Contact Zone

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Arts of the Contact Zone
In the Arts of the Contact Zone, the author Mary Louise Pratt tries to explain the affiliation of a civilization that is the central and powerful civilization of the Spanish and that which is of a lesser civilization strength, the Andeans. The highly civilized Spaniards were short of knowledge concerning the refinement of the Andean and thus that hindered them from attaining the whole culture of the latter. This moved the Spaniards to assume that the Andeans are people who are ignorant. Therefore, the ability of Poma to be able to study the culture of the Spaniards massively assisted him as he was used as a messenger by the two sides of civilization. This, in turn, helped him to gain power through relaying of information between the two cultures (Pratt 35). The Spaniards knew little regarding the Andeans though they possessed a lot of potentials.
On the other side, Poma had extensive knowledge of the two worlds. Though the Spaniards were dominating the civilization, Poma had more power due to the numerous skills he acquired. Poma’s position as a messenger had enabled him to gain a lot of information from the Spanish culture extensively. And through this extensive knowledge, Poma was able to share and assist his people to be able to understand the culture and the way of life of the Spaniards. Eventually, after a time of trading and interaction with the Spaniards, the Andeans got to learn and adopt the Spanish culture because it was the superior civilization as compared to that of the Andeans (Pratt 38).

And although as much as the Spaniards had a mighty civilization, they did not quickly get to understand the culture of the Andeans, and, therefore, they had a hard time in trying to influence them with their civilization. This validates the statement that knowledge is indeed power, even though it is not a guarantee that it comes with the supremacy.
The text is an autoethnographic text because the author has managed to write a story that is connected to her Spanish culture back in time. The book has also been able to show some transculturation because it depicts how Poma, who is an Andean, was able to learn the Spanish culture which was a foreign culture for him. The text has been able to display many qualities that entitle it to be autoethnography. It possesses a story that is of political origin which was part of the culture of the author’s civilization, which is the Spanish culture.
Work Cited
Pratt, Mary Louise. “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Profession (1991): 33-40.