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CAN THE SUBALTERN

SPEAK?

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Speaking for/as the other

- Subaltern as an inferior rank (i.e. thelowest strata in society). The term was

used by Antonio Gramsci.

- It may be emphasized that subaltern isa term that commonly refers to the

perspective of persons from regions

and groups outside the hegemonic

power structure.

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Epistemic Violence

(Definition)

- Violence done to the ways of knowing

and understanding of non-western,

indigenous people.

- Western ways of knowing have been

help up as the way of knowing.

- Other forms of knowledge have been

rendered as less valid, or even

downright wrong.

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To be heard, to be listened and

taken seriously, others must also

adopt western thought, reasoning

and language.

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Epistemic Violence

(Example) White men are saving brown women from

brown men

Spivak shows us that it is either the white man

explaining why Sati is a barbaric custom and

must be abolished or the brown man insisting

that it is a ritual that renders the woman sacred.

At no point is the voice of the brown woman

heard. It is the woman who becomes sati, yet no

one comes across the testimony of thewomens voice consciousness.

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Spivak explains that the recovery of a

subaltern voice especially from the

history may involve a generalized andstereotyped fiction.

Spivak argues that it is difficult to recover

a voice for the subaltern without opposing

the heterogeneity.

She plays her role in improving the

possibility of adopting short-term

grouping.This known as strategic essentialism.

It refers as a strategic using a clear

image of identity to fight for womens

rights and tribal rights.

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Strategic essentialism is a

term coined by GayatriSpivak.

Refers as self defined and

focuses much on her

work on post colonialissues and marginalized

populations.

Strategic essentialism

refers to the ways inwhich subordinate people

were put aside in terms of

local differences.

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This approach increase the notion of

authenticity. Spivaks main concern is with the people of

India and females in Asia.

Can the subaltern speak is categorized as

the western academic thinking. Spivak discusses the way in which western

thinking and ideology frames and represent

the third world.

She started her research by labeling the thirdworld as the other and overthere.

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Can Spivak (a women) speak as, she put

herself as a Third World person and also as an

Indian woman. She is expected to do it in international

conferences.

Spivak worries when she try to speak as.

Besides that, she also worries aboutgeneralizing herself.

Third World

male and female

Poor women

of a nation