Subaltern Studies

Zoe Portman

Subaltern Studies

The term “subaltern” was coined by Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist who fought against the rising Fascist movement in Italy under Mussolini. He is most known for his theory of cultural hegemony, where the worldview of the ruling class becomes the accepted cultural norm for all classes, suggesting that the status quo is unchangeable and beneficial to all. He began using the term “subaltern” to refer to anyone who is subjugated because of race, class, gender, etc. His use of the term is broader than it ultimately became. It is similar, but not entirely synonymous to “proletariat.”

This term was adopted by the Subaltern Studies Group, which formed in the early 1980s, and took on a much more colonial resonance. Although this particular group is focused on South Asia, the broader term can refer to anyone who studies history from the margins and the bottom, focusing on the history of the oppressed, the colonized, the marginalized, as opposed to the mainstream, elite, oppressors and colonizers. Their use of the “subaltern” is linked to the colonized body, oppressed by imperial powers, meanings that were not inherent in Gramsci's more Marxist position.

The SSG has a contentious relationship with Marx, because although they are left-leaning, they find Marxism to be Eurocentric, forcing India and South Asia into a traditional western structure, as opposed to allowing for cultural and historical difference. Subaltern Studies gives the colonized figure agency, whereas nationalist, colonialist, or Marxist discourses still figure the subaltern as a member of a nation, or a class, in the sway of these larger forces.

Some of the struggles of Subaltern Studies are the very fact that the attempt to recover lost voices depends on the erasure of voices, and the figure of the subaltern is defined by his lack of autonomy. Subaltern Studies occupies an uneasy and ambivalent position, because it is attempting to engage, navigate, but simultaneously deconstruct theories of Marxism, post-colonialism, post-structuralism, archival work, and the tangled history of many nations. Yet at the same time, its very broadness and applicability to many areas of study, and its challenge to the inherently Eurocentric frameworks that still guide much of post-colonial studies make it important.

Ranajit Guha was a founding figure, who wrote about peasant insurgencies in colonial India, ascribing them individual agency separate from those of Marxist forces, or forces of the nation-state, and edited the first publications of the SSG.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is another key figure, known both for her critical theory and her opaque prose. She wrote a very influential essay called, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”

Gyan Prakash's “Subaltern Studies as Post-Colonial Criticism” is a good history of the development of Subaltern studies. He engages with many key scholars in the field, assessing their arguments in relation to the broader shifts within the field.

This is a good list of many resources and publications within Subaltern studies, even if it looks like a geocities website built by a ten year old in 2002.