CAN THE SUBALTERN SPEAK?

Speaking for/as the other

- Subaltern as an inferior rank (i.e. the lowest strata in society). The term was used by Antonio Gramsci. - It may be emphasized that subaltern is a term that commonly refers to the perspective of persons from regions and groups outside the hegemonic power structure.

Epistemic Violence (Definition)

- Violence done to the ways of knowing and understanding of non-western, indigenous people. - Western ways of knowing have been help up as the way of knowing. - Other forms of knowledge have been rendered as less valid, or even downright wrong.

 To be heard, to be listened and taken seriously, others must also adopt western thought, reasoning and language.

Epistemic Violence (Example)

White men are saving brown women from brown men Spivak shows us that it is either the white man explaining why Sati is a barbaric custom and must be abolished or the brown man insisting that it is a ritual that renders the woman sacred. At no point is the voice of the brown woman heard. It is the woman who becomes sati, yet no one comes across the testimony of the womens voice consciousness.

Spivak explains that the recovery of a subaltern voice especially from the history may involve a generalized and stereotyped fiction. Spivak argues that it is difficult to recover a voice for the subaltern without opposing the heterogeneity. She plays her role in improving the possibility of adopting short-term grouping. This known as strategic essentialism. It refers as a strategic using a clear image of identity to fight for womens rights and tribal rights.

 Strategic essentialism is a term coined by Gayatri Spivak. Refers as self defined and focuses much on her work on post colonial issues and marginalized populations. Strategic essentialism refers to the ways in which subordinate people were put aside in terms of local differences.

 This approach increase the notion of authenticity. Spivaks main concern is with the people of India and females in Asia. Can the subaltern speak is categorized as the western academic thinking. Spivak discusses the way in which western thinking and ideology frames and represent the third world. She started her research by labeling the third world as the other and over there.

Third World male and female

Poor women of a nation

Can Spivak (a women) speak as, she put herself as a Third World person and also as an Indian woman. She is expected to do it in international conferences. Spivak worries when she try to speak as. Besides that, she also worries about generalizing herself.