High School - A Community With
Mary Louise Pratt, the author of Arts of the Contact Zone, states that a contact zone is a "social space 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" (607). Pratt uses, in her essay, the example of Guaman Poma, an Andean who claimed Inca descent, and King Phillip III of Spain. Poma wrote a twelve hundred-page letter with four hundred illustrations to the king and Spaniards proposing nothing less than a new view of the world. The letter began by rewriting the history of Christendom to include the original people of America, and then went to describe the history and life ways of Andean people and their leader. It began by a revisionist explanation of the Spanish conquest, and hundreds of pages documenting and criticizing Spanish exploitation and abuse. At the end of Guaman Poma's letter is an interview in which he proposes a new form of government through teamwork of Andean and Spanish elites. Mary Louise Pratt showed how Poma uses not only his native language, but also the language of his conqueror (King Phillip III) to asses what Spain was doing to hi
Throughout high school, I have had to learn how to convey my ideas or thoughts with my teachers without trying to get involved with conflict. They need to know about the different cultures they will be teaching so that if a problem does come up the teacher and student will be able to communicate. My high school can be shown as a contact zone and as a community. As a contact zone it is a place where kids from many different backgrounds come together to learn the same thing in or around the same style. I feel being incorporated in one helped me to be educated in different perspectives of different student's ways of learning. I have found that adjusting into a contact zone can be found in many places; one of which is my high school. Nevertheless, a community does not have to be just about people and how they act, it can be about the language. However, if the student is of a different background, a contact zone could be formed; for the student will have to learn the language of the teacher or vise versa having the teacher educate herself about the language of the student. She does not get to know them but she makes her own judgment of them. I believe this quote gives a different meaning of a community. You simply could have things in common, similar goals, or maybe just interact with people in your community. I think this explains well what happens in a contact zone. Pratt argues that Poma "mirrors back to the Spanish (in their language, which is alien to him) an image of themselves that they often suppress and will therefore recognize. There is good in a contact zone, which one could learn a lot from. When such an understanding is reached, the contact zone has reached success.
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mary louise,
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Acceptance Essays
