Arts of the Contact Zone

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.

One phenomenon Pratt discusses is the issue of fake utopias, or imagined communities. In these imagined communities, she explains, “people ‘will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them or even hear of them, yet in the mind of each lives the image of their communion’” (Pratt, 507). People in these fake utopias believe that the people surrounding them share the same language, beliefs, characteristics and values that they possess, but in reality ...

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...inferior cultures are always able to adapt and learn things from larger groups, in contact zone environments the larger groups are finally able to draw things from the smaller cultures as well, and thus transculturation becomes a two-way street. Only when people are made aware of the marginal diversity that surrounds them in everyday life are they able to gain a wider understanding and deeper knowledge of the world around them. They are then able to apply that knowledge to shape and benefit the way they interact with others and operate as a part of a society that is more open, leaving behind the mistake of imagined communities and applying inaccurate definitions to groups of people.

Works Cited

Pratt, Mary Louise. “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Ways of Reading 8th Edition. Eds. David Bartholomae, A.P. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2008. 499-511.