Contact zone: An environment where cultures collide and are brought together through
communication. Can sometimes cause misunderstandings with cultural differences but mostly
helps both parties understand the other more.
Ethnography: The study of varying cultures and people.
Autoethnography: Using your own variances in a culture.
Safe Houses: A space where people can find a safe haven while connecting to people with the
same identity.
Examples:
Addy: Anytime she is in theatre and the LGBTQ community comes together it is a safe house.
Rachel: I have a safe house in my therapy groups and meetings.
Dylan: Hanging out with his friends who he says are all outcasts.
Contact zone- “...social spaces or where cultures meet, clash and gravel with each other often
in context of highly asymmetrical relations of power.” (3)
Example: Colonialism or slavery
A place, opposite of safe houses, where people of different backgrounds and identities
meet to curate a kind of debate with one another. These people fight for their specific
representational view, working for their ideals to hold the most power amidst differing
peoples.
Ethnography- opposite of autoethnography; a text that one writes about themselves,
undertaking the same representation and othering ideas of themself that autoethnography does
as well
Autoethnography- “A text in which people undertake to describe themselves in ways that
engage with representation others have made of them.” (4)
A text adapted for oneself in order to forward the idea of the way they see themselves
represented by other people.
Safe houses- “We used the term to to refer to social and intellectual spaces where groups can
constitute themselves as horizontal, homogenous, sovereign communities with high degrees of
trust, shared understandings, temporary protection, from legacies of oppression.” (9)
A group of individuals who come together to share their own experiences and cultural or
ethnic background/ways that they are unique. It is a place for these people to share
understandings of themselves where they will not be judged or slighted because of these
modes of representation that they identify with.
Safe house- Emerson classrooms (Rachel), AMC, movement class (hailey) Dorm Room (Millan)
Contact zone- dining room table on Christmas 2020 (Rachel), working retail (hailey),Living in
Texas (Millan)
Contact Zone:
Refers to social spaces where cultures meet, cloth, and grapple with each other, often in
“highly asymmetrical relations of power” like slavery, colonialism, etc.
Ethnography:
A piece of text that represents an opposing or “other” side. Autoethnographies are
normally in response to ethnographies.
Autoethnography:
Autoethnographic texts, unlike their ethnographic counterparts, are forms of
self-representation that involve the “selective collaboration with an appropriation of idioms of the
[conqueror]. Autoethnographic works are often made for both city audiences and the speaker's
own community, and thus their reception is quite volatile.
-
transculturation, critique, collaboration, bilingualism, mediation, parody, denunciation, imaginary
dialogue, vernacular expression--these are some of the literate arts of the contact zone.
Safe Houses: ​
We used the term to refer to social and intellectual spaces where groups can constitute
themselves as horizontal, homogeneous, sovereign communities with high degrees of trust,
shared understandings, and temporary protection from legacies of oppression. -- A safe space
for learning without fear
Responses:
Twisha – “Safe Houses”: whatever I travel to instruct scuba diving, I always meet locals, or the
people who im teaching. They belong to different professions and it is always a trip with so
much learning in completely different levels and discussions. Just late nights after dives, on the
beach, where everyone is not defined by their age, their profession but just different people
communicating has a soothing yet fascinating aura
Tom – “Safe Houses”: If I were to remember a place where I considered myself to be in a
socially and intellectually safe space, my mind goes to my old IB film classroom. Every time I
was in there, I felt that I could say whatever I felt and everyone around me would have a similar
take to it. It’s different from Emerson College in that I’ve known most of the kids in that class for
years, and also because I think I’ve bonded myself to my IB teacher, who was always
understanding and helpful in my high school years. I miss it from time to time.
Evelyn – “Safe Houses”: A place where I can always feel safe and in my comfort zone is a place
that relates to theater. The common interest shared between me and everyone else allows me
to feel like my most comfortable self right off the bat. There is a shared understanding of who we
are and what we do and that is comfortable. The language we share is the same and someone
outside of it might not fully understand it. Theater is a safe house for me.