Arts of the Contact Zone

Author(s): Mary Louise Pratt

Source: Profession, ofession (1991), pp. 33-40
Published by: Modern Language Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25595469
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learned

Zone

Arts of the Contact

He

knows

up, what

often

pops first intomy mind is a conversation I overheard

son Sam and his best friend,
eightyearsago betweenmy
Willie, aged six and seven, respectively:"Why don't you
trade me Many
strum-scrum."
Carl

Yes...

Trails

for Carl

"That's

not how

. oh,

Yes..

I don't

. . .Ya

. . .Yesits

Yats

it's

say it, dummy,

you

Sam

know."

and Willie

had justdiscoveredbaseball cards.Many Trailswas their

decoding,with thehelp of first-grade
English phonics, of
were quite rightly
thenameManny Trillo.The name they
on was Carl

stumped

was

That

Yastremski.

the first time

I rememberedseeing themput theirincipientliteracyto

Iwas

their own use, and

of course

thrilled.

lot about cities, states,heights,weights, places of birth,

stagesof life.In theyears,thatfollowed, Iwatched Sam
applyhis arithmeticskillstoworking out battingaverages

and

retirement

subtracting

from

years

rookie

years;

watched him develop sensesof patterningand order by

and

arranging

rearranging his cards for hours

on end, and

aestheticjudgmentby comparingdifferent
photos,differ
ent series,
layouts, and color

schemes. American

geogra

phy and historytook shape inhismind throughbaseball

cards.Much of his social life revolved around trading
them, and he

learned about

trust, the

fairness,

exchange,

as

to results, what
it
opposed
even robbed.
taken
cheated,
of,
get
advantage
life too.
cards were the medium
of his economic
of processes

importance
to
means
Baseball
Nowhere

better

to learn

the absolute

money,

divorce

value, notions
exchange
the possibility of

ment,

dent of market

of

and

between

long-

and

of

arbitrariness
use

value

short-term

and
invest

that are indepen

personal

values

baseball

card shows, where

values.

cards meant

Baseball

the power

there

was much to be learnedabout adultworlds aswell. And

baseball cardsopened thedoor to baseball books, shelves
and

shelves of encyclopedias,
histories, biogra
magazines,
even
cartoons,
phies, novels, books of jokes, anecdotes,
poems.

Sam

learned

the

history of American

racism

and

the struggleagainst itthroughbaseball;he saw thedepres

sion and

two world

wars

from behind

home

and

and

of

experience

baseball stadiumshe thoughtabout architecture,light,

wind, topography,
meteorology, thedynamics of public
space.He learned themeaning of expertise,of knowing
about

something

well

that you can start a conver

enough

sationwith a strangerand feel sureof holding your own.

an
with an adult.
adult?especially
Through
was Sam's
out his
baseball
years,
preadolescent
history
luminous point of contact with grown-ups, his lifeline to
of course, all this time he was also
caring. And,
playing

Even with

hisway throughthestagesof the local

baseball, struggling
Little League system,luckyenough to be a prettygood
player, loving thegame and coming to know deeply his
and weaknesses.

strengths

Sam andWillie learneda lot about phonics thatyear

by tryingto decipher surnameson baseball cards, and a

and Cen

and how men

tral America

of literacy comes

the subject

Cuba,

boys do things there.Through

the history
Whenever

about

something

Japan, Taiwan,

Mary Louise Pratt

corn

of

the meaning

what itmeans for

modified labor,
one's body and talents to be
owned and dispensed by another.

Literacybegan forSam with thenewlypronounceable

names on the picture cards and brought him what has
been

most
easily the broadest,

varied, most

enduring,

and

most integratedexperienceof his thirteen-year

life.Like
was
see
to
I
many parents,
delighted
schoolinggive Sam
the toolswith which to find and open all thesedoors.At
the same timeI found itunforgivablethatschooling itself
gave him nothing remotelyasmeaningful todo, letalone
anythingthatwould actually takehim beyond the refer
ential,masculinist ethosof baseball and itslore.
However,
nor

I was

as an expert

not
on

invited here

literacy.

I was

as a parent,
to
speak
asked to speak as an

MLA member working in the elite academy. In that

capacitymy contributionisundoubtedly supposed to be
abstract,
wouldn't

irrelevant, and anchored

dream

outside

of

the real world.

anyone.

disappointing
to head back several centuries
immediately
has a few points in common with baseball cards and
about what

Sarmiento,

thoughts
to the conference,

Tony
called new visions

Peruvianist

Richard

named

I propose
to a text that
raises

in his comments

of literacy. In 1908 a
was
in
exploring

Pietschmann

theDanish Royal Archive in Copenhagen and came

The author isProfessor ofSpanish and Comparative Literature and

Director of theProgram inModern Thought and Literature at Stan
was
ford University. This paper
presented as the keynoteaddress at the
Responsibilitiesfor Literacy conferenceinPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in
September 1990.

plate. He

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Arts of theContact Zone

34

across

Itwas

manuscript.

in the city of Cuzco

dated

in

Peru, in theyear 1613, some fortyyearsafterthefinal fall

of the Inca empire to the Spanish and signedwith an
unmistakablyAndean indigenousname: Felipe Guaman
Poma de Ayala. Written in a mixture ofQuechua and
expressive

ungrammatical,

was

the manuscript

Spanish,

letteraddressed by an unknown but apparently literate

Andean to King Philip III of Spain. What stunned
was

Pietschmann

that the letterwas

twelve hundred

pages

long.There were almost eighthundred pages ofwritten

textand fourhundred of captioned linedrawings. Itwas

No
titledThe FirstNew Chronicleand Good Government.
one knew (or knows) how themanuscript got to the
No
libraryinCopenhagen or how long ithad been there.
one, itappeared, had everbothered to read itor figured
was

out how.
Quechua

not

guage

of as a written

thought

in 1908, nor Andean

lan

as a literate culture.

culture

Pietschmann prepared a paper on his find,which he

presented inLondon in 1912, a year afterthe rediscovery
ofMachu Picchu byHiram Bingham. Reception, by an
international

was

of Americanists,

congress

apparently

confused. It took twenty-five

years fora facsimileedition
to
of thework
appear, in Paris. Itwas not till the late
1970s, as positivistreadinghabitsgaveway to interpretive
studiesand colonial elitisms to postcolonial pluralisms,
Western scholars foundways of readingGuaman
that
Pomas New Chronicle and Good Government as the
letter got

tour de force that itwas.

intercultural

extraordinary

there, only 350

too late, a miracle

tragedy.
to say a few more
I propose

unreadable

to

text, in order

words
lay

about
some

out

him access

to

religious

education.

Guaman Pomas letterto theking iswritten in two lan

guages (Spanish andQuechua) and twoparts.The firstis
called theNueva coronica 'New Chronicle/ The title is
important. The

chronicle

of course was

and

American
the main

conquests

to themselves.

official discourses.

In

this term to refer to social

meet,

clash,

and

with

grapple

spaces where

each

other,

own

ends. Those

ends were,

roughly,

Andean

slavery,

or their aftermaths

as

they

the term to reconsider

many
under

of us rely on
challenge

the models

in

it?Cuzco,

Poma begins by rewritingtheChristian history of the

world fromAdam and Eve (fig. 1), incorporating the
Amerindians into it as offspringof one of the sons of
Noah. He identifies
fiveages ofChristian historythathe
links in parallelwith the fiveages of canonical Andean

history?separate but equal trajectoriesthatdivergewith

notwith Columbus butwith Saint
Noah and reintersect
tohave precededColumbus in the
claimed
Bartholomew,
Americas. In a couple of hundred pages,Guaman Poma
constructs

a veritable

encyclopedia

teaching
theorizing
a little more
today. But first

and

in con

are lived

that

that are

about Gua

man Pomas giant letterto Philip III.

Insofar as

anything

is known

about

him at all, Guaman

Poma exemplified the sociocultural complexities pro

duced

by conquest

and

empire.

He

was

an

indigenous

Andean who claimed noble Inca descent and who had

adopted (at least in some sense) Christianity.He may
haveworked in theSpanish colonial administrationas an
or assistant to a
tax collector?
interpreter, scribe,
Spanish
as a mediator,
to write from
in short. He
he
learned
says

of Inca and pre-Inca

EtPPiMERMWOO

about

of community

and

a new

at the center of
than European
peoples
not Jerusalem.
In theNew Chronicle Guaman

out inmany parts of theworld today.Eventually Iwill

use

to construct

rather

textsof highly asymmetricalrelationsof power, such as

colonialism,

one of

a "new chronicle,"

picture of theworld, a pictureof a Christianworld with

cultures

often

It constituted

writing

writingand literacyinwhat I like to call the contactzones.

I use

writing

Guaman Poma tookover theofficialSpanish genreforhis

this erstwhile
thoughts

the main

apparatus throughwhich the Spanish representedtheir

The

WEVA

years

terrible

his halfbrother,amestizowhose Spanish fatherhad given

I--^-J

Fig. 1.Adam

and Eve.

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Mary
customs,

history,

laws, social

forms, public

offices,

and

dynastic leaders.The depictions resembleEuropeanman

ners

and

customs

description,

but

also

reproduce

the

meticulous detailwith which knowledge in Inca society

was

stored on

in the oral memories

quipusznd

of elders.

Guaman PomasNew Chronicle isan instanceofwhat I

have proposed to call an autoethnographic
text,bywhich I
mean a textinwhich people undertake todescribe them
selves

in ways

that engage

with

representations

others

havemade of them.Thus ifethnographictextsare those

in which

European

metropolitan

subjects

represent

to

themselvestheirothers (usually theirconquered others),

autoethnographic

texts are

representations

that the so

definedothersconstructin responsetoor indialoguewith

texts.

texts are not, then, what

Autoethnographic
are
as autochthonous
of
forms of expres
usually thought
sion or
the
Andean
(as
self-representation
quipus were).
those

Rather they involve a selective collaboration with and

appropriation

of idioms

of the
metropolis

or the con

tovarying
queror.These aremerged or infiltrated
degrees
with

idioms
indigenous
to intervene in
intended

standing. Autoethnographic

to create

self-representations
modes
of under
metropolitan
to
works are often addressed

both

and

audiences

metropolitan

Louise Pratt

own

the speakers

35

com

munity. Their reception is thus highly indeterminate.

Such textsoftenconstituteamarginalizedgroups point of
entry into the dominant circuits of print culture. It is
to think, for
example,

interesting

slave auto

of American

biography in itsautoethnographicdimensions,which in
some

respects

it from Euramerican

distinguish

autobio

The conceptmight help explainwhy

graphical tradition.
some of the earliestpublished
writing byChicanas took
the form of folkloricmanners and customs sketches
written inEnglish and published in English-language
newspapers or folkloremagazines (seeTreviiio). Auto
ethnographic

representation

collaborations

between

often

people,

concrete

involves

as between

literate

ex

slavesand abolitionist intellectuals,or betweenGuaman

Poma

and

Often,

Inca

the

elders who

as in Guaman

were

his

informants.

it involves more

Poma,

than one

In recent decades

language.
and resistance
temporary

have

creation

critique,
autoethnography,
in a con
with
reconnected
writing
of the contact zone, the testimonio.

Guaman PomasNew Chronicleendswith a revisionist

account

of

the

which,

conquest,

Spanish

he

argues,

shouldhave been a peaceful encounterof equalswith the

potential forbenefitingboth, but for themindless greed
of the Spanish. He parodies Spanish history.Following
contact

with

the Incas,

he writes,

"In all Castille,

there

was a great commotion. All day and at

night in their
dreams

kite

the

Spaniards

were

'Yndias,

saying

yndias,

oro,

plata, oro, platadel Piru'" ("Indies, Indies, gold, silver,

gold, silverfromPeru") (fig.2). The Spanish, he writes,
brought nothing of value to sharewith theAndeans,
nothing

"but armor and guns

con

la codicia

de oro, plata,

oro y plata, yndias, a lasYndias, Piru" ("with the lustfor

gold, silver,gold and silver, Indies, the Indies, Peru")
(372). I quote thesewords as an example of a conquered
subject

parodic,

using

to construct
language
of
the
conquerors
representation

the conquerors

oppositional

own speech.Guaman Poma mirrorsback to the

Spanish
(in their language,which is alien to him) an image of

themselves that theyoften suppress and will therefore

surely recognize.
ing,

and

Such

representation

are the

dynamics of language, writ

in contact zones.

The second halfof the epistlecontinues thecritique. It

is titledBuen gobiernoy justicia 'Good Government and
Justice'and combines a descriptionof colonial society in

Fig. 2. Conquista. Meeting of Spaniard and Inca. The Inca says

inQuechua,
"You eat this gold?" Spaniard replies in
Spanish,
"We eat this gold."

theAndean regionwith a passionate denunciation of

Spanish exploitation and abuse. (These, at the timehe
was writing,were
decimating thepopulation of the j^ndes
at a genocidal rate. In fact,the
potential lossof the labor
force became

a main

cause

for reform

of the
system.)

Guaman Pomas most implacablehostility is invokedby

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Arts of theContact Zone

36

or colo
the clergy,followed by thedreaded corregidorest
nial overseers(fig.3). He also praises good works, Chris
tianhabits, and justmen where he finds them,and offers
at

as to what

views
length his

constitutes

"good

to reform

the empire?a

dialogue

across

imagined

themany lines thatdivide theAndean scribe from the

monarch, and inwhich the subordinatedsubject
imperial
single-handedlygives himselfauthorityin the colonizers
language

and verbal

repertoire.

In a way,

itworked?this

extraordinarytextdid getwritten?but
not, for the letter never

reached

in a way itdid

its addressee.

To grasp the importofGuaman Pomas project, one

needs to keep inmind that the Incas had no systemof
writing.Their huge empire is said to be theonly known
instanceof a full-blownbureaucratic state societybuilt
and administered

without

writing.

Guaman

Poma

con

structshis textby appropriatingand

adapting pieces of
the representationalrepertoireof the invaders.He does

term

the

used

govern

ment and justice." The Indies, he argues, should be

administeredthrougha collaborationof Inca and Spanish
elites.The epistle endswith an imaginaryquestion-and
answer session inwhich, in a reversalof
hierarchy,the
is
Guaman
Poma
king depicted asking
questions about
how

not simplyimitateor reproduceit;he selectsand

adapts it
to
Andean
lines
mind
express (bilingually,
along
you)
Andean interestsand aspirations. Ethnographers have
to describe

transculturation

processes

wherebymembers of subordinated ormarginal groups

selectand inventfrommaterials transmittedby a domi
nant or

culture. The

metropolitan

term, originally

coined

byCuban sociologistFernandoOrtiz in the 1940s, aimed

to

replace

overly

assimilation

used

reductive

and
concepts of acculturation
to characterize
culture under conquest.

While subordinatepeoples do not usually controlwhat

emanatesfrom thedominant culture,
theydo determine
to

varying

extents what

into their own

gets absorbed

and

what itgetsused for.Transculturation,likeautoethnogra

phy,

is a

of the contact

phenomenon

zone.

As scholarshave realized only relativelyrecently,the

transcultural

character

of Guaman

Pomas

text is intri

catelyapparent in itsvisual aswell as itswritten compo

nent. The genre of the four hundred line
drawings is
seems

European?there
resentational

to have

among

drawing

no

been

the Incas?but

tradition

of rep

in their exe

cution theydeploy specifically

Andean systemsof spatial
symbolism

that express Andean

values

and aspirations.1

In figure1, for instance,Adam is

depicted on the left
hand side below the sun,while Eve ison the right-hand
side below themoon, and slighdylowerthanAdam. The
two are divided by the
diagonal ofAdams digging stick.
InAndean spatial symbolism, thediagonal
descending
from the sunmarks thebasic lineof power and authority
male from female,dominant
dividing upper from lower,
from subordinate. In figure2, the Inca appears in the
same position asAdam, with theSpaniard
opposite, and
the two at the sameheight. In figure3, depictingSpanish
abuses of power, the symbolicpattern is reversed.The
Spaniard is in a high position indicatingdominance, but
on the "wrong"
(right-hand)side.The diagonals of his
lance and thatof the servantdoing the flogging
mark out
a line of
The
Andean
real,
power.
illegitimate,though
to
continue
the
left-hand
side
of
thepic
occupy
figures
ture, but clearly as victims. Guaman

Poma wrote

that the

Spanish conquest had produced "unmundo al reves" 'a

world in reverse/
In sum, Guaman
contact

zone.

If one

crete, coherently
man

de minas.
Fig. 3. Corregidor
force.
labor
indigenous

Catalog

of Spanish

abuses

of

Pomas

text is
a
Pomas
truly
product of the
thinks of cultures, or literatures, as dis

structured, monolingual
edifices, Gua
indeed any
work,
autoethnographic

text, and

appearsanomalous or chaotic?as itapparendydid to the

European scholarsPietschmann spoke to in 1912. Ifone
does not thinkof culturesthisway, thenGuaman Pomas
text is simply
heterogeneous, as theAndean regionwas
itselfand remains today.Such a text isheterogeneouson

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Louise Pratt

Mary
as the

end as well

the reception

end:

production

itwill

read

topeople indifferent
verydifferently
positions in thecon
tact zone.

it

Because

tems of
meaning

and Andean

European

deploys

the letter necessarily

making,

sys

means

mean

or
to monocultural
readers, Spanish
differently
to the
and to bicultural
readers responding
structures embodied
in
Andean
genres.
symbolic
European

more

Poma's
text,
and, like Guaman
pressing,
to those who once would have
decipherable
ignored
them in defense of a stable, centered sense of
knowledge

visible,
more

and

to bilingualSpanish-Quechua speakersand to
differently
monolingual speakers in either language; thedrawings

37

reality.

Contact and Community

Andean,

In theAndes in the early 1600s thereexisteda literate

with

public

of

degrees

considerable

and

intercultural

competence
such a commu

Unfortunately,

bilingualism.

nitydid not exist in theSpanish courtwith which Gua

man
note

Poma was

to make contact. It is
to
trying
interesting
that in the same year Guaman
Poma sent off his let

ter, a text by another

was

Peruvian

in official cir

adopted

cles in Spain as the canonical Christian mediation

between the Spanish conquest and Inca history. Itwas
anotherhuge encyclopedicwork, titled theRoyal Com

mentaries

of

the Incas, written,

tellingly, by

a mestizo,

Inca

Garcilaso de laVega. Like themestizo half brotherwho

to read and write,

Guaman
Poma
taught
was the son of an Inca
princess
had lived in Spain since he was
without

life'swork

and a

illustrations.

sat somewhere

Guaman

While
the

unread,

Royal Commentaries

was edited and reedited in Spain and theNew World, a

mediation
ways

that coded

thought

textual

the Andean

unthreatening

hierarchy

persists:

past

to colonial
the

hierarchy.2

Commentaries

Royal

in

and present
The

today

remainsa staple itemon PhD reading lists in Spanish,

while theNew Chronicle and Good Government,despite
the ready availability of several fine editions, is not. How
text did not reach its desti
Poma's
ever, though Guaman
currents
the transcultural
of expression
it
nation,
to evolve in the Andes,
as
continued
still
exemplifies
they
do, less inwriting than in storytelling, ritual, song, dance
drama, painting and sculpture, dress, textile art, forms of
governance,

religious

art forms. All

intractable,

express

unequal

Autoethnography,
tion,

bilingualism,

belief,

and many

the effects of

other vernacular

long-term

contact

and

conflict.
transculturation,
mediation,

critique,

parody,

denunciation,

are
vernacular
imaginary
dialogue,
expression?these
some of the literate arts of the contact zone.
Miscompre
dead
hension,
letters, unread master
incomprehension,
absolute
are
of
pieces,
heterogeneity
meaning?these
some of the
zone.
contact
in
the
perils of writing
They all
live among us
in the transnationalized
today
metropolis

of theUnited States and are becoming more widely

much
and

language,
in the
academy.

of the
culture

of years

couple

ago,

thinkingabout the linguistictheories I knew, I tried to

sense

make

characterize

of a Utopian

of

analyses
language
seen as
in
living
"speech

were

Languages

that often

quality

social

to

seemed

by the academy.
communities,"

and thesetended to be theorizedas discrete,self-defined,

coherent

petence

entities, held
or

modern

Benedict

nations

Anderson

calls

of what

exception

other

themselves

calls

In a

communities."3

observes

he

among
commu

the Utopian
as what

things,

of

"imagined

exist as

communities

and equally

idea of the speech

conceive

com

homogeneous

identically

abstract

of that title, Anderson

book
ble

This

to reflect, among

nity seemed

together by

shared

grammar

all the members.

that with

the possi

"primordial

imagined

entitles

villages,"
inwhich

"will never know most of their fellow-members,

people
meet them or even hear of them,
yet in the minds of each
the

lives
are

of their communion."

image

he goes

distinguished,"

on

"Communities

to say, "not
by their fal

but by thestyleinwhich theyare imag

sity/genuineness,
ined"
features

Anderson
three
mine).
proposes
emphasis
that characterize
the style inwhich
the modern

(15;

nation is imagined. First, it is imagined as limited,by

"finite,

if elastic,

sovereign-, and,

boundaries";

third,

it is

as
it is
imagined
as
"a
fraternal,
deep,

second,

imagined

horizontalcomradeship"forwhich millions of people are

prepared "not somuch tokill aswillingly todie" (15).As
the image

suggests,

the

is embodied

nation-community

metonymically in thefinite,sovereign,fraternal
figureof
the citizen-soldier.
Anderson

collabora

that underlie

communication,

that gets done

human

Poma's

about

in part to con

is intended

ideas of community

thinking

way

Spanish official, and

seventeen.
he too
Though
in
iswritten
standard
eloquent,

his book

spoke Quechua,
Spanish,

Inca Garcilaso

zone

idea of the contact

The

trast with

argues

that European

bourgeoisies

were

dis

tinguishedby theirability to "achieve solidarityon an

essentiallyimaginedbasis" (74) on a scale fargreaterthan
thatof elitesof other timesand places.Writing and liter

main
acy play a central role in this argument. Anderson
instrument that made
tains, as have others, that the main
bourgeois nation-building
italism. The commercial
ous

European

created

the

projects

vernaculars,
invisible

possible

circulation
he

networks

was

of books

argues,

was

that would

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print cap
in the vari
what

first

eventually

Arts of theContact Zone

38

constitute

the

literate

and

elites

those

they

as

ruled

nations. (Estimatesare that 180million bookswere put

into circulation inEurope between theyears 1500 and
1600 alone.)

Now obviously this style of imagining of modern

as Anderson

nations,

it, is strongly

describes

Utopian,

a lot nicer,

"they're

analysis with

coherent

the societies

have given.

and the speech

community.
language
out how modern
commentators
have pointed
a
assume
as code and competence
of
language
about

Many
views

unifiedand homogeneous socialworld inwhich language

a device,

exists as a shared

for

patrimony?as
precisely,
a
shared
An
universally
image of
imagining community.
mani
The
is
of
the
also
part
picture.
prototypical
literacy

festationof language isgenerallytakento be the speechof

individual

adult

sure's famous

native

face-to-face

speakers
in
monolingual,
short, the most

case
homogeneous
same goes forwritten com
a
theory
certainly imagine

socially. The
linguistically
one could
Now
munication.
and

that assumed

even monodialec

diagram)

tal situations?in

different

things?that

that the most

(as in Saus

revealing speech
was one
involving
ing language
two
of whom
spoke
languages

argued,

situation
a

for instance,

for understand

of people each
gathering
a third
and understood

and held only one language in commonwith any of the

others.
want

on what
of language
It depends
you
workings
to
or
to see first, on what you choose
see
want
to
as normative.

define
In

keeping

with

analyses

munity,

of

principles

language
and
of cooperation

normally

in effect. Descriptions

people

fraternal models

autonomous,

in conversation,

use

commonly

of com

assume

that

are
shared understanding
of interactions between

classrooms,

medical

and bureau

cratic settings, readily take it for granted that the situation

set of rules or norms shared
a
is
by all
single
governed by
The analysis focuses then on how those rules
participants.
an
or fail to
orderly, coherent exchange.
produce
produce
to
are often used
moves
and
Models
games
involving
conflicts or sys
whatever
interactions. Despite
describe

tematic social differences

might be inplay, it isassumed

are
in the same game and
that all participants
engaged
it is. But
that the game is the same for all players. Often
it often is not, as, for example, when
of course
speakers
are from different classes or cultures, or one party is exer
to it or ques
is
and another
submitting
cising authority
to a new
it. Last year one of my children moved
tioning

and
school that had more open classrooms
elementary
school he
more flexible curricula
than the conventional

a lot less rules. But

they have

and

him
said,

know why they're

nicer?" "Why?" I asked. "So you'll obey
all the rules theydon't have," he replied.This is a very
tory power,

thought

in. A

it was

which
liberty,
embodyingvalues likeequality,fraternity,

often profess but systematically fail to realize.

com
nation as
of the modern
The prototype
imagined
to
in
it seemed
me, mirrored
ways people
munity was,

few days into the term, we asked

he
like at the new school.
"Well,"

out

started
what

not

linguistic(or literate)interactionisdescribed in

When

terms of orderliness,
only

and explana
elegance
the one his teacher would

considerable

but probably

games,
are

moves

legitimate

or

moves,

actually

named

scripts, usually
as part of the

system,where legitimacy isdefined from the point of

in
of what
authority?regardless
see themselves as
doing. Teacher-pupil

view of the party

parties might

other
lan

guage, forexample, tends to be described almost entirely

of view

from the point

of the teacher

and

teaching,

not

from thepoint of view of pupils and pupiling (theword

even exist,
If a
the
though
thing certainly does).
as
a
and
is analyzed
social world
unified
classroom
stu
with respect to the teacher, whatever
homogenized
the teacher specifies is invisible
dents do other than what
doesn't

can be true in
practice

to the
analysis. This

or anomalous

the one
grader,
was
writ
all
the
rules
didn't
have,
they
given
busy obeying
a series
that took the form of answering
ing assignments
to build up a
These
of questions
questions
paragraph.
as well.

On

several

occasions

fourth

my

of those in
with the interests
oftenasked him to identify

power

over

authorities.

him?parents,
He
invariably

teachers,
sought ways

doctors,
public
to resist or subvert

for instance, called

One
these assignments.
assignment,
students were
invention." The
"a helpful
for imagining
to the
asked to write single-sentence
responses
following
questions:

would help you?

What kind of invention
How would ithelp you?
Why would you need it?
What would it look like?

Would otherpeople be able to use italso?

What would be an inventiontohelp your teacher?
What
Manuel's

would
reply

be an invention

to

help your parents?

read as follows:
A grate adventchin

Some inventchinsareGRATE!!!!!!!!!!! My inventchinwould be a

shot thatwould put every thingyou learnat school inyour brain.
me
Itwould help me by letting
graduate rightnow!! Iwould need
itbecause itwould letme play with my freinds,go on vacachin

and, do fun a lotmore. Itwould look like a regular shot.Ather

use to.This inventchinwould help my teacherpar
peaple would
ents get away from a lot ofwork. I think a shot like thiswould
be GRATE!

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Louise Pratt

Mary
the

Despite

the assignment

spelling,

the usual

received

starto indicatethe taskhad been fulfilledinan acceptable

No

way.

recognition

the structures

ody

of

however,

available,

to be critical or contestatory,

the attempt

humor,

was

of authority. On

the

to par

that score, Manuel's

luck was

Poma's. What
only slightly better than Guaman
is the place of unsolicited
discourse, parody,
oppositional
commu
in the
classroom
resistance, critique
imagined

nity?Are teacherssupposed to feel thattheirteachinghas

been most

successful

when

they have

eliminated

such

thingsand unified the socialworld, probably in theirown

Who wins when we do that?
Who loses?
image?

Such questions may be hypothetical, because in the

United States in the 1990s,many teachersfind them
selves

less and

to do

less able

that even

if

they

want

to.

The composition of thenational collectivityis changing

so are the
as Anderson
styles,

and
being

In the

imagined.

it, in which

put
in many

1980s

it is

nation-states,

imaginednational synthesesthathad retainedhegemonic

force

to dissolve.

began

Internal

social groups with

histo

riesand lifewaysdifferentfrom theofficialones began

insisting

on those histories

and

as the
very mode

izenship,

as

lifeways

part

of

their cit
in the

of their
membership

national collectivity.In theirdialogues with dominant

institutions,

many

groups

began

asserting

a rhetoric

of

belonging thatmade demands beyond thoseof represen

tation and basic
we

from above. In universities

rights granted
to hear, "I don't
want you to let me be
just

started

here, Iwant tobelonghere; thisinstitutionshouldbelong

to me

have

as much

as it does

with,

responded

diversity
moment

to anyone
other

among

and multiculturalism
is up for

grabs

else."
things,

whose

across

the

Institutions
rhetorics

at this

import

spectrum.

ideological

These shiftsare being livedout by everyone

working in
education
one way
tional

today, and
or another.

challenged
of us committed

Those
are

democracy

is

everyone

particularly

by them in
to educa
as

challenged

that

notion finds itselfbesieged on thepublic agenda.Many

of those who

govern

us

display,

electorate.

quiescent,

ignorant, manipulable
of an
enlightened
have
from
the national
disappeared
the concept

ideal,

their interest in a

openly,

as an

Even

seems

citizenry

imagination.

to

cou

where Iworkwent through

ple of yearsago theuniversity
an intense and

debate

wrenching

Western-culture

requirement

over a

that had

narrowly
been

defined

instituted

therein 1980. Itkept boiling down to a debate over the

ideas

of national

imagined

cultural

patrimony,
In the end,

community.

and

citizenship,
the requirement

was

transformedinto a much more broadly defined course

called
change,

Cultures,
a new

Ideas, Values.4
course was

designed

In the context
that centered

of the
on

Americas and themultiple culturalhistories (including

the

that have

ones)

European

the course

here. As

intersected
a

attracted

you

can

very diverse

student body.
imagine,
not
a
com
The classroom
functioned
like homogeneous
or a horizontal
a
contact
zone.
alliance but like
munity
text we read stood in
historical
rela
specific
single
to the students
in the class, but the range and
tionships
were enormous.
in
variety of historical
relationships
play

Every

we read,but
Everybodyhad a stake innearlyeverything
the rangeand kind of stakesvariedwidely.
It was

we had ever done,

the most
exciting
teaching
at how
the hardest. We were struck, for
example,
in a contact zone
anomalous
the formal lecture became
and also

can

(who

Ata

forget

down
huallpa throwing
the Bible because it
would not speak to

him?). The lecturer's

traditional (imagined)
the

task?unifying
in the
world
eyes

class's

means

by

of

that

monologue

rings

equally coherent, reveal

true for all,
ing, and
forging
munity,
with

supposedtofeel that

their teaching has

been most successful
when theyhave

unifiedthesocial
world,probably in
their own image?

homogeneous
to one's

respect

own words?this

in the

and

knowledge

very nature

the line. All

but
impossible
one had to work

said was

one

going

in

radically heterogeneous
able nor entitled to
prescribe.

of the course

the students

ence, for example,

only

Instead,

unimaginable.
that whatever

systematically
that we were neither
The

not

task became

received

on

Are teachers

an ad hoc com

anomalous
of

39

of

hearing

put

ideas and

in the class had

their culture

to be
ways

identities
the experi

discussed

and

objectified inways thathorrifiedthem; all the students

saw theirroots tracedback to
legaciesof both gloryand
shame;

all the students

rance and

experienced

incomprehension,
ity,of others. In the absence

face-to-face

and

the
igno
the hostil

occasionally
of community
values and the
was easy to
of
it
the
the
hope
synthesis,
positives;
forget
that kinds of
once
fact, for instance,
marginalization
were
taken for
gone. Virtually
every student was
granted

having theexperienceof seeing theworld describedwith

him or her in it.

with rage,
and
Along
incomprehension,
moments
there were
of wonder
and
pain,
exhilarating
and new wisdom?the
revelation, mutual
understanding,
contact zone. The
and revelations
joys of the
sufferings
to be sure,
were, at different moments
experienced
by
every student. No one was excluded, and no one was safe.

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40

Arts of theContact Zone

The

fact that no one was

the course

appreciate
call "safe houses." We
intellectual

spaces where

as horizontal,

all of us involved

safe made

in

the importance of what we came to

used the term to refer to social and
can constitute

groups

homogeneous,

themselves

communities

sovereign

with

of trust, shared understandings,

temporary
high degrees
iswhy, as we
of oppression. This
from
protection
legacies
curricula should not seek to replace
realized, multicultural
ethnic

or women's

studies,

there are

for example. Where

legaciesof subordination,groups need places forhealing

and mutual

safe houses

recognition,

inwhich

to construct

claims on the world

understandings,
knowledges,
zone.
can
contact
that they
then bring into the
course
our
in the Americas
remains to
Meanwhile,
job
out how to make
that crossroads
the best site for
figure
shared

are lookingforthepedagogical
learningthatitcan be.We
zone. These

arts of the contact

will

include, we

are sure,

Notes
'For an introduction in English to these and other aspects of
Pomas work, see Rolena Adorno. Adorno and Mercedes

Guaman

Lopez-Baralt pioneered the study ofAndean symbolic systems inGua

man Poma.
2It is farfromclear that theRoyal Commentarieswas as benign as the
a
Spanish seemed to assume. The book certainly played role inmain
taining the identityand aspirations of indigenous elites in theAndes. In
themid-eighteenth century, a new edition of theRoyal Commentaries
a
suppressed by Spanish authorities because itspreface included
Peru
and
Sir
Walter
that
the
would
invade
English
prophecy by
Raleigh

was

restorethe Incamonarchy.
3The discussion of community here is summarized frommy essay
"LinguisticUtopias."
"For information about this program and the contents of courses
taught in it,write Program inCultures, Ideas, Values (CIV), Stanford
Univ., Stanford,CA 94305.

with the ideas,

exercisesin storytelling
and in identifying
and attitudes

interests, histories,
transculturation

of others;

and collaborative

work

in
experiments
in the arts of

and

critique, parody, and comparison (including unseemly

comparisons
the

between

redemption

elite and vernacular

of the oral; ways

cultural

for people

forms);

to engage

with suppressedaspects of history (including theirown

histories),

ways

authenticity;

to move

ground

out

of
0/rhetorics
across lines
rules for communication
into and

of differenceand hierarchythatgo beyond politenessbut

maintain
important

a
respect;
systematic approach
of
cultural
mediation. These
concept

mutual

to the all
arts were

in every room at the extraordinary Pittsburgh con

play
ference on literacy. I learned a lot about them there, and I
am thankful.
in

Works

Cited_

Adorno, Rolena. Guaman Poma de Ayala: Writing and Resistance in

Colonial Peru. Austin: U ofTexas P, 1986.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflectionson theOrigins
and Spread ofNationalism. London: Verso, 1984.
Garcilaso de laVega, El Inca. Royal Commentaries of theIncas. 1613.
Austin: U ofTexas P, 1966.
Poma de Ayala, Felipe. El primer nueva coronica y buen
Murra and Rolena Adorno. Mex
gobierno.Manuscript. Ed. John
ico: Siglo XXI, 1980.

Guaman

Pratt,Mary Louise. "Linguistic Utopias." The Linguistics ofWriting.

Ed. Nigel Fabb et al.Manchester: Manchester UP, 1987. 48-66.
Trevino, Gloria. "Cultural Ambivalence
tion."Diss. StanfordU,

in Early Chicano

1985.

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