States Edward Said Analysis

Transculturation in Palestinians’ Lives
There are so many different texts that are out there. People from different cultures and communities write texts that we usually do not take seriously. We do not want to see their point of view about things. We just want them to understand our point of view. “States” by Edward Said is a transcultural text. A contact zone is the space in which transculturation takes place. Mary Pratt defines “Transculturation is a process whereby members of subordinated or marginal groups select and invent from materials transmitted by a dominant metropolitan culture” (323). Palestinians are surrounded by dominant cultures. Pratt uses “transcultural” to describe the dominant groups or cultures because there are so many
Said first introduces the photo. He describes what is going on in the photo in a very detailed way. Said describes the photos as if he was there. He is the one who took the photo and now he is trying to put all the pieces together. For example in the first photo, he mostly focuses on the car and leaves out the children in the background and the building behind the wedding people. I think he isolates the car because he want to make a point how the Palestinians are isolated from the rest of the world. He tries to describe every detail about the photos. Said says, “It has become what horse, mule, and camel were, and then much more” (541). The Mercedes is described in so much detail that you will be able to picture every small detail in your head. Said describes mostly how he feels and what he thinks about the photo, so I don’t think he completely explains what really happens or what’s going on in the photos. He says that the Mercedes is used in funerals, weddings, births, proud display, leaving home, coming home, fixing, stealing, reselling, running away in, and hiding in. The Palestinians are so insecure that they view the Mercedes as an intruder. The photo was taken outside a refugee camp, and after a few months, the camp was ravaged by the intra-Palestinian fighting. They destroyed everything. The Palestinians refugees feel like they have no place to go. Everywhere and every country they go to, they
In his "States" Edward Said writes about the "alienated" Palestinians. This story is an example of Pratt’s definition of a transcultural text. There are so many pieces that can be put together in States to Pratt’s ideas to form the transcultural text. The text from States can be used to help us better understand what a transcultural text is because it has new pieces of information, and it mostly relates to today’s world. I think that if we understand the story “States” as a transcultural text, we will be able to apply that to other stories which makes it easier to understand. Palestinians’ situation can mostly be understood through Pratt’s definition of contact zone. Said goes beyond what Pratt defines as a community. Pratt defines community as strongly utopian, but that is not what Said sees. The Palestinians do not have a “strongly utopian” community. And also, Pratt defines the marginal group and dominant group which I applied to “States.” Palestinians are in the marginal group because they are getting represented by Said who is in the dominant group. Mary Pratt would consider “States” a transcultural