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52-492: The term " 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 , class , gender , sexual orientation , ethnicity , or religion . The SSG arose in

104-687: A binary social relation that created and established the Subaltern native, realised by excluding The Other from the production of discourse, between the East and the West. In Geographies of Post colonialism (2008), Joanne Sharp developed Spivak 's line of reasoning that Western intellectuals displace to the margin of intellectual discourse the non–Western forms of "knowing" by re-formulating, and thus intellectually diminishing, such forms of acquiring knowledge as myth and folklore . To be heard and to be known,

156-410: A moral will. There was a bifurcation between the rational-utilitarian and non-rational-normative dimensions of action that Immanuel Kant addressed. Kant saw freedom as normative grounded individual will, governed by the categorical imperative . These ideas were the point of departure for concerns regarding non-rational, norm-oriented action in classical sociological theory contrasting with the views on

208-411: A new way. Tell it back to you in such a way that it has become mine, my own. Re-writing you, I write myself anew. I am still author, authority. I am still [the] colonizer, the speaking subject, and you are now at the center of my talk. As a means of constructing a great history of society, the story of the subaltern native is a revealing examination of the experience of colonialism from the perspective of

260-492: A particular interest in the discourses and rhetoric of emerging political and social movements, as against only highly visible actions like demonstrations and uprisings. 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

312-441: A position of power, the partners' heightened feeling of agency directly affects those who are inferior to them. The inferiors' sense of agency will most likely decrease upon the superiors' joint control because of intimidation and solitude factors. Although working together towards a common goal tends to cause an increased feeling of agency, the inflation of control could have many unforeseen consequences . Children's sense of agency

364-616: A sense, on the left , they are very critical of the traditional Marxist narrative of Indian history , in which semi- feudal India was colonized by the 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

416-453: A situation, and other possible explanations) can also influence judgments of agency. Furthermore, the relative importance of one heuristic over another seems to change with age. From an evolutionary perspective, the illusion of agency would be beneficial in allowing social animals to ultimately predict the actions of others. If one considers themself a conscious agent, then the quality of agency would naturally be intuited upon others. As it

468-493: Is one's independent capability or ability to act on one's will . This ability is affected by the cognitive belief structure which one has formed through one's experiences, and the perceptions held by the society and the individual, of the structures and circumstances of the environment one is in and the position one is born into. Disagreement on the extent of one's agency often causes conflict between parties, e.g. parents and children. The overall concept of agency has existed since

520-488: Is possible to deduce another's intentions , the assumption of agency allows one to extrapolate from those intentions what actions someone else is likely to perform. Under other conditions, cooperation between two subjects with a mutual feeling of control is what James M. Dow, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Hendrix College, defines as "joint agency." According to various studies on optimistic views of cooperation, "the awareness of doing things together jointly suggest that

572-433: Is the capacity of individuals to have the power and resources to fulfill their potential. Social structure consists of those factors of influence (such as social class, religion, gender, ethnicity, ability, customs, etc.) that determine or limit agents and their decisions. The influences from structure and agency are debated—it is unclear to what extent a person's actions are constrained by social systems. One's agency

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624-595: Is when a person acts on their own behalf, whereas proxy agency is when an individual acts on behalf of someone else (such as an employer). Collective agency occurs when people act together, such as a social movement. Hewson also identifies three properties of human beings that give rise to agency: intentionality, power, and rationality. Human beings act with intention and are goal oriented. They also have differing amounts of abilities and resources resulting in some having greater agency (power) than others. Finally, human beings use their intellect to guide their actions and predict

676-707: The American Journal of Sociology as a temporally embedded process that encompasses three different constitutive elements: iteration, projectivity and practical evaluation. Each of these elements is a component of agency as a whole. They are used to study different aspects of agency independently to make conclusions about the bigger concept. The iteration element of agency refers to the selective reactivation of past patterns of thought and action. In this way, actors have routine actions in response to typical situations that help them sustain identities, interactions and institutions over time. The projective element encompasses

728-567: The Enlightenment where there was debate over whether human freedom was expressed through instrumental rationality or moral and norm-based action. John Locke argued in favor of freedom being based on self-interest. His rejection of the binding of tradition and the concept of the social contract led to the conception of agency as the capacity of human beings to shape the circumstances in which they live. Jean-Jacques Rousseau explored an alternative conception of this freedom by framing it as

780-459: The proletariat (a code word to deceive the prison censor to allow his manuscripts out the prison), but contemporary evidence indicates that the term was a novel concept in Gramsci's political theory. The postcolonial critic Homi K. Bhabha emphasized the importance of social power relations in defining subaltern social groups as oppressed, racial minorities whose social presence was crucial to

832-439: The " will to power " and, famously, Paul Ricœur added Freud – as a third member of the " school of suspicion " – who accounted for the unconscious determinants of human behavior. Ludwig Wittgenstein 's talk of rule-following and private language arguments in his Philosophical Investigations has also made its way into the discussion of agency, in the work of Charles Taylor for example. Agency has also been defined in

884-607: The 1980s, influenced by the scholarship of 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 traveled, mainly through Guha's students. 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

936-468: The 1980s, the Subaltern Studies method of historical enquiry was applied to South Asian historiography . As a method of intellectual discourse, the concept of the subaltern originated as a Eurocentric method of historical enquiry for the study of non-Western peoples (of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East ) and their relation to Western Europe as the centre of world history. Subaltern studies became

988-688: The Orient as backward and irrational lands, and, therefore, in need of the European civilizing mission , to help them become modern , in the Western sense; hence, the Eurocentric discourse of Orientalism excludes the voices of the subaltern natives, the Orientals, themselves. The cultural theorist Stuart Hall said that the power of cultural discourse created and reinforced Western dominance of

1040-548: 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. Note: Scholars associated with Subaltern Studies include: Subaltern (postcolonialism) In postcolonial studies and in critical theory , subalterns are

1092-518: The academic's engagement with the non–Western Other . That in order to truly communicate with the subaltern native, the academic would have to remove him or herself as "the expert" at the center of the Us-and-Them binary social relation. Traditionally, the academic wants to learn of the subaltern native's experiences of colonialism, but does not want to know the subaltern's (own) explanation of his or her experiences of colonial domination. In light of

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1144-509: The application of universal social and political, economic and cultural policies that would nationally establish such modernization. In Making Development Geography (2007), Victoria Lawson presents a critique of mainstream development discourse as mere recreation of the Subaltern, which is effected by means of the subaltern being disengaged from other social scales, such as the locale and the community; not considering regional, social class, ethnic group, sexual- and gender-class differences among

1196-500: The colonial populations who are socially, politically, and geographically excluded from the hierarchy of power of an imperial colony and from the metropolitan homeland of an empire. Antonio Gramsci coined the term subaltern to identify the cultural hegemony that excludes and displaces specific people and social groups from the socio-economic institutions of society, in order to deny their agency and voices in colonial politics. The terms subaltern and subaltern studies entered

1248-434: The colonial states they constitute, they can be heard by means of their political actions, effected in protest against the discourse of mainstream development, and, thereby, create their own, proper forms of modernization and development. Hence do subaltern social groups create social, political, and cultural movements that contest and disassemble the exclusive claims to power of the Western imperialist powers, and so establish

1300-602: The conceptual difference and strangeness of the Orient; such cultural discourses about the Oriental Other were perpetuated through the mass communications media of the time, and created an Us-and-Them binary social relation with which the Europeans defined themselves by defining the differences between the Orient and the Occident. As a foundation of colonialism, the Us-and-Them binary social relation misrepresented

1352-404: The consequences of their actions. In his work on conversational agency, David R. Gibson defines agency as action that furthers an actor's idiosyncratic objectives in the face of localized constraints that also have the potential of suppressing the very same action. Constraints such as who is speaking, how is participation shifted among participants, and topical and relevance constraints can impact

1404-460: 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. Even Gayatri Spivak , one of the most prominent names associated with

1456-486: The event were ones that the individual desired (also see self-serving biases ). Janet Metcalfe and her colleagues have identified other possible heuristics, or rules of thumb that people use to make judgments of agency. These include a "forward model" in which the mind actually compares two signals to judge agency: the feedback from a movement, but also an "efferent copy" – a mental prediction of what that movement feedback should feel like. Top down processing (understanding of

1508-399: The experience of subjects engaging in cooperation involves a positive here and now experience of the activity being under joint control." Shared agency increases the amount of control between those cooperating in any given situation, which, in return, could have negative effects on individuals that the partners in control associate with. If joint agency is held by two people that are already in

1560-441: The feminist scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak cautioned against an over-broad application of the term the subaltern , because the word: subaltern is not just a classy word for "oppressed", for [the] Other , for somebody who's not getting a piece of the pie   ... . In post-colonial terms, everything that has limited or no access to the cultural imperialism is subaltern—a space of difference. Now, who would say that's just

1612-407: The hegemonic discourse, wanting a piece of the pie, and not being allowed, so let them speak, use the hegemonic discourse. They should not call themselves subaltern. In Marxist theory , the civil sense of the term subaltern was first used by Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937). In discussions of the meaning of the term subaltern in the work of Gramsci, Spivak said that he used the word as a synonym for

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1664-408: The marginalised peoples, is a subaltern; in India, women, Shudras and Dalits (also known as Untouchables), and rural migrant labourers are part of the subaltern social stratum. Postcolonial theory studies the power and the continued dominance of Western ways of intellectual enquiry, the methods of generating knowledge . In the book Orientalism (1978), Edward Said conceptually addresses

1716-576: The mechanics of Western knowledge, hooks said that a true explanation can come only from the expertise of the Western academic, thus, the subaltern native surrenders knowledge of colonialism to the investigating academic. About the binary relationship of investigation, between the academic and the subaltern native, hooks said that: [There is] no need to hear your [native] voice, when I can talk about you better than you can speak about yourself. No need to hear your voice. Only tell me about your pain. I want to know your story. And then I will tell it back to you in

1768-504: The model for historical research of the subaltern's experience of colonialism in the Indian subcontinent. In postcolonial theory, the term subaltern describes the lower social classes and the Other social groups displaced to the margins of a society; in an imperial colony, a subaltern is a native man or woman without human agency , as defined by his and her social status . Nonetheless,

1820-477: The modernization of an underdeveloped country should follow the path to modernization taken (and established) by the developed countries of the West. As such, modernization is characterized by free trade, open markets, capitalist economic systems, and democratic systems of governance, as the means by which a nation should modernize their country en route to becoming a developed country in the Western style. Therefore, mainstream development discourse concentrates upon

1872-403: The movement, has called herself a critic of "metropolitan post-colonialism". American sociologist Vivek Chibber has criticized the premise of Subaltern Studies for its obfuscation of class struggle and class formation in its analysis and accused it of excising class exploitation from the story of the oppression of the subaltern. His critique, explained in his book Postcolonial Theory and

1924-407: The non-Western world. That the European discourses describing the differences between The West and The East, applied European cultural categories, languages, and ideas to represent the non-European Other. The knowledge produced by such discourses became social praxis, which then became reality; by producing a discourse of difference, Europe maintained Western dominance over the non-European Other, using

1976-565: The oppressed subaltern native to explain how the Eurocentric perspective of Orientalism produced the ideological foundations and justifications for the colonial domination of the Other . Before their actual explorations of The Orient, Europeans had invented imaginary geographies of the Orient; predefined images of the savage peoples and exotic places that lay beyond the horizon of the Western world. The mythologies of Orientalism were reinforced by travellers who returned from Asia to Europe with reports of monsters and savage lands, which were based upon

2028-406: The oppressed? The working class is oppressed. It's not subaltern   ... . Many people want to claim [the condition of] subalternity . They are the least interesting and the most dangerous. I mean, just by being a discriminated-against minority on the university campus; they don't need the word 'subaltern'   ... . They should see what the mechanics of the discrimination are. They're within

2080-419: The peoples and countries being modernized; the continuation of the socio-cultural treatment of the subaltern as a subject of development, as a subordinate who is ignorant of what to do and how to do it; and by excluding the voices of the subject peoples from the formulations of policy and practice used to effect the modernization. As such, the subaltern are peoples who have been silenced in the administration of

2132-483: The perspective of the proletariat ; that the who? and the what? of social class are determined by the economic relations among the social classes of a society. Since the 1970s, the term subaltern has denoted the colonized peoples of the Indian subcontinent , imperial history told from below , from the perspective of the colonised peoples, rather than from the perspective of the colonisers from Western Europe . By

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2184-405: The possibility of expressing agency. Seizing the moment, when the "looseness" of such constraints allows, enables users to express what Gibson calls "colloquial agency". Social psychologist Daniel Wegner discusses how an " illusion of control " may cause people to take credit for events that they did not cause. These false judgments of agency occur especially under stress, or when the results of

2236-670: The process of imagining possible future trajectories of action connected to the actor's hopes, fears, and desires for the future. The last element, the practical-evaluative element, entails the capacity of people to make practical and normative judgements amongst alternative possible actions in response to a context, a demand or a presently evolving situation. Martin Hewson, Associate at the York Centre for International and Security Studies, York University , describes three types of agency: individual, proxy, and collective. Individual agency

2288-435: The rational instrumental action. These definitions of agency remained mostly unquestioned until the nineteenth century, when philosophers began arguing that the choices humans make are dictated by forces beyond their control. For example, Karl Marx argued that in modern society, people were controlled by the ideologies of the bourgeoisie, Friedrich Nietzsche argued that man made choices based on his own selfish desires, or

2340-442: The self-definition of the majority group; as such, subaltern social groups, nonetheless, also are in a position to subvert the authority of the social groups who hold hegemonic power. In Toward a New Legal Common Sense (2002), the sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos applied the term subaltern cosmopolitanism to describe the counter-hegemonic practice of social struggle against Neoliberalism and globalization , especially

2392-454: The struggle against social exclusion . Moreover, de Sousa Santos applied subaltern cosmopolitanism as interchangeable with the term cosmopolitan legality to describe the framework of diverse norms meant to realise an equality of differences , wherein the term subaltern identifies the oppressed peoples, at the margins of society, who are struggling against the hegemony of economic globalization. Context, time, and place determine who, among

2444-421: The subaltern man and the subaltern woman, the most powerless people living within the socio-economic confines of imperialism; therefore, the academic investigator of post-colonialism must not assume cultural superiority when studying the voices of the subaltern natives. Mainstream development discourse, which is based upon knowledge of colonialism and Orientalism , concentrates upon modernization theory , wherein

2496-468: The subaltern native must adopt Western ways of knowing (language, thought, reasoning); because of such Westernization , a subaltern people can never express their native ways of knowing, and, instead, must conform their native expression of knowledge to the Western, colonial ways of knowing the world. The subordinated native can be heard by the colonisers only by speaking the language of their empire; thus, intellectual and cultural filters of conformity muddle

2548-439: The subaltern subjects, and to interpret what I hear, and to engage them and interact with their voices. We cannot ascend to a position of dominance over the voice, subjugating its words to the meanings we desire to attribute to them. That is simply another form of discrimination. The power to narrate somebody's story is a heavy task, and we must be cautious and aware of the complications involved." Like Spivak, bell hooks questions

2600-626: The true voice of the subaltern native. For example, in Colonial Latin America , the subordinated natives conformed to the colonial culture, and used the linguistic filters of religion and servitude when addressing their Spanish imperial rulers. To make effective appeals to the Spanish Crown, slaves and natives would address the rulers in ways that masked their own, native ways of speaking. The historian Fernando Coronil said that his goal as an investigator must be "to listen to

2652-435: The use and application of local knowledge to create new spaces of opposition and alternative, non-imperialist futures. Agency (sociology) 1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville  ·  Marx ·  Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto ·  Tönnies · Veblen ·  Simmel · Durkheim ·  Addams ·  Mead · Weber ·  Du Bois ·  Mannheim · Elias In social science , agency

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2704-539: The vocabulary of post-colonial studies through the works of the Subaltern Studies Group of historians who explored the political-actor role of the common people who constitute the mass population, rather than re-explore the political-actor roles of the social and economic elites in the history of India. As a method of investigation and analysis of the political role of subaltern populations, Karl Marx's theory of history presents colonial history from

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