Transculturation Essay example -- Literature Poem Africa Essays

TransculturationA familiar lesson in elementary history might be that a conquered peck will generally acculturate into the dominant culture of their conquerors. However, the process of how these two cultures interact is often not that simple. For example, the term transculturation was coined in the 1940s by sociologist Fernando Oritz to exposit the process by which a conquered people choose and select what aspects of the dominant culture they will assume (Pratt 589). Unlike acculturation, transculturation recognizes the power of the subordinate culture to acquire its own version of the dominant culture. In an essay entitled, The Arts of the Contact Zone, author Mary Louise Pratt argues that transculturation does not have to be confined to the social spaces where disparate cultures intersect it can be extended to everyday situations, such as the classroom. However, though Pratt recognizes that transculturation can take place on a very personalised level, she still fails to discuss the emotional nature of transculturation. An analysis of Derek Walcotts poem, A Far Cry from Africa, using scholar Homi Bhabhas concept of mimicry will give a deeper understanding of Pratts vision of transculturation by redefining it as a process of personal struggle by which each individual in a subordinate assembly is moved to choose and select which aspects of the dominant culture he or she will assume.A Far Cry From Africa is the story of a man half(prenominal) African and half English, who is witnessing the death and destruction of his homeland resulting from the English colonization of South Africa. In his description he does not, however, favor one side everywhere the other, but focuses rather on the injustices of both cultures. At the end of the po... ...Works CitedBhabha, Homi. From Of Mimicry and Man The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse in the Location of Culture, pp. 85-92. Stanford Presidential Lectures and Symposiain the Humanities and Arts. 02 March 2000. 15 Sept ember 2000. <http//prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/bhabha/biblio.html.Bradley, Heather M. Conflicting Loyalties in A Far Cry from Africa. Literature of the Caribbean. The Scholarly Technology Group, Washington and Lee University.1997. 15 September 2000. <http//landow.stg.brown.edu/post/caribbean/walcott/bradley2.html.Pratt, Mary Louise. Arts of the Contact Zone. Ways of Reading. Ed. DavidBartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. 5th ed. Boston St. Martins, 1999. 582-596.Walcott, Derek. A Far Cry from Africa. Derek Walcott Collected Poems 1948-1984.New York Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986. 17-18.