Arts of the Contact Zone

In Mary Louise Pratt’s words of “Arts of the Contact Zone”, a community is “held together by a homogeneous competence or grammar shared identically and equally among all the members.” (493) What she means by that is we all share the same traits. I am a member of the aviation community of The University of North Dakota. It consists of about 1,200 students and was started in 1968 by John D. Odegard. The department employs over 30 faculty members and offers the aviation education of your preferred choice. My fellow members of the UND aviation community are all identified in the department of aviation but are all characterized in their own way. For example, on page 494 Pratt talks about models involving games. “We are all involved in the same game, despite conflicts and systematic social differences.” Groups of people will have one thing in common but each person is individually different. In my case, I am an Airport Management major from Minnesota and took my private pilots course at UND. I was and am currently taking many aviation classes which means I am most likely to relate to students who are in those same classes because of our shared interest in aerospace sciences. My community lives in Grand Forks but most are from other states. We are all different ages and we are all on our own distinct level flight courses but are all involved with aviation.
In Pratt’s essay she explains that there are three types of communities. Those various communities are sovereign, limited, and fraternal. Our community is a sovereign community. We have subtle leaders like teachers and the administration. These powers help keep us together and unified. The community is also limited. Limited, according to Pratt’s essay means “finite, if elastic boundaries.” (493) These boundaries are the policies and procedures of UND aerospace. To be more specific one rule is no phones are allowed on the ramp unless there is an emergency. Another rule is your blood