Cultural Identity and Contact Zone - Essay Example

College Contact Zone I once experienced interpellation from a community around a renowned tourist destination in Asia. Besides visiting beautiful holiday destinations as a tourist, am fond of mingling with local communities and learning about their culture and beliefs, which is a thrilling experience. Am an extrovert and making friends is one of my hobbies that encourages me to experience different cultures and ways of life in every destination I seek to visit. In other words, I do not spend much time in hotels but love strolling and meeting the local communities around my destination. It happened that I befriended a tour guide who promised to take me deep into the communal areas to meet people and learn their culture someday before returning home. The problem was that on arriving in the rural area, I was embarrassed by having many people from the community following us and making some funny jokes about my dressing that was very different from theirs. In summers, am used to wearing light clothing that expose most of the body to enjoy the sun bath and the freshness of the weather in my destinations. However, the community I visited was a conservative one that adorned in clothes that covered almost the entire body. I could clearly tell they were making fun of my clothing. When having lunch, as I liked having new delicacies from native communities, the type of food that was served was very different to what I was used to. From that time, I could read some negative reactions from the people I had visited and even the person I head befriended was involved in some jokes that made fun of me. Considering am not used to working in the garden, I made an ugly scene trying to learn farming using animals to plough. The reaction in the entire contact with the community was that I was a fool who did not know the best things to eat and one that could not work. From the interpretations that I got, I learned that the locals were remarking that people of my type were a lazy lot who could not do any physical activity or wear decent clothing to cover the body. From the experience, a contact zone is influenced by the extent of adherence to beliefs and values in a community and the degree to which such a community recognizes and embraces defying cultures. The community in question was a conservative one that followed strict codes of behaviour and values. Anyone who failed to abide by these values was a laughing stock and an outcast not welcome in the community. Pratt (37) suggested that a person surrounded and living in a particular culture will develop a strong belief that their culture is much better than other cultures out there, and will look down upon anyone practicing a different culture. This influence was manifested in the community above. Most of the indigenous people do not travel but live in strong communal ties separated into several clans, with each clan having a strict code of values and behaviours to follow. As a result, anyone with different behaviours or values was an intruder whose behaviour had to be ignored with a “disgusting” attitude. Concerning the dressing code, the community had a strong belief that wearing exposing clothing was a taboo that an adult was not supposed to be indulged in. A pair of summer shorts and a small vest was not considered decent clothing, and from the observation, there was a sense of disgust especially from the elders. Communities are differentiated not by their genuineness, nevertheless by the stylishness in which such communities are imagined (Pratt 37). Judging from the entire reception and treatment while in the community, it was evident that the community had a perception and belief that I lacked values and discipline. The fact that I could not participate in farm activities effectively or other strenuous physical activities such as using animals in the farm suggested I was lazy compared to their fellow communal members. The main problem was that the community lacked any insight regarding western communities or life and cultures in the western world, leading to the judgment that their culture was the only culture that held to good values; any one that did not abide by such values lacked morals and expertise to feed a family through farming. The case was worsened by the fact that most of the community members had not seen someone from a different colour and due to the high illiteracy levels in the area, there were very few young individuals able to speak a single international language. This made communication impossible; it was not possible to explain anything about my culture or the values that people in the western world hold. The treatment was based on deceptive beliefs about people with different cultures and language. Otherwise, it was a manifestation of the utopian concerning the manner of how some people conceive themselves in relation to the outer world (Pratt, 37). Moreover, it is responsible for making the contact zone between two communities uncomfortable. It is such perception that leads to stereotyping of a particular culture as superior compared to the rest. Such perception is responsible for disharmony and prejudice among some communities that have a superiority perception regarding their culture compared to others, as the community in question portrayed. Hall (244) noted that differences along communities emerge due to differences in socio-cultural borders relating to the community, and especially those formed by race, ethnicity, religion, social status, language, gender among others. However, Hall emphasized that such borders are rarely fixed, considering they are only attached to ethnicity and the ethnic identity of individuals. Therefore, to deal with cases of interpellation, there is a need to deal closely with the above cases with an aim of abolishing any perception of superiority of one culture over the rest. Moreover, Hall (143) suggested that social –cultural borders are the building blocks for ethnicity, and that these borders guarantee a community their survival and cohesion. Dealing with such borders would make it possible to erase any perception of ethnic differences, as the entire relationship has to submit to the diaspora community, which observes a single culture. Therefore, one way to deal with cases of interpellations is to have people intermingle with new cultures to learn about the importance of the cultures and the values held in these cultures. Moreover, there would be a need to have people from different cultures holding common communal initiatives to learn from one another and to dissolve the strong bonds that are put in place by the ethnic borders. Education is an important involvement that can help in diffusing the barriers that exist between people of different ethnic backgrounds. When people leave their community and native land to a far community that has different values and cultures, such people are enlightened on the best ways to deal and live with people from different cultural backgrounds, and appreciate the differences that exist between them. This implies that there should be more advocacies for young people to shift from their ancestral homes to other communities to learn about different cultures. This would dissolve the perception that one’s culture is superior to the rest, which is the main ingredient in interpellation. To deal with interpellations, one is supposed not to react, but accept the fact that such people lack the knowledge about the values held by other cultures. Instead of striving to fit in a new culture to avoid the interpellations, one should stick to their cultural values, but accept and respect the values held by other cultures. Learning about other cultures to understand them and not reacting is the best way to react to interpellations. Reacting violently due to interpellations may worsen the situation and lead to widening of the ethnic gap between two cultural groups. Consequently, any contact zone with a community will mainly depend on the details in which values and beliefs are held, and the attitudes of the community towards other differing cultures. Work Cited Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” In Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader. Ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur. Bodim, UK: Blackwell P, 2003 Pratt, L. Mary. Arts of the Contact Zone. Profession (1999), 33-40. 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