Gyan, David and Rosalind - Of name calling, horses and Post-Modernism

Ignoring the name calling that goes throughout the three pieces, I thought that after Gyan's Can the Subaltern ride? the difference between the two approaches which seemed stark to begin with was considerably lessened. The biggest contention I had with Gyan was almost the wholesale abandonment of any categories that could potentially be conceptualized as 'totalizing'; something which received the most concentrated attack by O'Hanlon and Washbrook as well. However, in his later piece, Gyan shows how his formulation does not disregard the importance of class (or any other category for that matter) but the privileging of one category over another. In his formulation, or from what I understood from it, argued that particulars of a specific phenomenon have to be paid attention to. I for one failed to see why David or Rosalind would have a contention with that; it is obvious, especially after Dipesh's work that specific context shapes even universalizing concepts such as capitalism. Secondly, to argue that class can not be the sole category of analysis is something one can get on board with. However, it is important to note here that, for me, Gyan's argument in the first piece was significantly weirder than it was in the second.

Another thing that I can get on board with Gyan is his formulation of the archive. David and Rosalind's conception of the archive as 'noise' seems rather simplistic; especially given what we know about the archive from Trouillot. The archives are not produced in a vacuum; this much we know. However, where Gyan takes this formulation has to be challenged. He writes; "in repeating that encounter, how does the historian today not replicate the early nineteenth-century staging of sati as a contest between tradition and modernity...". This I thought, was extremely bizarre. It takes away not only the interpretive power of the historian (in effect, letting him/her off the hook) but assumes the hegemony of the archive, or the narrative in it, to be so pervasive as to disallow any and all contentions. Furthermore, Gyan does not go onto giving us an alternative to this problem. While it is true that the Historian cannot recover the voice of the women (Spivak), does that mean automatically that this debate cannot be seen as anything but the dominant discourse in which it played out? I don't think so. This point is important because it deals with other points as well. Can we speak of Capitalist Modernity, without actually buying into the totalizing narratives that accompany it? I think this is certainly possible. Dipesh, for me, comes across as one example of a writer who is able to do this.

While it would be easy to disregard Gyan as some 'post-modernist', I think there are valuable points that he makes; this does not mean that they are applicable or valid to the extent that he makes them. Neither does it mean that the names he calls David and Rosalind are valid; that, to be honest, was just mean. The only step further would have been had he called them 'Liberal Fascists' :-P
While there is nothing to challenge the constructed nature of categories such as class, women and others, I agree with O'Hanlon and Washbrook that we use them simply out of convenience (this should of course, not force us to stop from showing their constructed nature). In many ways, I conceive of categories such as class and women as Weber's 'ideal types'; they allow us to simply make sense of a messy world. Additionally, I think there is value in the point Rosalind and David make time and again about politics; how scarce would it be to have any solidarity politics, or any politics for that matter in Gyan's conceptualization?

Finally, I think that we need to pay attention to the fact that certain categories, while being constructed, are what people use to conceive of themselves and how they identify themselves. Given this, it seems oddly huberistic (Not sure if this is a word) for a historian to come in and assert that this category is problematic. If people identify as a class, one can use class a means of analysis (while keeping in mind that it too is constructed) to analyze and understand simply because that is how people themselves are understanding themselves. Who are we to tell historical subjects, as to how they should or should not identify; or what the value of the particular category they ascribe to is?