Subalternity

In postcolonialism and related fields, subaltern refers to persons socially, politically, and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structures. The term, derived from the work of the Marxist theorist, Antonio Gramsci, entered postcolonial studies through the work of the Subaltern Studies Group, a collective of South Asian historians s interested in exploring the role of non-elite actors in South Asian history. Following the publication in 1983 of Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India by Ranajit Guha, a Bengali historian, Indian Subaltern Studies became visible in India. If traditional historians addressed the progress of the state, Guha and the

other Subalternists wrote about the activities of those peripheralized by the state; if the one used “event history”, the other used myth and legend, if the one homogenized, the other particularized,

if the one praised the development of nationalism, the other found its faults. The term “subalternity” refers to a condition of subordination brought about by colonization or other forms

of economic, social, racial, linguistic, and/or cultural dominance. Subaltern studies is, therefore, a study of power. Who has it and who does not. Who is gaining it and who is losing it. Power is intimately related to questions of representation—to which representations have cognitive authority and can secure hegemony and which do not and cannot.

             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 viewpoint of the colonizers. Marxist historians had already begun to view colonial history from the perspective of the proletariat, but this was sometimes seen as 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 "subaltern" 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.
         

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.

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 broader and less clear cut. 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.

Postcolonial theory tries to understand the power and continued dominance of Western ways of knowing. Edward Said’s work 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 travelers 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. Spivak argues that other forms of knowing are marginalized 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, Spivak argues that the subalterns can never

express their own reasoning, forms of knowledge or logic, they must instead form their knowledge to Western ways of knowing. The abandonment of one’s customary thoughts, and the subsequent

adoption of Western thought is necessary in many postcolonial situations. The subordinated individual can only be heard by his oppressors if he speaks their language. Therefore, filters of conformity muddle the true voice of the subaltern. These filters manifest themselves in a multitude of ways.

                 In Colonial Latin America, for example, the subaltern must utilize the filters of religion and servitude in their language. In order to appeal to the good graces of their Spanish oppressors, slaves and natives would mask their own voice with the culture of the Spanish Crown. In 1600, Francisca de Figueroa brought an appeal to the Crown. Francisca, an enslaved African woman in Spain, is requesting permission to join her enslaved daughter in the Americas. As an Afro-Iberian woman, she must repress her own native tongue, and speak Spanish with her adopted Spanish tongue.

Spivak and bell hooks question the academic engagement with the Other. To truly engage with the subaltern they argue that an academic would need to decenter himself or herself 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 according to the received view 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. 

We must not take on an aspect of superiority while studying these voices. The subaltern's story is a way that we can build a bigger historical picture for ourselves. It allows for us a revealing look at a society, from the perspective of the most powerless individuals that live within its confines. Yet, we must read into these stories tenderly. Or else, we risk further subjugating and further complicating the voice of the Subaltern.