Introduction
As people from different cultures sought to break the boundaries between them, they interacted in various ways over time. Contact zones as used in Pratt’s text are social spaces in which cultures come together and clash, especially where greatly asymmetrical power relations like colonialism exist. In such contexts, there are examples of texts used by subordinate groups to describe themselves to the more dominant groups. In addition, subordinate groups use these examples to interact with representations other people have made of them. This is known as autoethnography. Pratt’s essay presents a discussion on the intreraction of two different and conflicting cultures. This paper examines the examples provided by Pratt on culture and their similarities in terms of “contact gap”, "community," "auto ethnography," and "transculturation.”
First, the discussions provided on Pratt's children, Guaman Poma the brief history of European literacy, and the discussion of curriculum reform at Stanford all represent a “contact gap”. In the example on Pratt’s children, the baseball cards help them bridge the contact gap between their culture and other cultures by learning about different global topics, geography and disciplines (Pratt 34). In the Guaman Poma example, a contact gap exists between the Spanish and the Inca. Pratt describes the Guaman Poma text as a product generated by the contact gap. This is because it reads very differently depending on the position of the people reading it.
Transculturation, which is the process through which a culture’s own identity is assimilated for the purposes of acceptance by another culture, is also common among the examples provided by Pratt. For example, Guaman Poma adapts pieces of the invaders’ representational repertoire in constructing his text. He does not use imitation or replication but aligns it along Andean lines bilingually. He does this to express both Andean aspiration and interests.
In terms of community, language is a major aspect. Languages were visualized as existing in “speech communities.” In the example of Pratt’s children, language and literacy are viewed as tools which enable the individual to interact with those in their language community (Pratt 34). A community’s identity is described through their language. This fact is also supported by Guaman Poma in which the Inca and the Spanish communities hold their identities because of their languages.
Autoethnography is described by Pratt as a collaboration of different ideas from the dominant as well as subordinate cultures rather than a form of self-representation. It is the occurrence in which subordinate groups use texts to interact with representations other people have made of them. Pratt states that autoethnographic texts are often used as the marginalized/ subordinate group’s entry into dominant circles of print culture. These texts are meant to foster metropolitan means of understanding (Pratt 36). Autoethnography as it exists in the contact zone is important because it enables the breaking of cultural boundaries. This implies that there is a great relationship between language, community, autoethnography and transculturation.
Conclusion
Mary Louise Pratt in her text explains the manner in which two different and conflicting cultures interact. The contact zone is described as the social spaces in which cultures come together and clash. She highlights the importance of language in a community and in breaking intercultural boundaries. In addition, through examples, she describes the processes through which subordinate and dominant cultures represent their identities to each other. Autoethnography and transculturation are described in detail as being crucial to the process of intercultural interaction.
Work cited
Pratt, Mary Louise. "Arts of the Contact Zone." Modern Language Association 3.2 (1991): 33-40. Print.
