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Subaltern (postcolonialism)
In postcolonial studies and in critical theory, subalterns are the colonial populations who are socially, politically, and geographically excluded from the hierarchy of power of an imperial colony and from the metropolitan homeland of an empire. Antonio Gramsci coined the term subaltern to identify the cultural hegemony that excludes and displaces specific people and social groups from the socio-economic institutions of society, in order to deny their agency and voices in colonial politics. The terms subaltern and subaltern studies entered the vocabulary of post-colonial studies through the works of the Subaltern Studies Group of historians who explored the political-actor role of the common people who constitute the mass population, rather than re-explore the political-actor roles of the social and economic elites in the history of India.[page needed]
As a method of investigation and analysis of the political role of subaltern populations, Karl Marx's theory of history presents colonial history from the perspective of the proletariat; that the who? and the what? of social class are determined by the economic relations among the social classes of a society. Since the 1970s, the term subaltern has denoted the colonized peoples of the Indian subcontinent, imperial history told from below, from the perspective of the colonized peoples, rather than from the perspective of the colonizers from Western Europe. By the 1980s, the Subaltern Studies method of historical enquiry was applied to South Asian historiography. As a method of intellectual discourse, the concept of the subaltern originated as a Eurocentric method of historical enquiry for the study of non-Western peoples (of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East) and their relation to Western Europe as the centre of world history. Subaltern studies became the model for historical research of the subaltern's experience of colonialism in the Indian subcontinent.
In postcolonial theory, the term subaltern describes the lower social classes and the Other social groups displaced to the margins of a society; in an imperial colony, a subaltern is a native man or woman without human agency, as defined by his and her social status. Nonetheless, the feminist scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak cautioned against an over-broad application of the term the subaltern, because the word:
subaltern is not just a classy word for "oppressed", for Other, for somebody who's not getting a piece of the pie ... . In post-colonial 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 [the condition of] 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.
In Marxist theory, the civil sense of the term subaltern was first used[when?] by Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937). In discussions of the meaning of the term subaltern in the work of Gramsci, Spivak said that he used the word as a synonym for the proletariat (a code word to deceive the prison censor to allow his manuscripts out the prison), but contemporary evidence indicates that the term was a novel concept in Gramsci's political theory. The postcolonial critic Homi K. Bhabha emphasized the importance of social power relations in defining subaltern social groups as oppressed, racial minorities whose social presence was crucial to the self-definition of the majority group; as such, subaltern social groups, nonetheless, also are in a position to subvert the authority of the social groups who hold hegemonic power.
In Toward a New Legal Common Sense (2002), the sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos applied the term subaltern cosmopolitanism to describe the counter-hegemonic practice of social struggle against Neoliberalism and globalization, especially the struggle against social exclusion. Moreover, de Sousa Santos applied subaltern cosmopolitanism as interchangeable with the term cosmopolitan legality to describe the framework of diverse norms meant to realise an equality of differences, wherein the term subaltern identifies the oppressed peoples, at the margins of society, who are struggling against the hegemony of economic globalization. Context, time, and place determine who, among the marginalised peoples, is a subaltern; in India, women, Shudras and Dalits (also known as Untouchables), and rural migrant labourers are part of the subaltern social stratum.
In his 2003 work Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood, deaf scholar Paddy Ladd employs the term subaltern in reference to Deaf culture as a culturo-linguistic minority within a majority (hearing) culture, especially in reference to Deaf epistemologies.
Postcolonial theory studies the power and the continued dominance of Western ways of intellectual enquiry, the methods of generating knowledge. In the book Orientalism (1978), Edward Said conceptually addresses the oppressed subaltern native to explain how the Eurocentric perspective of Orientalism produced the ideological foundations and justifications for the colonial domination of the Other. Before their actual explorations of The Orient, Europeans had invented imaginary geographies of the Orient; predefined images of the savage peoples and exotic places that lay beyond the horizon of the Western world. The mythologies of Orientalism were reinforced by travellers who returned from Asia to Europe with reports of monsters and savage lands, which were based upon the conceptual difference and strangeness of the Orient; such cultural discourses about the Oriental Other were perpetuated through the mass communications media of the time, and created an Us-and-Them binary social relation with which the Europeans defined themselves by defining the differences between the Orient and the Occident. As a foundation of colonialism, the Us-and-Them binary social relation misrepresented the Orient as backward and irrational lands, and, therefore, in need of the European civilizing mission, to help them become modern, in the Western sense; hence, the Eurocentric discourse of Orientalism excludes the voices of the subaltern natives, the Orientals, themselves.[full citation needed]
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Subaltern (postcolonialism)
In postcolonial studies and in critical theory, subalterns are the colonial populations who are socially, politically, and geographically excluded from the hierarchy of power of an imperial colony and from the metropolitan homeland of an empire. Antonio Gramsci coined the term subaltern to identify the cultural hegemony that excludes and displaces specific people and social groups from the socio-economic institutions of society, in order to deny their agency and voices in colonial politics. The terms subaltern and subaltern studies entered the vocabulary of post-colonial studies through the works of the Subaltern Studies Group of historians who explored the political-actor role of the common people who constitute the mass population, rather than re-explore the political-actor roles of the social and economic elites in the history of India.[page needed]
As a method of investigation and analysis of the political role of subaltern populations, Karl Marx's theory of history presents colonial history from the perspective of the proletariat; that the who? and the what? of social class are determined by the economic relations among the social classes of a society. Since the 1970s, the term subaltern has denoted the colonized peoples of the Indian subcontinent, imperial history told from below, from the perspective of the colonized peoples, rather than from the perspective of the colonizers from Western Europe. By the 1980s, the Subaltern Studies method of historical enquiry was applied to South Asian historiography. As a method of intellectual discourse, the concept of the subaltern originated as a Eurocentric method of historical enquiry for the study of non-Western peoples (of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East) and their relation to Western Europe as the centre of world history. Subaltern studies became the model for historical research of the subaltern's experience of colonialism in the Indian subcontinent.
In postcolonial theory, the term subaltern describes the lower social classes and the Other social groups displaced to the margins of a society; in an imperial colony, a subaltern is a native man or woman without human agency, as defined by his and her social status. Nonetheless, the feminist scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak cautioned against an over-broad application of the term the subaltern, because the word:
subaltern is not just a classy word for "oppressed", for Other, for somebody who's not getting a piece of the pie ... . In post-colonial 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 [the condition of] 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.
In Marxist theory, the civil sense of the term subaltern was first used[when?] by Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937). In discussions of the meaning of the term subaltern in the work of Gramsci, Spivak said that he used the word as a synonym for the proletariat (a code word to deceive the prison censor to allow his manuscripts out the prison), but contemporary evidence indicates that the term was a novel concept in Gramsci's political theory. The postcolonial critic Homi K. Bhabha emphasized the importance of social power relations in defining subaltern social groups as oppressed, racial minorities whose social presence was crucial to the self-definition of the majority group; as such, subaltern social groups, nonetheless, also are in a position to subvert the authority of the social groups who hold hegemonic power.
In Toward a New Legal Common Sense (2002), the sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos applied the term subaltern cosmopolitanism to describe the counter-hegemonic practice of social struggle against Neoliberalism and globalization, especially the struggle against social exclusion. Moreover, de Sousa Santos applied subaltern cosmopolitanism as interchangeable with the term cosmopolitan legality to describe the framework of diverse norms meant to realise an equality of differences, wherein the term subaltern identifies the oppressed peoples, at the margins of society, who are struggling against the hegemony of economic globalization. Context, time, and place determine who, among the marginalised peoples, is a subaltern; in India, women, Shudras and Dalits (also known as Untouchables), and rural migrant labourers are part of the subaltern social stratum.
In his 2003 work Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood, deaf scholar Paddy Ladd employs the term subaltern in reference to Deaf culture as a culturo-linguistic minority within a majority (hearing) culture, especially in reference to Deaf epistemologies.
Postcolonial theory studies the power and the continued dominance of Western ways of intellectual enquiry, the methods of generating knowledge. In the book Orientalism (1978), Edward Said conceptually addresses the oppressed subaltern native to explain how the Eurocentric perspective of Orientalism produced the ideological foundations and justifications for the colonial domination of the Other. Before their actual explorations of The Orient, Europeans had invented imaginary geographies of the Orient; predefined images of the savage peoples and exotic places that lay beyond the horizon of the Western world. The mythologies of Orientalism were reinforced by travellers who returned from Asia to Europe with reports of monsters and savage lands, which were based upon the conceptual difference and strangeness of the Orient; such cultural discourses about the Oriental Other were perpetuated through the mass communications media of the time, and created an Us-and-Them binary social relation with which the Europeans defined themselves by defining the differences between the Orient and the Occident. As a foundation of colonialism, the Us-and-Them binary social relation misrepresented the Orient as backward and irrational lands, and, therefore, in need of the European civilizing mission, to help them become modern, in the Western sense; hence, the Eurocentric discourse of Orientalism excludes the voices of the subaltern natives, the Orientals, themselves.[full citation needed]