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Founding Statement

LatinAmerican Subaltern Studies Group

Introduction
The workof the SubalternStudiesGroup,an interdisciplinary orga-
nizationof South Asianscholarsled by RanajitGuha,has inspiredus to
founda similarprojectdedicatedto studyingthe subalterninLatinAmerica.'
The presentdismantlingof authoritarianregimesin LatinAmerica,the end
of communismandthe consequentdisplacementof revolutionary projects,
the processes of redemocratization,andthe new dynamicscreatedby the
effectsof the mass mediaandtransnational economicarrangements: these
are all developmentsthat call for new ways of thinkingand acting politi-
of LatinAmericanpoliticalandculturalspace inrecent
cally.The redefinition
in
years has, turn,impelledscholarsof the regionto reviseestablishedand
previouslyfunctionalepistemologiesinthe socialsciences andhumanities.
1. The groupexplainsthatit uses the wordsubaltern"as a name forthe generalattribute
of subordinationin SouthAsiansociety whetherthis is expressed intermsof class, caste,
age, gender, and office or in any otherway."See RanajitGuha, "Preface,"in Selected
SubalternStudies, RanajitGuhaand GayatriSpivak,eds. (New York:OxfordUniversity
Press, 1988), 35.
boundary2 20:3,1993.Copyright
? 1993byDukeUniversity
Press.CCC0190-3659/93/$1.50.
 LatinAmerican StudiesGroup/ Founding
Subaltern Statement111

The general trendtowarddemocratization prioritizesin particularthe re-

examinationof the concepts of pluralisticsocieties and the conditionsof
subalternity withinthese societies.
The realizationthatcolonialand postindependenceelites agreed in
theirviewsof the subalternledthe SubalternStudiesGroupto questionthe
masterparadigmsused in representing colonialandpostcolonialsocieties,
both in the culturalpracticesof hegemonydevelopedby elite groupsand
in the disciplinarydiscoursesof the humanitiesand social sciences that
seek to representthe workingsof these societies. Guha'sinauguralarticle
in the firstvolumeof the SubalternStudiesseries, publishedby the group
beginningin 1982,laysoutthe ambitionof the projectto displacethe casual
and descriptiveassumptionsaboutSouthAsiancolonialhistoryembedded
in the dominantmodelsof colonial,nationalist,and traditional Marxisthis-
toriography.2 His 1983 book,ElementaryAspects of Peasant Insurgency,
criticizesthe prejudiceinprevioushistoricalscholarshipfavoringinsurgents
who presentwrittenagendas andcarefullythought-outprograms.Thisde-
pendencyon the writtenrecord,Guhanotes, betraysa prejudicefor both
literacyand foreignand indigenouselites in the veryconstructionof South
Asianhistoriography.
Readingthis historiography "inreverse"(or "againstthe grain,"in
the idiomof deconstructionsometimesused by the group)to recoverthe
culturaland politicalspecificityof peasantinsurrections has, forGuha,two
the
components:identifying logic of the in
distortions the representation of
the subalternin officialor eliteculture;and uncoveringthe social semiotics
of the strategiesandculturalpracticesof peasantinsurgenciesthemselves.3
The insightof Guhawas thatthe subaltern,by definitionnot registeredor
registrableas a historicalsubjectcapableof hegemonicaction(seen, thatis,
throughthe prismof colonialadministrators or "educated" nativeleaders),
is neverthelesspresentin unexpectedstructuraldichotomies,fissures in
the formsof hierarchyandhegemony,and,inturn,inthe constitutionof the
heroes of the nationaldrama,writing,literature, education,institutions,and
the administration of lawand authority.
The subaltern,in otherwords,is notonlyacted on, despitethe ten-
dency intraditional paradigmsto see itas a passiveor"absent"subjectthat
can be mobilizedonlyfromabove;italso acts to producesocialeffectsthat
2. RanajitGuha,"OnSome Aspects of the Historiography of ColonialIndia,"in Selected
SubalternStudies, 37-43.
3. The classic statement of this double endeavor is Guha's "The Prose of Counter-
Insurgency," in Selected SubalternStudies, 45-84.
112 boundary
2 / Fall1993

are visible,ifnotalwayspredictable or understandable, bythese paradigms

or the state policiesand researchprojectsthey authorize.Itis the recogni-
tionof this roleof the subaltern,howitcurves,alters,modifiesourlifestrate-
gies of learning,understanding, and research,that underliesthe doubts
besetting these traditional disciplinaryandhistoriographic paradigms,para-
digms that are themselves relatedto the socialprojectsof national,regional,
and international elites seeking to manageor controlsubjectpopulations
and that bringin theirwake the dangerof filteringculturalhegemoniesall
the wayacrossthe politicalspectrum,fromthe elitesthemselvesto the epis-
temologiesand discoursesof revolutionary movementslookingto subvert
theirpowerinthe nameof the "people."

The Subalternin LatinAmericanStudies

The limitsof elite historiographyin relationto the subalterndo not
come as an unexpectedtheoreticalsurprisein LatinAmericanStudies,
whichhas longworkedwiththe assumptionthatnationandnationalare not
popular,all-inclusiveterms.Theconceptand representation of subalternity
developedby the South Asian Subaltern Studies Group does notgain cur-
rencyuntilthe 1980s; but LatinAmericanStudieshas been involvedwith
relatedissues since its inauguration as a fieldinthe 1960s.Theconstitution
of the fielditself(andof the LatinAmericanStudiesAssociationas its orga-
nizationalform)as a necessarilyinterdisciplinary formationcorrespondsto
the way inwhichthe SouthAsiangroupconceptualizedthe subalternas a
subjectthatemerges across, or at the intersectionsof, a spectrumof aca-
demicdisciplinesrangingfromthe philosophical critiqueof metaphysics,to
contemporary and
literary theory, historyandthe socialsciences.
cultural to
Indeed, the force behind the problemof the subalterninLatinAmericacould
be said to arise directlyout of the need to reconceptualizethe relationof
nation,state, and"people"inthe threesocialmovementsthathavecentrally
shapedthe contoursandconcernsof LatinAmericanStudies(as of modern
LatinAmericaitself):the Mexican,Cuban,and NicaraguanRevolutions.
We may plotthe relationshipof the emergenceof LatinAmerican
Studies withthe problemof the conceptualization of subalternityin terms
of three majorphases from1960to the present.

Phase One: 1960-1968

As is wellknown,althoughmostof LatinAmericagainedformalinde-
pendence in the nineteenth century,the resultingpostcolonial nation-states
 LatinAmerican
Subaltern
StudiesGroup/ Founding
Statement113

were ruledpredominantly by whitecriolloswho developed internalcolo-

nialregimeswithrespectto the Indians,the slaves of Africandescent, the
mestizo or mulattopeasantry,and the nascent proletariats. The Mexican
Revolutionmarkeda pointof departurefromthis white-(andmale-)domi-
nated,oligarchic,and Eurocentric modelof development,dependingas it
did on the agency of Indiansand poormestizos not only as soldiersbut
also as leadersand strategistsof the revolutionary upheaval.Inpostrevo-
lutionaryMexico,however,in a processthathas been amplystudied,this
protagonismwas bluntedat the economic,political,and culturallevels in
favorof the rise of a new mestizoupperand middleclass by the suppres-
sion of Indianleadersandcommunities, andbythe resubalternizationof the
Indianas a "cultural" artifactof the new state apparatus(e.g., in Mexican
muralism)ratherthanas an actualhistorical-political agent.
The Cuban Revolutionrepresentsa partialrevivalof the impulse
towarda surfacingof the subaltern,inparticular raisingagainstthe primacy
of Eurocentrichistoriographic and culturalparadigmson both a practical
anda theoreticallevelthe questionofthe non-(orpost-)Europeancharacter
of the social subjectof LatinAmericanhistoryinthe contextof decoloniza-
tion. RobertoFernandezRetamar'srereadingof Fanonand the discourse
of nationalliberationin his essay Calibanwas an exampleof the new ways
of conceptualizingLatinAmericanhistoryand identity.
Thisimpulseinfluencednotonlythe Boomwritersin literature, such
as MarioVargasLlosa,CarlosFuentes,and GabrielGarciaMarquez,but
also intellectualsin the social sciences, such as AndreGunderFrankand
the dependency-schooltheorists.Bothgroupscame to see the establish-
mentof viableeconomiesandsocieties inLatinAmericaas contingenton a
radicalstructural"break" withthe dominantsystem,a breakthat,at least in
theory,wouldbothallowand be producedby the protagonismof subaltern
subjects.
The CubanRevolutionopenedupculturalandpoliticalpracticesthat
were no longersatisfiedwiththe representation of the social subject of
LatinAmericanhistoryas the middleor upperclass. The new prestigethe
revolutiongave to Marxismamong LatinAmericanintellectualsand cul-
turalworkersprovidedan optimismandepistemological certaintyregarding
the natureof historicalagency.The conceptof the people as the "work-
ing masses" became the new centerof representation. Amongthe most
significantresultsof this shiftin the fieldof culturewere the documentary
filmschool of Santa Fe createdin Argentinaby FernandoBirri,the films
of the BrazilianCinema Nouvo and Cuba's ICAIC,the Bolivianconcept of
114 boundary2 / Fall1993

"filmwith-the-people" developedbyJorgeSanjinesandGrupoUkamu,the
Colombian"teatrode creaci6ncolectiva,"the TeatroEscambrayin Cuba,
and relatedmovementsinthe UnitedStates likethe TeatroCampesino.
But,even wherethis workengaged problemsof gender,race, lan-
guage, and the like,its insistenceon a unitary,class-basedsubjectand its
concomitantassumptionof the identityof theoretical-literarytextsproduced
with
by elite intellectuals thissubjectveiledthe disparityof blacks,Indians,
Chicanos, and women;alternativemodels of sexualityand of the body;
alternativeepistemologiesand ontologies;the existenceof those who had
not enteredintoa social pact withthe (revolutionary) state;the "lumpen."
(A good dramatizationof the issues but
involved, one thatalso is "partof
the problem"in its mannerof posingthem,was SaraG6mez'sexploration
of class, race,andgenderconflictsinpostrevolutionary Cubain herfilmDe
CiertaManera[OneWayor Another].) The subjectof historywas neverin
question,andso neitherwas the adequacyof its representation (bothinthe
mimeticand the politicalsense) by revolutionary sects, by the new forms
of artand culture,or by new theoreticalparadigmslikedependencytheory
or AlthusserianMarxism.

Phase Two: 1968-1979

The crisis of the modelof protagonismrepresentedby the Cuban
Revolutioncomes withthe collapse of Che Guevara'sguerrillagroup in
Boliviaand of the foco-basedguerrillafrontsgenerallyin the late 1960s,
a collapse predicatedin parton the separationbetweenthese groupsand
the masses they sought to dynamizeinto revolutionary action (an eerily
apt imageof thiswas Guevara'srecognition,notedin his BolivianDiary,of
the lackof response in the eyes of the Aymara-speaking peasants of the
altiplanohe was to
trying organize).
The U.S. NewLeftandantiwarmovement,the French"May," andthe
in
studentdemonstrationsand subsequentmassacreat Tlatelolco Mexico
in 1968 signal the entranceof studentsas politicalactorsonto the world
stage, displacingtraditionalsocial-democraticor Communistpartiesand
formations.The culturalpracticesinformingthisinsurgencyare exemplified
in LatinAmericaby VioletaParraand the nueva trovamovementin Latin
Americanmusic,or by the emergenceof reggae and some formsof rock
as oppositionalmusics.The momentis characterized on the one
politically,
hand, by a "generational" strugglebetweenelite and middlesectors and
a new, class-amorphoussocial sector,whichthe student-basedNew Left
seeks to represent; on the other, by the broad alliance politics or popu-
 LatinAmerican
Subaltern
StudiesGroup/ Founding
Statement115

larfrontismof movementssuch as the ChileanUP (PopularUnity)under

Allende.
In culturalproduction,the emergenceof testimonialand documen-
taryformsshiftsdramatically the parametersof representation away from
the writerand the avant-gardes.In contrastto the ambitionof the Boom
noveliststo "speakfor"LatinAmerica,the subalternsubjectrepresented
in the testimonialtext becomes partof the constructionof the text itself.
Thedissatisfactionwiththe Boom'smale-centeredstrategyof "metafiction-
ality"leads to a new emphasison the concrete,the personal,the "small
history,"writing(orvideowork)by women,politicalprisoners,lumpen,and
gays, raising,in the process, questionsof who representswhom.Simulta-
neously,there is the initiativein academicliterarycriticismto constructa
"socialhistory"of LatinAmericanliterature, representedby projectssuch
as the Ideologiesand Literature group at the Universityof Minnesotaand
the Institutode EstudiosLatinoamericanos "R6muloGallegos"inCaracas,
bothnourishedby the diasporaof SouthernCone leftistintellectualsinthe
years following1973.
Thisphase also marksthe introduction intoLatinAmericaof French
poststructuralisttheory,Gramscian Marxism, and the heritageof the Frank-
furtschool, whichserves to destabilizesome of the assumptionsof the
variousformsof orthodoxMarxismdominantin the 1960s and the model
of "modernization" generatedin U.S. social sciences. In response to the
formalismof structuralistsemiotics,a "social"semioticsstressing hetero-
glossia,dialogism, and the ofdiscoursesandsignifyingpractices
multiplicity
gains currency,impelledby the LatinAmericanreceptionof the workof
Bakhtin,Voloshinov,Lotmanand the School of Tartu,and the emerging
fieldof popularculturestudiesinthe UnitedStates and GreatBritain.

Phase Three: The 1980s

The NicaraguanRevolution,and the contingentspreadand impor-
tance of liberationtheologytheoryand practice,become primarypointsof
reference in this phase. Culture,democratization, global, "post-" (Marx-
ism, modernism,structuralism) becomekeywords.Highcultureformssuch
as literatureare bracketedby the critiquesdevelopedby deconstruction,
feminism,blackandChicanostudiesinthe UnitedStates,andintheirplace,
an anthropologicalsense of cultureas "livedexperience"comes to the fore.
Intandemwiththe emergenceof projectssuch as the SubalternStudies
Group,or the BirminghamCenter for CulturalStudies directed by Jamaican
Stuart Hall, Latin Americanists begin to question deeply the persistence
 2 / Fall1993
116 boundary

in LatinAmericanmodernityof colonialor neocolonialsystems of repre-

sentation.4Thereis a new sense thatbothculturaland politicaldynamics
have begun to functionin a globalcontextthatproblematizesthe center-
peripherymodelof dependencytheoryas wellas the strategiesof economic
nationalismthatfollowfromit(theend of the growthcycleof the sixtiesand
the debt crisiswillbe the dominanteconomicfacts of the decade in Latin
America).
The rapiddevelopmentand spreadof information technologyis the
definingtechnological feature of thisphase, permitting, amongotherthings,
the circulationof texts and culturalpracticesfromareas of the formerly
colonialworldin new,globalcircuitsof information retrievaland exchange
(the publication,subsequentreception,and currentcentralityin the U.S.
multiculturalism debateof RigobertaMenchu'stestimonio,is one small,but
significant,exampleof the new ways in whichculturalobjectsare created
andcirculate).Withthe proliferation of television,the dominantnew cultural
formin LatinAmericabecomes the telenovela,and communicationsthe
fastest growingacademicfield.
It is the moment,precisely,of the emergenceof CulturalStudies
withinthe Anglo-American academy,an emergencefueledby the conjunc-
tionof feministtheoryand activism,the critiqueof colonialdiscourse,new
formsof Marxismand social theory(Jameson,Mouffeand Laclau's"post-
Marxism," Lyotard'spostmoderncondition),the psychoanalyticaccountof
the constructionof the subjectprovidedby Lacaniantheory,the new at-
tentionto the mass mediaand popularculture,and the new experiences
of globalityand simultaneity. Witha delay of aboutfive years, this emer-
gence is replicatedin Latin America itselfand in LatinAmericanStudies. It
wouldbe appropriate, then,to concludethis narrative of the relationof the
of
problem subalternity to Latin American Studies with two observations:
(1) the projectof developinga LatinAmericanSubalternStudies Group
such as the one we are proposingrepresentsone aspect, albeita crucial
one, of the largeremergentfieldof LatinAmericanCulturalStudies;(2) in
the new situationof globality,the signifierLatinAmericanitselfnow refers
also to significantsocialforceswithinthe UnitedStates,whichhas nowbe-
come the fourth-or fifth-largest Spanish-speakingnationin the world(out
of twenty).

4. See, for example, Angel Rama'sposthumousLa ciudad letrada(Hanover,N.H.:Edi-

ciones del Norte,1984).
 LatinAmerican StudiesGroup/ Founding
Subaltern Statement117

FoundingConcepts and Strategies

Itis above allthe emergingconsensus on the need fora democratic
worldorderthatsets the stage forourwork.Theethicalandepistemological
natureof this consensus and the fate of the processes of redemocratiza-
tion in LatinAmericaitselfare, we believe,linkedin ways thatimposenew
urgencies and challenges on our workas scholarsand teachers. These
involve,on the one hand, a heightenedsensitivityto the complexitiesof
socialdifferenceand,on the other,thecompositionof a plural,butbounded,
space orplatform of researchanddiscussioninwhicheveryonehas a place.
Traditional configurationsof democracyand the nation-statehave barred
subalternsocial classes and groupsfromactivelyparticipating both in the
politicalprocess and in the constitutionof academicallyauthorizedknowl-
edge, and have not recognizedtheirpotentialcontributions as a pool of
humancapital,except by default.
Whatis clear fromthe workof the SouthAsianSubalternStudies
Groupis the axiomthatthe elites representedby the nationalbourgeoisie
and/orthe colonialadministration areresponsibleforinventingthe ideology
and realityof nationalism. Theirwayof lookingatthingsis locatedwithinthe
parametersof the nation-stateas constitutedat pointsof intersection,and
interest,betweena formerlyhegemoniccolonialpowerand a futurepost-
colonialsystem of new states, in whichtheywillplaykey leadershiproles.
At the same time, it is what Guhacalls the "historicfailureof the nation
to come intoits own,"5a failuredue to the inadequacyof elite leadership,
that is the centralproblematicof postcoloniality.The new globalpolitical
economybringsin its wakea conceptualmovementto de-emphasizepara-
digms of nationand independence,a shiftthataccountsforthe changes
in terminology in the social sciences. Consensus, pluralism, democracy,
subalternity,power shift, new global order, and GrandArea are examples
of this mutation.Theyhave substitutedtermssuch as modernization,dic-
tatorship, party, revolution,metropolis/periphery, development, national-
ism, and nationalliberation.One of ourfirsttasks is to trackthe ways in
whichtermsmutate,andwhatit meansto use a giventerminology.
Inadditionto conceptualizingnationas at least a dualspace (colo-
nialormetropolitan/Creoleelites;Creoleelites/subalterngroups),the study
of the subalternin LatinAmericainvolvesotherstructuraldichotomies.As

5. Guha,"OnSome Aspects,"43.
 2 / Fall1993
118 boundary

a space of counterposition and collision,the nationincludesmultiplefrac-

turesof language,race,ethnicity,gender,class, andthe resultingtensions
between assimilation(ethnicdilutionand homogenization) and confronta-
tion(passiveresistance,insurgency,strikes,terrorism). Thesubalternfunc-
tions as a "migrating" subject,bothin its own culturalself-representations
and in the changingnatureof its social pactwiththe state(s).Accordingto
boththe mode of productionnarrativeof classicalMarxismand the mod-
ernizationnarrativeof sociologicalfunctionalism, a migratingsubjectmust
be plottedagainst its positionin the stages of developmentof a national
economy.Insuch narratives, the consentof the subalternclasses andtheir
identity as economic categoriesunderwrite the increasedproductivity that
is the sign of progress and economic The
stability. question of the nature
of the subalternsocial pactis integralto the effectivefunctioning of govern-
ments in the present,as muchas to plottingtheirfuture.
De-nationalization is simultaneouslya limitand a thresholdof our
project. The of the nation-stateunderthe impactof
"de-territorialization"
the new permeability of frontiersto capital-laborflowsmerelyreplicates,in
effect, the genetic process of implantation of a colonialeconomyin Latin
Americain the sixteenthand seventeenthcenturies.Itis not only thatwe
can no longer operatesolely withinthe prototypeof nationhood;the con-
cept of the nation,itselftiedto the protagonism of Creoleelites concerned
to dominateand/ormanageothersocialgroupsorclasses intheirownsoci-
eties, has obscured,fromthe start,the presence and realityof subaltern
social subjects in LatinAmericanhistory.We need, in this sense, to go
backwardto considerbothpre-Columbian andcolonialformsof prenational
as well as forward
territorialization, to thinkaboutnewlyemergingterrito-
rialsubdivisions,permeablefrontiers,regionallogics, and concepts such
as Commonwealth or Pan-Americanism.
Callingthe conceptof nationintoquestionaffects,inturn,"national"
notions of elite and subaltern.In LatinAmerica(and now in the United
States), patternsof migration,or the recentphenomenonof resettlement,
impingeon existingsocialandeconomicformations, theirlegalstatusguar-
anteed by the state, and consequentlyon the representation and protago-
nism of the subaltern.Whatare the boundariesof LatinAmericaif, for
instance,we considerNew Yorkthe largestPuertoRicanmetropolisand
Los Angelesthe second-largestMexicanmetropolis?Or,if we are dealing
withthe English-speaking Afro-Caribbeans of the AtlanticCoast of Nica-
raguawho call themselvesCreolesandwhose culturaltastes includeU.S.
country music and Jamaican reggae?
 LatinAmerican StudiesGroup/ Founding
Subaltern Statement119

Thisinsistenceon thinkingthe subalternfromthe standpointof post-

modernitydoes not mean that we do not intendto pursuethe traces of
previousculturalhegemoniesinthe formation of the subalternorof the cor-
respondingarea-elites.We can findthe subalternonlyin the seams of the
previouslyarticulatedsociocultural andadministrative practicesandepiste-
mologies, in the cloning of culturalmentalities, and in the contingentsocial
pacts that occur at every transitional juncture.Accordingto elite writings,
nationalismis an idealistventureconductedby the same elite, guided in
partby a "literary" idealof nationhood.The nativeelite,withits antagonism
towardthe colonizer,allegedlyadvocatesthe good of the people,the sub-
alternclasses, claimingaltruismandself-abnegationinsteadof a searchfor
class empowerment.The historyof the nationalbourgeoisiebecomes the
spiritual(auto)biography of the elite,a factnotloston the subalternclasses
and directlycontributing to theirpoliticaland culturalformations(the well-
knownresistanceto Spanish-languageliteracyinsome Indianareas andto
"highculture"generallyon the partof subalterngroups,forexample).Not
to acknowledgethe contribution of the peopleto theirownhistorymanifests
the povertyof historiography and pointsto crucialreasonsforthe failures
of nationalprogramsof "popular" entitlement.Subaltern(trans)nationalism
is recordednegativelyonly as a problemof law and order,and positively
only as a responseto the charismaof elite leaders,in otherwords,as ver-
ticalmobilization throughthe populistor mediamanipulation of groupsand
factions.
To representsubalternity in LatinAmerica,inwhateverformittakes
whereverit appears-nation, hacienda,workplace,home,informalsector,
black market-to findthe blankspace where it speaks as a sociopoliti-
cal subject,requiresus to explorethe marginsof the state. Ourpremise,
again,is thatthe nation,as a conceptualspace, is notidenticalto the nation
as state. Ourinitialconceptsare thereforemoregeographicalthaninstitu-
tional.Ourresearchstrategiesobligeus to do archaeologicalworkin the
intersticesof the formsof eitherdomination-lawand order/military and
policepowers-or integration-learningandschooling.Fromthe perspec-
tive of subalternity,the alternateuse of police and teachers may well be
coordinatedstrategiesof transnational projectsforeconomicextractionand
territorial
administration. We mustbe careful,in the process of conceptu-
alizingsubalternity,not to ensnareourselvesin the problem,dominantin
previousarticulationsof "national" liberation(forexample,in some forms
of PuertoRicannationalismor in LatinAmericanliteraryArielism),of the
national elite itself as subaltern,that is, as transcriber,translator,interpreter,
120 boundary
2 / Fall1993

editor:to avoid,in otherwords,the constructionof postcolonialintelligen-

tsias as "sharecroppers" in metropolitan culturalhegemony.This is not to
dismissthe problembutsimplyto indicatethatretaininga focus on the in-
telligentsiaandon its characteristic intellectualpractices-centered on the
cultivationof writing,science, and the like-leaves us in the space of his-
toriographicprejudiceand "not-seeing" thatGuhaidentifiedin his studies
of peasant insurgency.6
To the extent that nation and nationalare reconceptualizedas
colored,and move fromcriolloto mestizo,frommestizoto mulatto,black,
and Indian,frommale to female, we approximatemoreclosely the idea
of territoriality-areas,spaces, and geography-we seek to encompass.
Inotherwords,it is the inter/national, internecinedeinstitutionalizedsocial
subject that confirmsthe structureof globalization,of populationcontrol
(politicalas much as biological),be it in termsof "prestige,""culture," or
maquiladoras.Paying attention to and the
acknowledging presence of this
subjectis an indexof the importanceof the subalterngroups,of how they
force themselves intothe administrative structuresand practicesof domi-
nationas flesh-and-blood livingbeings.Sincecolonialand"national" episte-
mologies have giventhem the status of objects,their seems
activity "erup-
tive,"breaking with models of verticalmobilization and into
calling question
hegemonicparty/stateformsof social controland representation, forcing
the state and its agents (includinguniversity professorsand researchfoun-
dationstaff)to negotiatea morehorizontalsocial and researchdynamicor
to face the bombinthe pathof theirownprojectof makinghistory.
We do not, however,want to simplyexclude the question of the
"national"and forms of nationalismand "national-popular" mobilization,
for example, the sort involvedin the SandinistaRevolutionin Nicaragua
(we are influencedhere by the workof CarlosVilas on the question of

6. This may indicateone pointof differencebetweenthe SubalternStudies proposaland

those of, forexample, RobertoFernandezRetamaror EdwardSaid, withwhichit shares
many concerns. In his forewordto Selected SubalternStudies, Said puts Guha and
the members of the group in the companyof Fanon, Salman Rushdie, GabrielGarcia
Marquez,Ngugiwa Thiongo,C. L.R. James, et cetera (ix-x). This is appropriateto the
extent that their work is, in Said's words, "a hybrid,"partakingjointlyof Western and
non-Westernconcerns and theory.But where Said and Retamarenvision a new type
of intellectualas the protagonistof decolonization,the, admittedlyparadoxical,intentof
SubalternStudies is preciselyto displace the centralityof intellectualsand intellectual
"culture" in social history.
 LatinAmerican StudiesGroup/ Founding
Subaltern Statement121

the identityof the social subjectof the revolution).7 Neitherdo we want

to establish a fissure betweenthe theoreticaland the political.The sub-
alternis not one thing.Itis, to repeat,a mutating,migratingsubject.Even
if we agree withthe generalconceptof the subalternas the masses of the
laboringpopulationandthe intermediate strata,we cannotabjurethe inclu-
sion of nonworking subjects unless we want to runthe riskof repeatingthe
mistakeof classical Marxismon the questionof howsocial agency is con-
structed.We need to access the vast (andmobile)arrayof the masses-
peasants,proletarians, the informalandformalsectors,the sub- andunder-
employed,vendors,those outsideor at the marginof the moneyeconomy,
lumpensand ex-lumpensof all sorts,children,the growingnumbersof the
homeless ...
We need to concludethis statement,however,witha recognitionof
the limitsof the idea of "studying" the subalternanda cautionto ourselves
insettingoutto do this.Ourproject,inwhicha teamof researchersandtheir
collaboratorsin elite metropolitan universitieswantto extricatefromdocu-
mentsand practicesthe oralworldof the subaltern,the structural presence
of the unavoidable,indestructible, and effectivesubjectwho has proven
us wrong-she/he who has demonstratedthat we did not knowthem-
must itselfconfrontthe dilemmaof subalternresistanceto and insurgency
against elite conceptualizations. Clearly,it is a questionnot only of new
ways of lookingat the subaltern,new and more powerfulformsof infor-
mationretrieval,butalso of buildingnew relationsbetweenourselvesand
those humancontemporaries whomwe positas objectsof study.Rigoberta
Menchi'sinjunction at the end of herfamoustestimoniois perhapsrelevant
inthis regard:"I'mstillkeepingsecretwhatIthinkno-oneshouldknow.Not
even anthropologists or intellectuals,no matterhowmanybooksthey have,
can findout alloursecrets."8

7. CarlosVilas,TheSandinistaRevolution:NationalLiberation
and Social Transformation
in CentralAmerica(New York:MonthlyReviewPress, 1986).
8. RigobertaMenchui,I, RigobertaMenchO:An IndianWomanin Guatemala,trans.Ann
Wright(London:Verso, 1984).