My Introduction to Subaltern Studies
By Feather Crawford Freed
Articles by historians and social therists Ranajit Guha, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Vinay Bahl, Florencia Mallon and others, analyze the origin, development, and potential of Subaltern Studies within the academic community, as well as the social and economic implications of this new approach to historical interpretation. Introduced in India by historian Ranajit Guha in the early 1980s, Subaltern Studies departs from both colonial and Marxist interpretations of the popular experience of the Indian people under colonial domination, seeking to recognize the agency and purpose embedded in their insurgency and resistance.
In Selected Subaltern Studies, Guha enumerates the dangers and limitations of the historiography of colonial India and suggests a new way to read official and administrative colonial archive records. His treatment of institutionalized colonial dishonesty is dynamic and successful as he offers analytical tools that enable historians to ‘read against the grain’ as they cull colonial archives, and recognize the “code of pacification” (Guha 59) that obscures the power and intent of subaltern insurgency. Using concepts of hegemony and resistance first articulated by Antonio Gramsci, Guha makes a profound contribution to the academic effort to separate the historian’s perspective from that of the state.
In his article Subaltern Studies and Postcolonial Historiography, Dipesh Chakrabarty explains Subaltern Studies’ radical departure from Marxist historiography and offers a reasonable defense of Subaltern Studies in the face of recent criticism. Chakrabarty lists Subaltern Studies points of departure from previous historical interpretations of power and agency: (a) power is multi-dimensional and separate from capital (b) power bases exist outside of the center-periphery paradigm (c) the nation state is not the best basis for definitions of political activity. With the foundation for Subalternists’ perception of power and agency specified, the reader comprehends the radical paradigm shift represented by this new interpretation. If peasants are not backward and ‘pre-political’, but instead active agent in their own political destiny, experiencing “dominance without hegemony” (Chakrabarty 21) and consciously inverting colonial codes of behavior and destroying colonial symbols of power, then their previously dismissed forms of resistance gain legitimacy. The weakness in this approach stems from the types of archival sources available to scholars looking for evidence that the Subaltern was the “maker of his own destiny” (Chakrabarty 22). Often at a loss for written transcripts of Subaltern experience such as diaries or letters, Subalternists must look at the actions of the Subalterns to access the “collective imagination inherent in the practices of peasant rebellion” (Chakrabarty 23). When historians interpret the actions of a wide swathe of largely illiterate individuals and define their intentions and experiences, they run the risks of producing scholarship rife with assumption, projection, and ultimately, elitism.
Marxist historian Vinay Bahl offers criticisms of Subaltern Studies in her article Situating and Rethinking Subaltern Studies for Writing Working Class History that point out the archival limitations mentioned above, as well as many other issues. Concerned with the abandonment of the Marxist paradigm, Bahl attacks the academic origins and social implications of Subaltern Studies. For example, Bahl points to the Western influences apparent in Subaltern Studies and questions the legitimacy of an approach that at once rejects Western historiography and relies on Western tools of historical interpretation such as postmodernism in order to replace examination of class consciousness with inquiry into the production of meaning. This argument is not compelling, as it implies academic integrity somehow follows from an ethnocentric censorship of ideas. Concerns with the social implications of Subaltern Studies are more convincing, as the world situation reflects many of the fears articulated by Bahl. The replacement of the ideas of class consciousness and struggle with the focus on identity and ‘difference’ provide the language that enables academics, economists and politicians to ignore the material reality of the poor and its underlying causes, and to abandon the struggle against exploitation and inequality.
Bahl, and Arif Derlik, offer a more nuanced and profound critique of Subaltern Studies in the introduction to the book, History after the Three Worlds. They voice fears that Postmodernism, Multiculturalism and Sublternism will be but tools in the hands of dominant social and economic powers, tools with which they will render indigenous cultures more manageable and profitable. The article, The Promise and Dilemma of Subaltern Studies, by Florencia Mallon, is a provocative addition to this debate, as it credits the advent of Subaltern Studies for providing alternatives to Eurocentric historiography, while acknowledging the contradictions within Subaltern Studies, for example the way it minimizes issues such as gender, and within subalterns themselves, as they are often both the dominators and the dominated.
© Feather Crawford Freed
All Rights Reserved
Showing posts with label post-colonialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label post-colonialism. Show all posts
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities
Nationaliam, Identity, and the Lines on the Map that Make us Who We Are
by Feather Crawford Freed
In Imagined Communities, Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Benedict Anderson examined the rise of nationalism and ideas of “nation-ness” during the last two centuries. Anderson argued that nationalism was a cultural artefact spontaneously created through the convergence of discreet historical forces at the end of the eighteenth century, and transplanted across the world because people became able to imagine themselves part of a community defined by nationality. Anderson argued for his thesis by explaining the historical reasons behind the development of nationalism, ways in which people’s understanding of nationalism changed over time, and reasons why nationalism inspired the sacrifice and dedication once reserved for religion.
Anderson addressed both Marxist and Liberal explanations for the origin and spread of nationalism. The power of national identity, seen by Marxist historians like Tom Nairn as ‘Marxism’s great historical failure’ and Liberal historians such as Hugh Seton-Watson as an anomaly without scientific definition, was identified by Anderson as a significant “cultural artefact” worthy of study. Anderson investigated nationalism as a specific force in human society instead of addressing how well or how poorly the evidence of nationalistic identity fit into existing historical interpretations. Instead of characterizing nationalism as a social pathology or ideology, like fascism or liberalism, Anderson treated nationalism as a part of the human experience, like kinship or religion.
The evidence compiled and presented by Anderson spans the globe and two hundred year of revolution, state-building, and decolonization. While citing numerous compelling examples from nationalist movements worldwide, his argument is highly conceptual. Anderson made a model explaining the development of nationalism from aspects of its European inception and then applied that model to the development of nationalism in Creole states, official nationalism in imperialist states, and anti-colonial nationalism in post-World War II states.
Anderson first defined the nation on page nine as an “imagined political community…both inherently limited and sovereign.” Anderson then traced the cultural roots of nationalism to the ‘unselfconscious coherence’ of medieval religious communities and the permeable political boundaries of preceding dynastic realms. Anderson showed how print-capitalism, book-publishing, and the development of vernacular languages provided the tools people needed to imagine they were part of a much larger community of similar people, even though they might never meet.
Anderson then followed the threads of nationalism as they spread with European expansion and changed with New-World reinterpretation. Anderson addressed the discrepancy between the nationalisms that spawned revolution and national identity movements in the Americas and their European models. The national independence movements of the Americas inspire sacrifice and devotion in revolutionaries, yet instead of rallying around linguistic distinctiveness or ancient cultural identities, Creole nationalists fought and died for the sovereignty of the nations they imagined, nations that had previously been only administrative units of Colonial States. Anderson embraced these differences in Creole nationalism and the European model as evidence that nationalism had become ‘modular’ and ‘capable of being transplanted.
Anderson then examined ways nationalism was self-consciously constructed once the nation-state had become a legitimate and prestigious political entity. Dominant groups and dynastic realms employed policies of “official nationalism” to legitimize their claims to national authority and identity. Anderson pointed to examples of “Magyarization”(102), “Japanification”(98) and “Russification”(86) to prove that nationalism was used by empire-nations to conceal a “discrepancy between nation and dynastic realm”. (110)
Anderson’s final examples of the modular, compelling and adaptable nature of nationalism are found in the formation of nation states after World War II. The postcolonial nation-building in Africa and Asia at this time drew on lessons from European, Creole and official nationalisms, while emphasizing youth and anti-imperialism. Both sincere and self-conscious, this “last wave” (113) of nationalism employed tools for national identity like the map and census to imagine the validity of their political community.
Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities is a conceptual toll-kit that helps us understand the origin, function and power of nationalism. The smoothness with which he explains both the abstract and concrete, and the clarity of his arguments, soften the demands upon his audience. The most compelling image is that of Indonesian school children sitting in the classroom, looking at the map of the archipelago, and learning they were the blue-colored islands in the Indian Ocean. The blue-colored islands, Indonesia, that was who they were.
© Feather Crawford Freed
All Rights Reserved
by Feather Crawford Freed
In Imagined Communities, Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Benedict Anderson examined the rise of nationalism and ideas of “nation-ness” during the last two centuries. Anderson argued that nationalism was a cultural artefact spontaneously created through the convergence of discreet historical forces at the end of the eighteenth century, and transplanted across the world because people became able to imagine themselves part of a community defined by nationality. Anderson argued for his thesis by explaining the historical reasons behind the development of nationalism, ways in which people’s understanding of nationalism changed over time, and reasons why nationalism inspired the sacrifice and dedication once reserved for religion.
Anderson addressed both Marxist and Liberal explanations for the origin and spread of nationalism. The power of national identity, seen by Marxist historians like Tom Nairn as ‘Marxism’s great historical failure’ and Liberal historians such as Hugh Seton-Watson as an anomaly without scientific definition, was identified by Anderson as a significant “cultural artefact” worthy of study. Anderson investigated nationalism as a specific force in human society instead of addressing how well or how poorly the evidence of nationalistic identity fit into existing historical interpretations. Instead of characterizing nationalism as a social pathology or ideology, like fascism or liberalism, Anderson treated nationalism as a part of the human experience, like kinship or religion.
The evidence compiled and presented by Anderson spans the globe and two hundred year of revolution, state-building, and decolonization. While citing numerous compelling examples from nationalist movements worldwide, his argument is highly conceptual. Anderson made a model explaining the development of nationalism from aspects of its European inception and then applied that model to the development of nationalism in Creole states, official nationalism in imperialist states, and anti-colonial nationalism in post-World War II states.
Anderson first defined the nation on page nine as an “imagined political community…both inherently limited and sovereign.” Anderson then traced the cultural roots of nationalism to the ‘unselfconscious coherence’ of medieval religious communities and the permeable political boundaries of preceding dynastic realms. Anderson showed how print-capitalism, book-publishing, and the development of vernacular languages provided the tools people needed to imagine they were part of a much larger community of similar people, even though they might never meet.
Anderson then followed the threads of nationalism as they spread with European expansion and changed with New-World reinterpretation. Anderson addressed the discrepancy between the nationalisms that spawned revolution and national identity movements in the Americas and their European models. The national independence movements of the Americas inspire sacrifice and devotion in revolutionaries, yet instead of rallying around linguistic distinctiveness or ancient cultural identities, Creole nationalists fought and died for the sovereignty of the nations they imagined, nations that had previously been only administrative units of Colonial States. Anderson embraced these differences in Creole nationalism and the European model as evidence that nationalism had become ‘modular’ and ‘capable of being transplanted.
Anderson then examined ways nationalism was self-consciously constructed once the nation-state had become a legitimate and prestigious political entity. Dominant groups and dynastic realms employed policies of “official nationalism” to legitimize their claims to national authority and identity. Anderson pointed to examples of “Magyarization”(102), “Japanification”(98) and “Russification”(86) to prove that nationalism was used by empire-nations to conceal a “discrepancy between nation and dynastic realm”. (110)
Anderson’s final examples of the modular, compelling and adaptable nature of nationalism are found in the formation of nation states after World War II. The postcolonial nation-building in Africa and Asia at this time drew on lessons from European, Creole and official nationalisms, while emphasizing youth and anti-imperialism. Both sincere and self-conscious, this “last wave” (113) of nationalism employed tools for national identity like the map and census to imagine the validity of their political community.
Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities is a conceptual toll-kit that helps us understand the origin, function and power of nationalism. The smoothness with which he explains both the abstract and concrete, and the clarity of his arguments, soften the demands upon his audience. The most compelling image is that of Indonesian school children sitting in the classroom, looking at the map of the archipelago, and learning they were the blue-colored islands in the Indian Ocean. The blue-colored islands, Indonesia, that was who they were.
© Feather Crawford Freed
All Rights Reserved
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