DOCSLIB.ORG

“Retracing the Concept of the Subaltern from Gramsci to Spivak

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
“Retracing the Concept of the Subaltern from Gramsci to Spivak African Journal of History and Culture (AJHC) Vol. 4(1), pp. 4-8, January 2012 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/AJHC DOI: 10.5897/AJHC11.020 ISSN 2141-6672 ©2012 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper Retracing the concept of the subaltern from Gramsci to Spivak: Historical developments and new applications El Habib Louai Department of English Studies, Ibn-Zohr University, Agadir, Morocco. E-mail: [email protected]. Tel: 00212610583105. Accepted 13 December, 2011 The aim of this paper is to retrace the historical developments and new implications of one of the most disputed concepts in post-colonial theory. The study of the concept of the subaltern deals first with preliminary definitions of this concept as it was initially used by the Italian Marxist political activist, Antonio Gramsci, in his widely known book “Prison Notebooks”. Later, this paper examined the new reflections of the subaltern concept as explicated by those critics and historians who defined themselves as members of the Subaltern Studies Group. A particular focus at this stage is laid on the key insights of the forefather of the group, Ranajit Guha, and on the latest assumptions and ideas provided by the prominent deconstructivist, post-colonial critic, Gayatri Spivak, mainly in her seminal essay: "Can the Subaltern Speak?" The study finally tackled some of the present day implications of the subaltern concept as it unfolds in a post-modern condition. The analysis at this stage focused on key ideas introduced by the post-modern scholar, Jean Baudrillard, and post-colonial critic, Homi Bhabha. Key words: Subaltern, post-colonialism, colonial discourse, subaltern historiography, political mobilization, domination, sexual division of labor, history, third world women, Sati women, globalized post-modern world, difference, identity, consciousness of subalternity, revolutionary voice, liminality, third space of enunciation. INTRODUCTION Post-colonialial theory as a recent field of study has lately its constitution in the Indian historiography. This become one of the most attractive academic disciplines - controversial concept of the subaltern caused a great if it can be called a discipline - that incessantly triggers deal of confusion all over the academia and left students piles and piles of literature written by art of critics, social of colonial discourse and post-colonial theory perplexed reformists, political scientists, literary critics and political while wallowing in labyrinthine postulations of specialized economists. The continuous expansion of post- scholars. In this study, the author did not pretend colonialism in its recent version made its own domains of perfectly master in any way the premises expressed by interest and areas of functionality overlap with other fields those scholars nor did he encompass the scopes of their of global academic studies such as African American inquiries, but his intention in this article is to trace the literature, literary theory and criticism, anthropology and birth of the subaltern as a critical concept of extreme cultural studies. One of the latest subdivisions of post- importance in post-colonial theory. As such, this notion of colonial theory is the Subaltern Studies Group or the the subaltern was traced following it through its historical Subaltern Studies Collective that was launched in the developments as it was first coined before coming to its 1980s by a group of eminent Indian scholars. latest applications in post-modern conditions. So as not The Subaltern Studies Group, in its immense effort to to drift into unnecessary excavations that may lead this restudy the Indian history and society as a narrative, study astray, a genealogical study of this concept (the provoked a great number of controversial issues; among subaltern) was chosen on three predominant thinkers them is the problematic issue of the subaltern subject and with whom it is essentially associated: Antonio Gramsci, Louai 5 Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. history of the ruling and dominant classes. In this study, Throughout its history since the beginning of the Gramsci envisages to carry out the legitimized fact given twentieth century, the concept of the subaltern remains thus: one of the most slippery and difficult to define. This “The subaltern classes by definition, are not unified and difficulty is due in part to the manipulations of critics and cannot unite until they are able to become a "State”: their writers whose, “unscrupulous, instrumental, or merely history, therefore, is intertwined with that of civil society, selective readings of Gramsci have been animated by the and thereby with the history of States and groups of impulse to make him appear relevant to the present time, States (Gramsci, 1971).”2 particularly when he has been used to lend authority to or In order to study the history of the subaltern groups, legitimize a specific political stance, ideological tendency, Gramsci designed a plan composed of six steps that are 1 or theoretical position” (Francese, 2009). found to be explained in details in his book, which was mentioned earlier. He intends to study: firstly, their objective formation by changes taking place in economic GRAMSCIAN EXPLORATIONS OF THE CONCEPT OF production; secondly, their active or passive affiliation to THE SUBALTERN AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE the dominant political formations and their attempts to SUBALTERN STUDIES GROUP influence their programs; thirdly, the birth of new parties and dominant groups, which are mainly created for the The approach that was used in this study consists mainly subjugation and maintenance of the subaltern; fourthly, of retracing the concept of the subaltern in its historical the formations which the subaltern group themselves development as it was first used by Gramsci before trying made to vindicate limited rights; fifthly, new formations to relate it to the current developments in our post- which maintain the subaltern groups autonomy within old modern times. So, it became evident that the approach is frameworks; sixthly, those formations which may help to a historical approach that attempts to excavate the affirm their entire autonomy (Gramsci, 1971)3. Ironically, origins of the concept of the subaltern by referring to a Gramsci argued that the subaltern classes have the genealogical study of the foundational academic same complex history as that of the hegemonic classes, theoretical works which dealt with this notion of the although the latter constitutes the most officially subaltern. The material used consists mainly of major accepted. The subaltern groups‟ history in Gramsci‟s books written by Gramsci, Ranajit Guha and Spivak. opinion has no evident unity and it seems to be in its very The notion of the subaltern was first referred to by the episodic totality because of their submission to the Italian Marxist political activist Antonio Gramsci in his authority of the ruling groups even when they break with article “Notes on Italian History” which appeared later on the established system. This deplorable state of affairs as part of his most widely known book Prison Notebooks imposed this sort of non-accessibility to the means by written between 1929 and 1935. Gramsci‟s standpoint is which they may limit and control their own representation fundamentally instrumental to any student who reaches and consequently lack an access to the social and an understanding of the origin of the notion of the cultural institutions of their state. Though, it takes a long subaltern because it tends to detach itself from the time, the only possible way from Gramsci‟s perspective mechanistic and economistic form that narrowly was to reach the state of freedom through a „permanent‟ characterizes most of the Marxist traditional studies. The victory which necessarily guarantees a dismantling of the subaltern classes refer fundamentally in Gramsci‟s words master/slave pattern. to any “low rank” person or group of people in a particular This dismantling is to be realized within Gramsci‟s society suffering under hegemonic domination of a ruling theoretical framework, by releasing the subordinated elite class that denies them the basic rights of consciousness of non-elite group from the cultural participation in the making of local history and culture as hegemony exercised by the ruling class. His active individuals of the same nation. Gramsci‟s groundbreaking and newly revealed ideas about the vital intentions when he first used the concept of the subaltern role of peasantry as a distinct group within the subaltern are clear enough to be given any other far-fetched division, distinguished Gramsci from the previous interpretations. The only groups Gramsci had in mind at founders of Marxism who confidently took for granted the that time were the workers and peasants who were impending expiry of the peasantry in the face of the oppressed and discriminated by the leader of the class-conscious proletariat produced by the conditions of National Fascist Party, Benito Mussolini and his agents. a post-industrial capitalist society. His deeply formulated Gramsci became interested in the study of the subaltern ideas, especially those written during his imprisonment, classes of consciousness and culture as one possible about the class of peasants as a social, cultural and way to make their voice heard instead of relying on the political force aware of its distinct consciousness of historical narrative of the state which is by the end, the 2 Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, edited and translated 1 Perspectives on Gramsci: Politics, Culture and Social Theory, ed. Joseph by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. London: Lawrence and Wishart, Francese. Routledge: Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 1971. 2009). 3 Gramsci, 1971 6 Afr. J. Hist. Cult. subalternity made other subsequent 20th century scholars „politics of people‟ that persists to exist even when the working on the issue of Indian peasantry historiography elite politics dissipate. resume his effort. These scholars led by Ranajit Guha This distinct difference between the elite and the came to be known as the Subaltern Studies Group.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Decolonizing Post-Colonial Studies and Paradigms of Political Economy: Transmodernity, Decolonial Thinking, and Global Coloniality
    Decolonizing Post-Colonial Studies and Paradigms of Political Economy: Transmodernity, Decolonial Thinking, and Global Coloniality RAMÓN GROSFOGUEL UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY Can we produce a radical anti-systemic politics beyond identity politics? Is it possible to articulate a critical cosmopolitanism beyond nationalism and colonialism? Can we produce knowledges beyond Third World and Eurocentric fundamentalisms? Can we overcome the traditional dichotomy between political-economy and cultural studies? Can we move beyond economic reductionism and culturalism? How can we overcome the Eurocentric modernity without throwing away the best of modernity as many Third World fundamentalists do? In this paper, I propose that an epistemic perspective from the subaltern side of the colonial difference has a lot to contribute to this debate. It can contribute to a critical perspective beyond the outlined dichotomies and to a redefinition of capitalism as a world-system. In October 1998, there was a conference/dialogue at Duke University between the South Asian Subaltern Studies Group and the Latin American Subaltern Studies Group. The dialogue initiated at this conference eventually resulted in the publication of several issues of the journal NEPANTLA. However, this conference was the last time the Latin American Subaltern Studies Group met before their split. Among the many reasons and debates that produced this split, there are two that I would like to stress. The members of the Latin American Subaltern Studies Group were primarily Latinamericanist scholars in the USA. Despite their attempt at producing a radical and alternative knowledge, they reproduced the epistemic schema of Area Studies in the United States. With a few exceptions, they produced studies about the subaltern rather than studies with and from a subaltern perspective.
    [Show full text]
  • Handbook of Cultural Sociology the Subaltern, the Postcolonial, And
    This article was downloaded by: 10.3.98.104 On: 27 Sep 2021 Access details: subscription number Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG, UK Handbook of Cultural Sociology John R. Hall, Laura Grindstaff, Ming-Cheng Lo The subaltern, the postcolonial, and cultural sociology Publication details https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203891377.ch3 Raka Ray, Smitha Radhakrishnan Published online on: 21 Jul 2010 How to cite :- Raka Ray, Smitha Radhakrishnan. 21 Jul 2010, The subaltern, the postcolonial, and cultural sociology from: Handbook of Cultural Sociology Routledge Accessed on: 27 Sep 2021 https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203891377.ch3 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR DOCUMENT Full terms and conditions of use: https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/legal-notices/terms This Document PDF may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproductions, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The publisher shall not be liable for an loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:39 27 Sep 2021; For: 9780203891377, chapter3, 10.4324/9780203891377.ch3 First published 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.
    [Show full text]
  • Subalterns: a Comparative Study of African American and Dalit/Indian Literatures
    University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 5-31-2010 "Speaking" Subalterns: A Comparative Study of African American and Dalit/Indian Literatures Mantra Roy University of South Florida Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons Scholar Commons Citation Roy, Mantra, ""Speaking" Subalterns: A Comparative Study of African American and Dalit/Indian Literatures" (2010). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3441 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “Speaking” Subalterns: A Comparative Study of African American and Dalit/Indian Literatures by Mantra Roy A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Co-Major Professor: Gurleen Grewal, Ph.D Co- Major Professor: Hunt Hawkins, Ph.D Elizabeth Hirsh, Ph.D Shirley Toland-Dix, Ph.D Date of Approval: March 16, 2010 Keywords: Race, Caste, Identity, Representation, Voice © Copyright 2010, Mantra Roy Acknowledgments I must thank James Baldwin for his book Nobody Knows My Name which introduced me to the world of African American literature and culture. Since that first encounter as a teenager I have come a long way today in terms of my engagement with the world of Black literature and with the ideas of equality, justice, and respect for humanity.
    [Show full text]
  • Can the Subaltern Speak?
    Can the Subaltern Speak? Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak* Some of the most radical criticism coming out of the West today is the result of an interested desire to conserve the subject of the West, or the West as Subject. The theory of pluralized ‘subject-effects’ gives an illusion of undermining subjective sovereignty while often providing a cover for this subject of knowledge. Although the history of Europe as Subject is narra- tivized by the law, political economy, and ideology of the West, this concealed Subject pretends it has ‘no geo-political determinations.’ The much publicized critique of the sovereign subject thus actually inaugurates a Subject. This S/subject, curiously sewn together into a transparency by denega­ tions, belongs to the exploiters’ side of the international division of labor. It is impossible for contemporary French intellectuals to imagine the kind of Power and Desire that would inhabit the unnamed subject of the Other of Europe. It is not only that everything they read, critical or uncritical, is caught within the debate of the production of that Other, supporting or critiquing the constitution of the Subject as Europe. It is also that, in the constitution of that Other of Europe, great care was taken to obliterate the textual ingredients with which such a subject could cathect, could occupy (invest?) its itinerary - not only by ideological and scientific production, but also by the institution of the law. ... In the face of the possibility that the intellectual is complicit in the persistent constitution of Other as the Self’s shadow, a possibility of political practice for the intel­ lectual would be to put the economic ‘under erasure,’ to see the economic factor as irreducible as it reinscribes the social text, even as it is erased, however imperfectly, when it claims to be the final determinant or the tran­ scendental signified.
    [Show full text]
  • When the Subaltern Took the Postcolonial Turn John Roosa
    Document generated on 09/25/2021 10:50 p.m. Journal of the Canadian Historical Association Revue de la Société historique du Canada When the Subaltern Took the Postcolonial Turn John Roosa Volume 17, Number 2, 2006 Article abstract This essay evaluates the changing research agendas of Subaltern Studies, an URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/016593ar influential series of books on South Asian history that began in 1982. The essay DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/016593ar criticizes the original research agenda as articulated by the series editor, Ranajit Guha, and the subsequent agenda proposed by several members of the See table of contents Subaltern Studies collective. Guha initially proposed that studies of colonial India understand power in terms of unmediated relationships between “the elite” and “the subaltern” and endeavour to answer a counterfactual question Publisher(s) on why the “Indian elite” did not come to represent the nation. The subsequent agenda first formulated in the late 1980s, while jettisoning Guha’s strict The Canadian Historical Association/La Société historique du Canada binaries and crude populism, has not led to any new insights into South Asian history. The turn towards the issues of modernity and postcolonialism has ISSN resulted in much commentary on what is already known. Some members of the collective, in the name of uncovering a distinctly “Indian modernity” and 0847-4478 (print) moving beyond Western categories, have reified the concept of modernity and 1712-6274 (digital) restaged tired old debates within Western social theory. Explore this journal Cite this article Roosa, J. (2006). When the Subaltern Took the Postcolonial Turn.
    [Show full text]
  • Refiguring the Subaltern
    PTXXXX10.1177/0090591718762720Political TheoryThomas 762720research-article2018 Original Manuscript Political Theory 1 –24 Refiguring the Subaltern © The Author(s) 2018 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591718762720DOI: 10.1177/0090591718762720 journals.sagepub.com/home/ptx Peter D. Thomas1 Abstract The subaltern has frequently been understood as a figure of exclusion ever since it was first highlighted by the early Subaltern Studies collective’s creative reading of Antonio Gramsci’s carceral writings. In this article, I argue that a contextualist and diachronic study of the development of the notion of subaltern classes throughout Gramsci’s full Prison Notebooks reveals new resources for “refiguring” the subaltern. I propose three alternative figures to comprehend specific dimensions of Gramsci’s theorizations: the “irrepressible subaltern,” the “hegemonic subaltern,” and the “citizen- subaltern.” Far from being exhausted by the eclipse of the conditions it was initially called upon to theorize in Subaltern Studies, such a refigured notion of the subaltern has the potential to cast light both on the contradictory development of political modernity and on contemporary political processes. Keywords subalternity, hegemony, Gramsci, civil society, political modernity The subaltern is usually understood today as a figure of exclusion, represent- ing the specular opposite of the citizen. If the citizen is defined by participa- tion in a political community, the subaltern represents a lack of access to institutions of rights and obligations. While citizens are subject to the hege- monic logic of modern sovereignty, the subaltern lies before or beyond it, in some indeterminate zone of affect and habit. Citizenship guarantees inclusion 1Department of Social and Political Sciences, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, United Kingdom Corresponding Author: Peter D.
    [Show full text]
  • 10. Anti-Colonial Subaltern Social Movement (Ssm) Learning and Development Dispossession in India1
    DIP KAPOOR 10. ANTI-COLONIAL SUBALTERN SOCIAL MOVEMENT (SSM) LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT DISPOSSESSION IN INDIA1 INTRODUCTION This chapter considers the significance of a selective reading of subaltern studies for informing and understanding SSM political formations and anti-colonial SSM pedago gies of place (Kapoor, 2009a) in contexts of development-displacement and disposses sion of Adivasis and Dalits in the state of Orissa, India. Adivasis account for 40 per cent of the 33 million ‘development-displaced peoples’ (DDPs) in the post- independence period (Fernandes, 2006: 113; Rajagopal, 2003: 195). The assumption here is that lis tening to Adivasi and Dalit subalterns, not as infallible communities but as comtnuni ties facing an unparalleled existential crisis, and who are more than qualified by vir tue of their direct experiences with colonial oppression, is revealing about the ‘ways of outsiders’ (e.g. of the global/national agents and processes of colonial capitalism) (Kapoor, 2011, p.141) and subaltern social action and movement learning in colonial contexts. While the term subaltern is used to refer to several marginalised social groups/ classes and rural locations, including Adivasi2, it should be noted that indi geneity, unlike in settler colonies where the demarcations between original peoples and colonial settlers is relatively conspicuous, is a contested category in India given the different waves of migration and multiple colonisations. Claims to being original inhabitants of an area are harder to establish than are definitions of indigeneity predi- cated on being prior peoples (Barnes, Gray & Kingsbury, 1995, p. 2). However, this article acknowledges the indigenous status of Adivasi based on self-declared claims (as recognised by indigenous peoples and the UN) to being ‘mulo ntvasi’ (root/origi- nal people).
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction: the Subaltern and the Popular
    Postcolonial Studies ISSN: 1368-8790 (Print) 1466-1888 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cpcs20 Introduction: The subaltern and the popular Swati Chattopadhyay & Bhaskar Sarkar To cite this article: Swati Chattopadhyay & Bhaskar Sarkar (2005) Introduction: The subaltern and the popular , Postcolonial Studies, 8:4, 357-363, DOI: 10.1080/13688790500375066 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790500375066 Published online: 09 Aug 2006. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1335 View related articles Citing articles: 14 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cpcs20 Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 357Á/363, 2005 Introduction: The subaltern and the popular1 SWATI CHATTOPADHYAY AND BHASKAR SARKAR University of California, Santa Barbara The papers in this issue address the ‘subaltern’ and the ‘popular’ as subjects and modes of enquiry into culture and history. These papers were first presented at the symposium, ‘The Subaltern and the Popular’, held at the University of California, Santa Barbara in March 2004. We began with the proposition that the precise relation between the subaltern and the popular remains untheorised. Launching the Subaltern Studies project in 1982, Ranajit Guha explained its purpose as the insertion of the ‘politics of the people’ in the writing of Indian history: (P)arallel to the domain of elite politics there existed throughout the colonial period another domain of Indian politics in which the principal actors were not the dominant groups of the indigenous society or the colonial authorities but the subaltern classes and the groups constituting the mass of the laboring population and intermediate strata in town and country Á/ that is, the people.
    [Show full text]
  • Colonialism and Modern Constructions of Race: a Preliminary Inquiry
    Seattle University School of Law Digital Commons Faculty Scholarship 1-1-1999 Colonialism and Modern Constructions of Race: A Preliminary Inquiry Tayyab Mahmud Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/faculty Part of the Law and Society Commons Recommended Citation Tayyab Mahmud, Colonialism and Modern Constructions of Race: A Preliminary Inquiry, 53 U. MIAMI L. REV. 1219 (1999). https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/faculty/501 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Seattle University School of Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Seattle University School of Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Colonialism and Modern Constructions of Race: A Preliminary Inquiry TAYYAB MAHMUD* "A commonplace gesture of History: there have to be two races - the masters and the slaves."' Taking seriously the proposition that Western knowledge and rep- resentation of the non-European world is the key to understanding racial ideology,2 I aim at a preliminary examination of the colonial career of the modem constructions of race and its traces in post-coloniality. I pro- pose to locate race in regimes of legality and illegality in the context of British colonial rule over India to underscore the defining role of coloni- alism in modem constructions of race. Conquest, subjugation, and exploitation are as old as recorded history. So are racial difference, con- flict, and domination. While modernity framed these processes against claims of universal principles of public good and virtue, the age of empire brought into sharp relief the exclusions built into modem notions of citizenship, sovereignty, representation, and the rule of law.
    [Show full text]
  • Subaltern Studies: ‘From Writing with (Socialist) Passion to Following the (Postmodern) Fashion’ 1
    58 history in the making vol. 1 no. 2 Subaltern Studies: ‘from Writing with (Socialist) Passion to Following the (Postmodern) Fashion’ 1 Hannah Altern Honours, Macquarie University 1 In the almost thirty years since Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian History and Society (hereafter, Subaltern Studies, followed by the volume number) was first published, the journal has shifted from having a focus on the actions of people to one focused on the creation of knowledge and ideas. While it is not my intention to suggest that the broader project of subaltern studies is simply a derivation of other intellectual trends, this change in focus has occurred in the context of a shift in influence from British and Continental Marxism, to American poststructuralism. In the case of the Subaltern Studies journal itself, the main factor which has caused this shift has been an evolution in the goals of the journal as both the membership of the editorial collective, and its primary audience have changed. Just as the subaltern studies project has changed over time, the responses to it have changed too, largely in line with the change in audience, and the audiences’ expectations of how the project should work. While extensive scholarship has developed around the subaltern studies project, in this essay I will be focusing on Subaltern Studies, as this journal has remained the core of the broader project. I will work chronologically through the influences on the subaltern studies project and its reception, beginning with the initial development of the project and its early period up until the late 1980s, before moving onto the later period.
    [Show full text]
  • Gramsci at the Margins: Subjectivity and Subalternity in a Theory of Hegemony
    International Gramsci Journal No. 2 April 2010 Gramsci at the margins: subjectivity and subalternity in a theory of hegemony Kylie Smith1 Peer-reviewed and accepted for publication by IGJ February 2010 In strictly political terms, the Gramscian concept of subalternity applies to those groups in society who are lacking autonomous political power. In Gramsci’s time these groups were easily identified, and much of the work around the concept of subalternity has centred on groups like peasants and the proletariat. But Gramsci also argued that subalternity existed on a broader scale than this, including people from different religions or cultures, or those existing at the margins of society. This aspect of Gramsci’s work is often overlooked, because many writers are interested in Gramsci’s political theory, which they use to analyse the way in which capitalism, as a structural system, has become hegemonic over time. The focus here is on the history of organised groups and their organised struggle. Hence, the emphasis is largely on white, male-oriented institutions of power. But Gramsci argued that hegemony did not exist merely at this level. Rather, he argued that hegemony comes from below, originating in the thoughts, beliefs and actions of everyday people who may or may not see themselves as part of organised groups. Hence, Gramsci was intensely aware of the way hegemony operated at a personal level. Capitalist hegemony was not, is not, possible, without a complete identification at the level of the self. This paper seeks to expand on some of Gramsci’s thinking in this area, in an attempt to understand the connections between the self and society in a theory of hegemony, where hegemony is considered a process based on leadership, rather than a state built on domination.
    [Show full text]
  • A Response to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Vivek Chibbera a New York University Published Online: 03 Oct 2014
    This article was downloaded by: [New York University] On: 06 October 2014, At: 14:55 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Cambridge Review of International Affairs Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccam20 Making sense of postcolonial theory: a response to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Vivek Chibbera a New York University Published online: 03 Oct 2014. To cite this article: Vivek Chibber (2014) Making sense of postcolonial theory: a response to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 27:3, 617-624, DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2014.943593 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2014.943593 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.
    [Show full text]