Editing 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 [[postcolonial]] and post-[[Empire|imperial]] societies.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781444334982_chunk_g978144433498223_ss1-28 |title=Subaltern Studies : The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies : Blackwell Reference Online |access-date=2018-05-18 |archive-date=2018-05-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180519144042/http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781444334982_chunk_g978144433498223_ss1-28 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The term ''Subaltern 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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Connell |first=Raewyn |date=2005 |title=Southern Theory}}</ref> Their anti-[[Essentialism#In historiography|essentialist]] approach<ref>{{cite book |last=Atabaki |first=Touraj |author-link=Touraj Atabaki |title=Beyond Essentialism: Who Writes Whose Past in the Middle East and Central Asia? Inaugural lecture, 13 December 2002 |url=http://atabaki.nl/upload/Beyond%20Essentialism.pdf |year=2003 |access-date=29 April 2013 |archive-date=22 August 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160822192630/http://atabaki.nl/upload/Beyond%20Essentialism.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> is one of [[People's history|history from below]], focused more on what happens among the masses at the base levels of society than among the elite.

==Definition==
{{More citations needed section|date=December 2019}}
The term "[[Subaltern (postcolonialism)|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 (classification of human beings)|race]], [[social class|class]], [[gender]], [[sexual orientation]], [[ethnicity]], or [[religion]].

The SSG arose in the 1980s, influenced by the scholarship of [[Eric Stokes (historian)|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 spread, mainly through Guha's students.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/students/modules/hi323/lectures/ranajit_guha_and_subaltern_studies_sakar_2016.pdf | url-status=live | title=Ranajit Guha and Subaltern Studies | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180519120715/https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/students/modules/hi323/lectures/ranajit_guha_and_subaltern_studies_sakar_2016.pdf | archive-date=2018-05-19}}</ref> 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-wing politics|left]], they are very critical of the traditional [[Marxist historiography|Marxist narrative of Indian history]], in which semi-[[feudal]] India<!--whoa. this claim of feudalism was already invented for the subcontinent by British ethnographers well before Marx.--> was colonized by the [[United Kingdom|British]], 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.<ref>Sumit Sarkar, "The Decline of the. Subaltern in Subaltern Studies" in his Writing Sggial History. Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1997.</ref> Even [[Gayatri Spivak]], one of the most prominent names associated with the movement, has called herself a critic of "metropolitan post-colonialism".<ref>Gayatri_Chakravorty_Spivak, ''A Critique of Postcolonialism'', Harvard University Press</ref>

American sociologist [[Vivek Chibber]] has criticized the premise of Subaltern Studies for its obfuscation of [[class (social)|class]] struggle and [[Marxian class theory|class formation]] in its analysis and accused it of excising [[Exploitation of labour|class exploitation]] from the story of the oppression of the subaltern.<ref name=jacobinmag>{{cite web |title=How does the subaltern speak? |url=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/04/how-does-the-subaltern-speak/ |publisher=jacobinmag |access-date=2016-01-21 |archive-date=2016-02-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160208004929/https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/04/how-does-the-subaltern-speak/ |url-status=live}}</ref> 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 ==
{| class="wikitable"
! 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 (scholar)|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: <ref>{{cite web|url=https://asianstudies.github.io/area-studies/subaltern/ssmap.htm|title=Subaltern Studies: Bibliography of articles and reviews and listing of table of contents of the series of books|website=asianstudies.github.io|access-date=2019-10-23|archive-date=2018-12-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181201035715/https://asianstudies.github.io/area-studies/subaltern/ssmap.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

==People associated with Subaltern Studies==
<!--Initial list comes from http://www.postcolonialweb.org/poldiscourse/theosubaltern.html -->
Scholars associated with Subaltern Studies include:

* [[David Arnold (historian)|David Arnold]]
* [[Gautam Bhadra]]
* [[Dipesh Chakrabarty]]
* [[Partha Chatterjee (scholar)|Partha Chatterjee]]
* [[Ranajit Guha]]
* [[David Hardiman]]
* [[Sudipta Kaviraj]]
* [[Gyanendra Pandey (historian)|Gyanendra Pandey]] 
* [[Gyan Prakash]]
* [[Sarojini Sahoo]]
* [[Ajay Skaria]]
* [[Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak]]
* [[Susie Tharu]]

==See also==
* [[Latin American subaltern studies]]
* [[Latino philosophy]]
* [[Orientalism]]
* [[Edward Said]]
* [[Howard Zinn]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==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==
* [http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/english/courses/60A/handouts/poco.html Tim Spurgin's notes on Subaltern Studies] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041217204309/http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/english/courses/60a/handouts/poco.html |date=2004-12-17}} and other topics in [[postcolonialism]]
* [http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/subaltern/ssmap.htm A Bibliography of Subaltern Studies] – the books, articles, and reviews
{{Historiography}}
[[Category:Historiography of India]]
[[Category:Fields of history]]