TheSubaltern Studies Group (SSG) orSubaltern Studies Collective is a group ofSouth Asian scholars interested inpostcolonial and post-imperial societies.[1] The termSubaltern Studies is sometimes also applied more broadly to others who share many of their views. Subaltern Studies is often considered to be "exemplary of postcolonial studies" and as one of the most influential movements in the field.[2] Their anti-essentialist approach[3] is one ofhistory from below, focused more on what happens among the masses at the base levels of society than among the elite.
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The term "subaltern" in this context is an allusion to the work of ItalianMarxistAntonio Gramsci (1891–1937). The term's semantic range has evolved from its first usage byRanajit Guha, following Gramsci, to refer solely to peasants who had not been integrated into the industrialcapitalist system. It now refers to any person or group of inferior rank or station, whether because ofrace,class,gender,sexual orientation,ethnicity, orreligion.
The SSG arose in the 1980s, influenced by the scholarship ofEric Stokes andRanajit Guha, to attempt to formulate a new narrative of the history of India and South Asia. The group started at theUniversity of Sussex, then continued and spread, mainly through Guha's students.[4] 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 monographThe Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency. Although they are, in a sense, on theleft, they are very critical of the traditionalMarxist narrative of Indian history, in which semi-feudal India was colonized by theBritish, became politicized, and earned itsindependence. 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.
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 toFoucauldian studies ofpower-knowledge that left behind many of the empiricist and Marxist efforts of the first two volumes ofSubaltern 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.[5] EvenGayatri Spivak, one of the most prominent names associated with the movement, has called herself a critic of "metropolitan post-colonialism".[6]
American sociologistVivek Chibber has criticized the premise of Subaltern Studies for its obfuscation ofclass struggle andclass formation in its analysis and accused it of excisingclass exploitation from the story of the oppression of the subaltern.[7] His critique, explained in his bookPostcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital, is focused on the works of two Indian scholars: Ranajit Guha andDipesh Chakrabarty. According to Chibber, subaltern scholars tend to recreate theOrient as a place where cultural differences negate analyses based on Western experience.
| 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:[8]
Scholars associated with Subaltern Studies include:
