Arts of the Contact Zone by Mary Louise Pratt
In the Arts of the Contact Zone, Mary Louise Pratt has tried to explain the concepts of the “contact zone”, which she referred to as “the space of colonial encounters”. This social space that she speaks about is a stage where “disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination”. Pratt aims to highlight these relations between the colonizer and the colonized “in terms of copresence, interaction, interlocking understandings and practices”. There often are conflicts of views and ideas; the very concept of existence maybe apprehended differently by the two involved subjects in the “contact zone”.The inability of the colonizer to comprehend the cultural sentiments or the intentional ignorance for selfish interests, towards the colonized subjects has often given rise to great revolutions and bitter revolts. To illustrate this idea, one might examine the “colonial encounter” between the British and the Indians.
“The contact of two races so dissimlar in character, in culture, and institutions, as the English and the Indian, raises the problem of the contact of cultures in its most acute forms” (Spear, 22). The problem in India was complicated by numerous factors. The strangeness of the environment, the differences in the national character of the two groups and the differences in the social and political institutions, were the few that played an im...
Cricket in some ways was a unifying force for the various classes in India as well as the relationship between Great Britain and India. As seen in Document 2, an Indian cricketer was invited to “...join the Sussex team,” that was a team from European country. This shows some equality between n...
The discovery of America to the rest of the world, otherwise known as “Columbian Encounter”, was one of the majestic period in the European history. But nonetheless it was a starting to a tragic end for the Native Americans. Axtell calls attention to how the term, encounter, is largely a misfit in this situation because the
In a lively account filled that is with personal accounts and the voices of people that were in the past left out of the historical armament, Ronald Takaki proffers us a new perspective of America’s envisioned past. Mr. Takaki confronts and disputes the Anglo-centric historical point of view. This dispute and confrontation is started in the within the seventeenth-century arrival of the colonists from England as witnessed by the Powhatan Indians of Virginia and the Wamapanoag Indians from the Massachusetts area. From there, Mr. Takaki turns our attention to several different cultures and how they had been affected by North America. The English colonists had brought the African people with force to the Atlantic coasts of America. The Irish women that sought to facilitate their need to work in factory settings and maids for our towns. The Chinese who migrated with ideas of a golden mountain and the Japanese who came and labored in the cane fields of Hawaii and on the farms of California. The Jewish people that fled from shtetls of Russia and created new urban communities here. The Latinos who crossed the border had come in search of the mythic and fabulous life El Norte.
The essay starts with the “Columbian Encounter between the cultures of two old worlds “ (98). These two old worlds were America and Europe. This discovery states that Native Americans contributed to the development and evolution of America’s history and culture. It gives the fact that indians only acted against europeans to defend their food, territory, and themselves.
LaDuke, Winona. All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1999. Print.
Pages one to sixty- nine in Indian From The Inside: Native American Philosophy and Cultural Renewal by Dennis McPherson and J. Douglas Rabb, provides the beginning of an in-depth analysis of Native American cultural philosophy. It also states the ways in which western perspective has played a role in our understanding of Native American culture and similarities between Western culture and Native American culture. The section of reading can be divided into three lenses. The first section focus is on the theoretical understanding of self in respect to the space around us. The second section provides a historical background into the relationship between Native Americans and British colonial power. The last section focus is on the affiliation of otherworldliness that exist between
As Indians living in white culture, many problems and conflicts arise. Most Indians tend to suffer microaggressions, racism and most of all, danger to their culture. Their culture gets torn from them, and slowly, as if it was dream, many Indians become absorbed into white society, all the while trying to retain their Indian lifestyle. In Indian Father’s Plea by Robert Lake and Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie, the idea that a dominant culture can pose many threats to a minority culture is shown by Wind-Wolf and Alexie.
Native American’s place in United States history is not as simple as the story of innocent peace loving people forced off their lands by racist white Americans in a never-ending quest to quench their thirst for more land. Accordingly, attempts to simplify the indigenous experience to nothing more than victims of white aggression during the colonial period, and beyond, does an injustice to Native American history. As a result, historians hoping to shed light on the true history of native people during this period have brought new perceptive to the role Indians played in their own history. Consequently, the theme of power and whom controlled it over the course of Native American/European contact is being presented in new ways. Examining the evolving
In An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s reexamines the American historical record and moves it passed the typical narratives of colonialism, revolution, and American exceptionalism. Dunbar-Ortiz’s analysis will impact the field of Native Studies and even general United States history with its examination and focus on settler colonialism as a genocidal policy. It is, as Dunbar-Ortiz argues, impossible to write American history without the acknowledgment of Indigenous peoples. Dunbar-Ortiz shatters the myth of “free land” and conquered Natives. She instead focuses on “the absence of a colonial framework (7),” which she believes is the reason that most historians overlook Indigenous history. In other words, historians need to view colonization as an ongoing process and not a
Mary Louise Pratt wrote the essay “Arts of the Contact Zone” with the purpose of explaining that society would benefit if people were exposed to and understood the concept of “contact zones”. She refers to contact zones as social spaces where cultures meet and clash with each other, usually with one culture being dominant over the other. A person living in a contact zone is exposed to two different cultures, two different languages, and as a result is presented with a struggle in each culture to maintain themselves. From being surrounded by several different cultures, people begin to integrate the concept of transculturation—a process in which subordinate cultures evolve by taking things from dominant, more advanced cultures, and make it their own. She also calls to attention the error of assuming that people in a community all speak the same language and all share the same motives and beliefs. Pratt insists that education and society must be reformed in such ways that introduce people to the principles of contact zones in order to gain mutual understanding of each other and acquire new wisdom. In order for this mutual understanding to be achieved, the subordinate cultures that exist need to be able to make their voices heard; this leads to the improvement of society as a whole.
The Arts of the Contact Zone by Mary Louise Pratt opened up a whole new concept for our class. 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.
The article about Indian culture is from IOR, an intercultural training organization. The article mentions Indian civilization's historic roots, and also speaks to the culture's dedication to tradition. Indians collectively define themselves through their roles within the family, follow hierarchical patterns, and take a polychronic approach to time. This extends into their communication styles, as people value
Pandey, T. N., 2014. Lecture 1/9/14: Culture of India: Aryan and Indigenous Population. Cultures of India. U.C. Santa Cruz.
2 Stein, Burton (2001), A History of India, New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiv, 432,
Nicholas B. Dirks. (2011). Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton University Press