I use this term [contact zones] to refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today. (Pratt 34) When Maiy Louise Pratt applied her thorny idea of the contact zone to literacy communities, she raised a complicated challenge for writing centers to move beyond the usual paradigm. Certainly writing center pedagogy is radical, envisioning ( la Bruffee) peers meeting to share writing in process, thus replacing hierarchy with collaborative learning.