History:Subaltern Studies

Short description: Group of South Asian scholars of postcolonial and post-imperial underclasses

The Subaltern Studies Group (SSG) or Subaltern Studies Collective is a group of South Asian scholars interested in the postcolonial and post-imperial societies. The term Subaltern Studies is sometimes also applied more broadly to others who share many of their views and they are often considered to be "exemplary of postcolonial studies" and as one of the most influential movements in the field. Their anti-essentialist approach is one of history from below, focused more on what happens among the masses at the base levels of society than among the elite.

Definition

The term "subaltern" in this context is an allusion to the work of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937). The term's semantic range has evolved from its first usage by Ranajit Guha, following Gramsci, to refer solely to peasants who had not been integrated into the industrial capitalist system. It now refers to any person or group of inferior rank or station, whether because of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or religion.

The SSG arose in the 1980s, influenced by the scholarship of Eric Stokes and Ranajit Guha, to attempt to formulate a new narrative of the history of India and South Asia. The group started at the University of Sussex, then continued and traveled, mainly through Guha's students. This narrative strategy was inspired by the writings of Gramsci was explicated in the writings of their mentor Ranajit Guha, most clearly in his "manifesto" in Subaltern Studies I and also in his classic monograph The Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency. Although they are, in a sense, on the left, they are very critical of the traditional Marxist narrative of Indian history, in which semi-feudal India was colonized by the United Kingdom , became politicized, and earned its independence. In particular, they are critical of the focus of this narrative on the political consciousness of elites, who in turn inspire the masses to resistance and rebellion against the British.

Instead, they focus on non-elites, subalterns, as agents of political and social change. They have had a particular interest in the discourses and rhetoric of emerging political and social movements, as against only highly visible actions like demonstrations and uprisings.

Criticism

One of the group's early contributors, Sumit Sarkar, later began to critique it. He entitled one of his essays "Decline of the Subaltern in Subaltern Studies", criticizing the turn to Foucauldian studies of power-knowledge that left behind many of the empiricist and Marxist efforts of the first two volumes of Subaltern Studies. He writes that the socialist inspiration behind the early volumes led to a greater impact in India itself, while the later volumes' focus on western discourse reified the subaltern-colonizer divide and then rose in prominence mainly in western academia. Even Gayatri Spivak, one of the most prominent names associated with the movement, has called herself a critic of "metropolitan post-colonialism".

Indian sociologist Vivek Chibber has criticized the premise of Subaltern Studies for its obfuscation of class struggle and class formation in its analysis and accused it of excising class exploitation from the story of the oppression of the subaltern. His critique, explained in his book Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital, is focused on the works of two Indian scholars: Ranajit Guha and Dipesh Chakrabarty. According to Chibber, subaltern scholars tend to recreate the Orient as a place where cultural differences negate analyses based on western experience.

Bibliography of Subaltern Studies

Edition	Publication date	Editors	Title	Pages	Publisher
1	1982	Ranajit Guha	Writings on South Asian History and Society	231	Delhi: Oxford University Press
2	1983	Ranajit Guha	Writings on South Asian History and Society	358	Delhi: Oxford University Press
3	1984	Ranajit Guha	Writings on South Asian History and Society	327	Delhi: Oxford University Press
4	1985	Ranajit Guha	Writings on South Asian History and Society	383	Delhi: Oxford University Press
5	1987	Ranajit Guha	Writings on South Asian History and Society	296	Delhi: Oxford University Press
6	1989	Ranajit Guha	Writings on South Asian History and Society	335	Delhi: Oxford University Press
7	1993	Partha Chatterjee and Gyanendra Pandey	Writings on South Asian History and Society	272	Delhi: Oxford University Press
8	1994	David Arnold and David Hardiman	Writings on South Asian History and Society	240	Delhi: Oxford University Press
9	1996	Shahid Amin and Dipesh Chakrabarty	Writings on South Asian History and Society	248	Delhi: Oxford University Press
10	1999	Gautam Bhadra, Gyan Prakash, and Susie Tharu	Writings on South Asian History and Society	252	Delhi: Oxford University Press
11	2000	Partha Chatterjee and Pradeep Jeganathan	Community, Gender and Violence	347	New York: Columbia University Press
12	2005	Shail Mayaram, M. S. S. Pandian, and Ajay Skaria	Muslims, Dalits, and the Fabrications of History	322	New Delhi: Permanent Black and Ravi Dayal Publisher

Note:

People associated with Subaltern Studies

Scholars associated with Subaltern Studies include:

• David Arnold
• Gautam Bhadra
• Dipesh Chakrabarty
• Partha Chatterjee
• Ranajit Guha
• David Hardiman
• Sudipta Kaviraj
• Gyanendra Pandey
• Gyan Prakash
• Sarojini Sahoo
• Sumit Sarkar (later dissented)
• Ajay Skaria
• Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
• Eric Stokes
• Susie Tharu
• Engin Sustam

See also

• Latin American subaltern studies
• Latino philosophy
• Orientalism
• Edward Said
• Howard Zinn

Further reading

• Young, Robert, White Mythologies. Routledge, 1990, reissued 2004. Several associated ISBNs, including ISBN:0-415-31181-0, ISBN:0-415-31180-2.
• Ludden, David, ed., Reading Subaltern Studies. Critical History, Contested Meaning and the Globalization of South Asia, London 2001.
• Chaturvedi, Vinayak, ed., Mapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial. London and New York 2000.
• Cronin, Stephanie, ed., "Subalterns and Social Protest: History from Below in the Middle East and North Africa". Routledge, 2008. US & Canada.

External links

• Tim Spurgin's notes on Subaltern Studies and other topics in postcolonialism
• A Bibliography of Subaltern Studies – the books, articles, and reviews