Knowledge and Power
In Mary Louise Pratt’s “Arts of the Contact Zone”, she discusses the association of a less powerful civilization, the Andean’s, and a powerful, dominant civilization, the Spanish. The Spaniards’ lack of knowledge of the Andean civilization prevented them from realizing their true culture and made them assume that the Andean’s were an ignorant people. Poma’s learning of the Spanish culture enabled him to act as a messenger between the two civilizations and thus gain more power in relating information between them. The Spanish had much power, but they did not know much about the Andean’s, whereas Poma knew more about both cultures. In a sense, Poma had more power from his knowledge than the Spanish had knowledge from their dominant power. Therefore, knowledge is power, but knowledge does not always come with power. Guaman Poma’s letter to King Philip III shows that even though the Andeans were not as powerful as the Spanish, they were still able to develop the knowledge to communicate with people from another culture or who speak a different language. Without the ability to communicate, we feel we are lost and alone. The Spanish had no interest in learning the language of the Andeans; therefore, Poma was forced to learn Spa
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
King Spanish, King King, Spanish Spaniards, Poma King, III Andeans, English Scottish, Spain Andeans, Philip III, Andeans Poma, Contact Zone, power knowledge, andeans ignorant, gain power, knowledge power, philip iii, learning spanish, power knowledge power, king philip iii, king philip, power andeans, philip iii andeans, ignorant people, letter king, andeans ignorant spanish,
Approximate Word count = 1023
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
 |
