Contact zone

In ethnography, a contact zone is a conceptual space where different cultures interact.

In a 1991 keynote address to the Modern Language Association titled "Arts of the Contact Zone", Mary Louise Pratt introduced the concept, saying "I use this term to refer to 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 lived out in many parts of the world today".^[1][2] Pratt described a site for linguistic and cultural encounters, wherein power is negotiated and struggle occurs.

Although when introduced this term was in the context of literacy and literary theories, the term has been appropriated to conversations across the humanities and has been used in the context of feminist theory, critical race theory, postcolonial theory and in discussions of teaching and pedagogy. The contact zone is similar to other concepts that address relationality and contiguity such as positionality, standpoint theory, perspectivism, intersectionality, and relationality.^[3]