Subaltern studies as postcolonial criticism

Abstract

The author maps the principal lines of inquiry pursued by the Subaltern Studies Group and their evolution. The group started with Antonio Gramsci’s concept of the subaltern and sought to rewrite South Asian historiography from the perspective of this subordinated social groups. But the project soon moved away from the «history-from-below» and the work of the group therefore turned to the functioning of dominant discourses of colonialism, nationalism, and modernity and their effects in subordinating other forms of knowledge and human action. These scholars argued that, though suppressed, subaltern agency could be read in the acts of containment and repression exerted against it in the dominant discourses. This concept of subalternity yields a critique of the modern West, which, through colonialism, the nation-state, and the ideology of modernity, has marginalized the «other» as a source of knowledge and historical action. The Subaltern Studies scholars accordingly urge revision of the discipline of history to allow the story to be told from a postcolonial, subaltern perspective.