Admittedly, I understood very little of Spivak even on a second reading but I'll give writing a blog a shot.
The issue of; how do we recover a subaltern's voice animates Spivak's piece. In many ways, this is what I understood from her work; the subaltern cannot speak simply because bringing the subaltern voice within the hegemonic discourse inevitably, against the best intentions of the 'bringer' changes the meaning of said voice. In many ways, the process of interpreting the voice of the subaltern can be seen as akin to that of colonialism; the patronizing attempt to bring somebody into the fold of 'civilization'; civilization, in this case, being the 'domain' of Western Academia.
This, for me, raises a few questions; firstly, is Spivak's claim that she has brought into recognition the voice of the person who committed the 'suicide'? If this is her claim, has she not been able to recover the 'true' voice of the subaltern? I understand the point that being a Woman from the Third World, this still has problems but nevertheless, if the subaltern cannot speak, how is it that Spivak manages to get the Subaltern speaking?
Secondly, I am again confronted with the question of the utility of this endeavor. If the intention underpinning all of this is to liberate an oppressed subject, does that necessarily have to include engaging in high flying jargon? In many ways, the relationship between these theoretical questions with the actual process of material betterment for a given class or group, is not clear to me. In addition to this, once we read the other article, one really has to wonder whether it is even desired to 'liberate' a subject from a position, that we consider, from our own position as subjugated? One example I can cite is for example, during my visit to the Cholistan desert. For all intents and purposes, the people there could not care any less about their voice. What they wanted more than anything else was material betterment. How then do we make sense of this entire theoretical discussion about recovering the voice of the subaltern?
In the same vein, the issue of recovering the voice of the subaltern is also from a very specific position. The voice of the subaltern is subaltern, perhaps, when seen from a specific position of the Western Academia with its languages and methods. Do the subaltern really want to speak in our terms? Do they care about how we hear their voices?
Finally, the issue of essentialism. It makes sense that to see the 'subaltern' occupying as one consciousness is essentialist, but at the same time, one wonders if that, in Guha's work is a political necessity. Guha's work sees one consciousness to make sense of the wide variety of actions happening in the archives. In that sense, I see Guha's work in the tradition which creates certain 'ideal types' to make sense of a World that could not, otherwise, have been made sense of.
The issue of; how do we recover a subaltern's voice animates Spivak's piece. In many ways, this is what I understood from her work; the subaltern cannot speak simply because bringing the subaltern voice within the hegemonic discourse inevitably, against the best intentions of the 'bringer' changes the meaning of said voice. In many ways, the process of interpreting the voice of the subaltern can be seen as akin to that of colonialism; the patronizing attempt to bring somebody into the fold of 'civilization'; civilization, in this case, being the 'domain' of Western Academia.
This, for me, raises a few questions; firstly, is Spivak's claim that she has brought into recognition the voice of the person who committed the 'suicide'? If this is her claim, has she not been able to recover the 'true' voice of the subaltern? I understand the point that being a Woman from the Third World, this still has problems but nevertheless, if the subaltern cannot speak, how is it that Spivak manages to get the Subaltern speaking?
Secondly, I am again confronted with the question of the utility of this endeavor. If the intention underpinning all of this is to liberate an oppressed subject, does that necessarily have to include engaging in high flying jargon? In many ways, the relationship between these theoretical questions with the actual process of material betterment for a given class or group, is not clear to me. In addition to this, once we read the other article, one really has to wonder whether it is even desired to 'liberate' a subject from a position, that we consider, from our own position as subjugated? One example I can cite is for example, during my visit to the Cholistan desert. For all intents and purposes, the people there could not care any less about their voice. What they wanted more than anything else was material betterment. How then do we make sense of this entire theoretical discussion about recovering the voice of the subaltern?
In the same vein, the issue of recovering the voice of the subaltern is also from a very specific position. The voice of the subaltern is subaltern, perhaps, when seen from a specific position of the Western Academia with its languages and methods. Do the subaltern really want to speak in our terms? Do they care about how we hear their voices?
Finally, the issue of essentialism. It makes sense that to see the 'subaltern' occupying as one consciousness is essentialist, but at the same time, one wonders if that, in Guha's work is a political necessity. Guha's work sees one consciousness to make sense of the wide variety of actions happening in the archives. In that sense, I see Guha's work in the tradition which creates certain 'ideal types' to make sense of a World that could not, otherwise, have been made sense of.
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