one,”according to Pratt, is where two cultures “meet, clash, and grapple with eachother”(625). “Ethnography” is a story where the superior writes about theinferior, while “autoethnography” is the opposite, telling a story by the inferiorabout the superior. As the cultures clash, the winner gets to tell the story. The winner is usually the one who has the superior power. Pratt brings upthis idea while she discusses two authors: de la Vega and Poma. De laVega’s “ethnographic text” illustrates the relationship between the Incas andthe Spanish during the conquering of the Inca’s land. On the other hand,Poma’s “autoethnographic text” on this historical account contains conflictingideas. But both of these essays are sent to the king of Spain. Which essay isread by the king? For one, it is not Poma’s essay since it is [s]uch a text is heterogeneous on the reception end as well as theproduction end: it will read very differently to people in differentpositions in the contact zone...it deploys systems of meaningmaking, the letter necessarily means differently to bilingualSpanish-Quechua speakers and to monolingual speakers in eitherlanguage (536)With such a language barrier between who Poma is trying to make contact with,the Spanish King, allows his letter to be lost. But de la Vega, who is a son of aSpanish official, writes his letter to the King of Spain. De la Vega also spokeQuechua, but “ his book is written in eloquent, standard Spanish, withoutillustrations” (536). This allows the Spanish people, the main target for hisessay, to read and understand the history. So the victor, de la Vega, gets to tellhis story about the Incas and the clashing since he is the superior culture. Notonly does Pratt write about such types of texts and “contact zones,” so doesTompkins.Tompkins essay also deals with the various writings o...
