Subaltern (postcolonialism)

Subaltern is a term that commonly refers to persons who are socially, politically, and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structure.

History

In the 1970s, the term began to be used as a reference to colonized people in the South Asian subcontinent. It provided a new perspective on the history of a colonized place from the perspective of the colonized rather than from the perspective of the hegemonic power. Marxist historians had already begun to view colonial history from the perspective of the proletariat, but this was unsatisfying as it was still a Eurocentric way of viewing the globe. "Subaltern Studies" began in the early 1980s as an "intervention in South Asian historiography." While it began as a model for the Subcontinent, it quickly developed into a "vigorous postcolonial critique." Subaltern is now regularly used as a term in history, anthropology, sociology, human geography, and literature.

Meanings

The term subaltern is used in postcolonial theory. The exact meaning of the term in current philosophical and critical usage is disputed. Some thinkers use it in a general sense to refer to marginalized groups and the lower classes - a person rendered without agency by his or her social status. Others, such as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak use it in a more specific sense. She argues that subaltern is not

just a classy word for oppressed, for Other, for somebody who's not getting a piece of the pie....In postcolonial terms, everything that has limited or no access to the cultural imperialism is subaltern - a space of difference. Now who would say that's just the oppressed? The working class is oppressed. It's not subaltern....Many people want to claim subalternity. They are the least interesting and the most dangerous. I mean, just by being a discriminated-against minority on the university campus, they don't need the word ‘subaltern’...They should see what the mechanics of the discrimination are. They're within the hegemonic discourse wanting a piece of the pie and not being allowed, so let them speak, use the hegemonic discourse. They should not call themselves subaltern.”

Subaltern was first used in a non-military sense by Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Some believe that he used the term as a synonym for proletariat, possibly as a codeword in order to get his writings past prison censors, while others believe his usage to be more nuanced and less clearcut.

In several essays, Homi Bhabha, a key thinker within postcolonial thought, emphasizes the importance of social power relations in his working definition of 'subaltern' groups as

oppressed, minority groups whose presence was crucial to the self-definition of the majority group: subaltern social groups were also in a position to subvert the authority of those who had hegemonic power.

Boaventura de Sousa Santos uses the term 'subaltern cosmopolitanism' extensively in his 2002 book Toward a New Legal Common Sense. He refers to this in the context of counter-hegemonic practices, movements, resistances and struggles against neoliberal globalization, particularly the struggle against social exclusion. He uses the term interchangeably with cosmopolitan legality as the diverse normative framework for an 'equality of differences'. Here, the term subaltern is used to denote marginalised and oppressed people(s) specifically struggling against hegemonic globalization.

Theory

Postcolonial theory tries to understand the power and continued dominance of Western ways of knowing. Joanne Sharp, following Spivak, argues that other forms of knowing are marginalised by Western thinkers reforming them as myth or folklore. In order to be heard the subaltern must adopt Western thought, reasoning and language. Because of this, Sharp and Spivak argues that the subaltern can never express their own reasoning, forms of knowledge or logic, they must instead form their knowledge to Western ways of knowing.

bell hooks and Spivak question the academic engagement with the “other.” To truly engage with the subaltern they argue that an academic would need to decentre themselves as the expert. Traditionally the academic wants to know about the subaltern's experiences but not their own explanations of those experiences. hooks argues that in Western knowledge a true explanation can only come from the expertise of the academic. The subordinated subject, gives up their knowledge for the use of the Western academic. hooks describes the relationship between the academic and the subaltern subject:

No need to hear your voice when I can talk about you better than you can speak about yourself. No need to hear your voice. Only tell me about your pain. I want to know your story. And then I will tell it back to you in a new way. Tell it back to you in such a way that it has become mine, my own. Re-writing you I write myself anew. I am still author, authority. I am still colonizer the speaking subject and you are now at the center of my talk.

Edward Said’s work on Orientalism is related to the idea of the subaltern in that it explains the way in which Orientalism produced the foundation and the justification for the domination of the “other” through colonialism. Europeans, Said argues, created an imagined geography of the Orient before European exploration through predefined images of savage and monstrous places that lay outside of the known world. During initial exploration of the Orient these mythologies were reinforced as travellers brought back reports of monsters and strange lands. The idea of difference and strangeness of the Orient continued to be perpetuated through media and discourse creating an “us” and “them” binary through which Europeans defined themselves by defining the differences of the Orient. This laid the foundation for colonialism by presenting the Orient as backward and irrational and therefore in need of help to become modern in the European sense. The discourse of Orientalism is Eurocentric and does not seek to include the voices of the Orientals themselves.

Stuart Hall argues for the power of discourse to create and reinforce Western dominance. The discourses on how Europe described differences between itself and others used European cultural categories, languages and ideas to represent the other. The knowledge produced by a discourse gets put into practice and then becomes reality. By producing a discourse of difference Europe was able to maintain its dominance over the “other“ thereby creating a subaltern by excluding the “other“ from the production of the discourse.

Development Discourse

Mainstream development discourse built on colonial and Orientalism knowledges. It focuses on modernization theory which follows the idea that in order to modernize underdeveloped countries should follow the path of developed Western countries. It is characterized by free trade, open markets and capitalist systems as the way to development. Mainstream development discourse focuses on applying universal policies at a national level.

Victoria Lawson critiques mainstream development discourse as recreating the subaltern. The discourse does this by: being disengaged from other scales such as the local or community level; not considering regional, class, ethnic, gender etc. differences between places; continuing to treat the subjects of development as subordinate and lacking knowledge; and by not including the subjects voices and opinions in development policies and practices.

While the subaltern by definition are groups who have had their voices silenced, they can speak through their actions as a way to protest against mainstream development and create their own visions for development. Subaltern groups are creating social movements which contest and disassemble Western claims to power. These groups use local knowledge and struggles to create new spaces of opposition and alternative futures.

External links

• Can the Subaltern Speak? by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
• Subaltern.org: An organization for underrepresented artists.
  • The website defines "Subaltern" in the following manner: "Originally a term for subordinates in military hierarchies, the term subaltern is elaborated in the work of Antonio Gramsci to refer to groups who are outside the established structures of political representation. In 'Can the Subaltern Speak?' Gayatri Spivak suggests that the subaltern is denied access to both mimetic and political forms of representation."
• Subaltern studies bibliography
• Information on purchase of commissions in Georgian times.
• Biography and major publications for Spivak.
• Subalternstudies.com: An academic collective for the study of the subaltern within media, communications, and cultural studies

See also

• Subaltern studies
• Postcolonialism

Bibliography

• Bhabha, Homi K. “Unsatisfied: notes on vernacular cosmopolitanism.” Text and Nation: Cross-Disciplinary Essays on Cultural and National Identities. Ed. Laura Garcia-Moreno and Peter C. Pfeiffer. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1996: 191-207.
• Santos, Boaventura de Sousa (2002) Toward a New Legal Common Sense, 2nd ed. (London: LexisNexis Butterworths), particularly pp.458-493
• Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. " Can the Subaltern Speak?" in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Eds. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988: 271-313.