community that trigger much of the thinking about language, communication, and culture. According to Pratt, the two distinctive phenomenon of the contact zone are autoethnographic text and transculturation. One of the characteristics of autoethnographic text is that it usually involves some extensive collaborating process by people of different social and intellectual classes. Writing classes might have some significance with the contact zone because of this group effort process. During this process every marginalized and hidden voice can be heard, not to mention every individual member can learn how to form and negotiate an opinion in the outbreak of all the conflicting opinions of group members of different cultural background. In addition, transculturation is defined as processes whereby members of subordinated or marginal groups select and invent from materials transmitted by a dominated culture. Communities provide a sense fraternity which is the state or feeling of friendship and mutual support within a group, for example my dormitory floor is a community because as aviation students, we see each other s equals and come together to expand our education in aviation by studying together and making sure were all ready tort tests that are coming up. On the other hand, a contact zone is a place where two different cultures meet, inform each other and clash. This is explained by Pratt when she discusses Gunman Pomps 1200 page letter the New Chronicle. Gunman pomp was an Andean writer that wrote the New Chronicle in a mix of both Spanish and Quiches He rewrote Christian stories with the Andean people as the center of the religion. Pratt calls this an ethnographers text, which means that the Andean people described themselves with the descriptions that others gave them. Gunman Pomp showed a single topic from both perspectives of the Maddens and the Spanish to try to give greater understanding and While giving different viewpoints to both the Spanish and Andean people. Ethnographers works are often addressed to both metropolitan audiences and the speakers own community (Pratt 488). A real life example of both a community and a contact zone would be my college dormitory floor My dormitory hall is considered a community because everyone on my floor is here for the same reason, aviation. Everyone on my floor has the same environment, goals, interests and we are even trying to learn/grasp the same subject. There is a feeling fellowship w ith my fellow floor mates, we get along fairly well and are linked together through our common interests and passions. Yet, this is what Benedict Anderson calls an imagined community. My dormitory is considered an imagined community because even though it can be classified as a community, my dormitory hall is also a contact zone. Even though all of us have common interests and goals, not one person on my floor is like. We come from different areas of the country, eve have different backgrounds and we even have different morals/values. Having a contact zone can be advantageous because this gives our floor very different perspectives on numerous amounts of topics. The clashing of our different cultures teaches us how Others perform certain tasks or view certain topics in life, this broadens our perspective of culture and gives us an opportunity to have an open mind through transfiguration. Communities provide a type of safe haven for social and cultural differences. Pratt describes a community as a place where Groups can constitute themselves as a horizontal, homogeneous, sovereign communities with high degrees of trust, shared understandings, temporary protection frown legacies of oppression (Pratt 497). .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21 , .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21 .postImageUrl , .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21 , .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21:hover , .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21:visited , .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21:active { border:0!important; } .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21:active , .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21 .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u7657002dacac84879a33a70ea0f02e21:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Child Abuse EssayOn our dormitory floor we are able to talk freely and feel equal with our peers, we have the same classes so we all have to go through the same things to achieve success. Having people that are your equal gives a greater sense of belonging and understanding so that we can more easily relate to each other. This is what ultimately creates a community type of environment on our armory floor. Even though my floor can be considered a community, Mary Louise Pratt claims that The idea of the contact zone is intended in part to contrast with ideas of community that underlie much of the thinking about language, communication, and culture that gets done in the academy. On my floor, all of us come from all different kinds of social groups. There are some of us that stay in their room and just study all day while there are the complete opposite that go out and party all night This creates a social contact zone that in part makes our floor clash in personality. Learning about the different social and cultural backgrounds that each of us came from is crucial for us to be successful and this kind Of learning only takes place in the idea of a contact zone. There are different aspects to my dormitory floor. For example, we function differently from when we have free time, to when we are studying. During our free time, it is more Of a social and there would be a coalition Of cliques. This is due to our social differences and how we view ourselves in the perspective of the public. The other aspect is our studying time when were all studying for our aviation exam or our flight training. In this type of environment, we are able to put our differences aside to work towards a common goal. When were studying together we dont have to worry about what the public thinks, we just wanted to learn and improve our understanding of aviation together as a group. This is how my floor can be viewed as both a contact zone and a community. Limitations of the contact zone may be that the people experience the ignorance and occasionally the hostility of others in the group. Without traits of community and the telling to belonging, it is very easy to see the negatives to a roof and take the positives of a group for granted. A contact zone could make someone feel excluded or maybe too fearful of even entering a contact zone with others, For example, on my floor, people may be ignorant towards certain cultures/behaviors and negatively criticize them. This in turn creates a hostile environment where people dont feel comfortable embracing their traits and being a part of a community. In conclusion, challenging yourself to see a single point from multiple perspectives and to be tolerant to diversity is the best way to create a learning environment for a group of people. Pratt emphasizes that, Our job in the Americas course remains to figure out how to make that crossroads the best sit for learning that it can be. We are looking for the pedagogical arts Of the contact zone (Pratt 497). These shifts of points of view from community to contact zone develops greater understanding being a part Of a community and being aware Of an underlying contact zone is ultimately a valuable attribute for a society.