Application of Contact Zones - Essay Example

According to Merewether (2006), contact zones are social places where culture comes together, and collide with each other. Such conflicts occur in power relationships that are asymmetrical. Louise further explains that the Art of the contact zone is an exercise of telling stories in collaborative works (Merewether, 2006). That notwithstanding, the way people suppress certain aspects of history is better described by contact zones. In that breath, some art of the time zone includes the presentation of harmony and hostility in creative works and film: theories and ways to settle conflicts, and the process of reinstating peace (Grossman, Heather E, 2013). Therefore, the presentation of conflict and tranquility at individual, local, social, and international levels form the major components of contact zones.

In that vein, media, time periods, traditions, and faculties form major points of reference while exploring a film. Consequently, zones describe and identify the origins of conflict; explain how occurrences of conflicts reach others, and strive to understand ways that ordinary statesmen can work for peace (Grossman, 2013). Mary's concept of contact zones encompasses colonialism, slavery, and results as witnessed in various parts of the world. Mary eventually uses the word to reconsider most models of communities that many people use to teach and theorize conflicts in the world today.  It is important to note that, Guaman  Poma's huge letter to Philip III exemplifies some social complexities that culminate in conquests and empires. The letter was written in two languages, Spanish and Quechua, and in two parts. Nueva is the name of the first part that was constituted of the main official discourses.

New Chronicles by Guaman Poma gives an instance that Mary proposes to call an autoethnographic text. A text that individuals undertake to describe themselves in ways that other people talk of them in presentations they make (Grossman, 2013). Unlike ethnographic texts used by people in European metropolitan subjects to represent themselves, autoethnography represents texts that the so-defined others develop in response to other texts. Important to note, autoethnographic is not equivalent to the autochthonous way of expression or self-representation that many fond mistakes. Rather, it involves choosing collaborations that can are appropriated with idioms of the conqueror (Grossman, 2013). The texts are merged and blended in at different degrees with idioms to form a self-representation that strives to get involved in the metropolitan method of understanding. Speakers use autoethnographic works on metropolitan and the community where the speaker hails from. European bourgeoisie was separated from elites from other times and places in the fact that they had the ability to attain solidarity on a basic imagined basis. The scale was way greater than that of other learned individuals (Merewether, Charles, 2006).

The major sources of conflict in the movie, DISTRICT 9, centers around discrimination, refugees, prejudice, domination, selfishness, warfare, powers of multicultural organizations, and relationships. Fisk (1998) explains that in contact zones mentioned above the question, “What does it take to be human?” comes up. This movie is set in Johannesburg, in 2010, where twenty years ago a huge foreign spacecraft came to settle above the city’s skies (Fisk, 1998).  In anticipation, the South African state organs get confused as three months pass. Curiously, the authorities board the craft only to find helpless foreign laborers without any leader. It is worth noting that the aliens did not posses phones. Therefore, it was impossible for the aliens to go home. As a result, the authorities opted to consider these foreigners as refugees.

To handle the situation at hand the South African authority requisitioned the assistance of the military arm of Multi-National United so that the aliens can be deployed to District 9. Important to understand is that the military arm deployed was not only a security force but a force in a mission to acquire the alien’s advanced travel and weapons technology. For that reason, instead of the military taking steps that aim to repair the alien’s craft and return them to their home, the authorities prevented the foreigners leave (Fisk, 1998). The military managed to prevent the aliens from departing for their home by erecting hurdles in the aliens’ activities; kidnapping; harvesting and performing tests that could lead to revealing the foreigner's technology (Costa, & Beatriz, 2008). Therefore, the South African authorities made every effort to make the aliens weaponless. Later, some pieces of the craft fell on the earth. Consequently, after an extensive search over the years failed, refugees and squatter camps inundates District 9.

Greed and selfishness is the most pronounced message District 9 put across. This greed is established through the acts exhibited by the Multi-National Union of Soldiers. Needless to mention, the foreigners practice a culture that is different from the locals, South African, traditions. The aliens were believed to be experts in technology (Costa, & Beatriz, 2008). As a result, the South Africans used all kinds of methods to ensure that the foreigners’ technology was retained by the South African authorities.

Drawing the apparel of South African’s Apartheid era, Blomkamp’s (2009) aliens constitute others. From that, the movie alludes that racial discrimination, intolerance, and marginalization as a global phenomenon rather than a local problem. As a result, refugee exploitation throughout history and in the present day, in Africa and beyond is clearly captured in the film. The persistent claim is that the refugees do not belong to South Africa (Costa, & Beatriz, 2008). Therefore, dignified treatment should not be granted to these non-residences.

Writing is an art that is well described by creativity (Costa, & Beatriz, 2008). In the film industry ingenuity is of the essence since creators are supposed to develop content that will keep the viewers intrigued and glued to the screen. Therefore, a great script writer cannot ignore the importance of styles such as autoethnographic texts used in developing a good film (Merewether, Charles, 2006).