A CRITIQUE OF

POSTCOLONIAL REASON
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
1999
CAN THE SUBALTERN SPEAK?
 Spivak’s definiton of the subaltern is the
disenfranchised peoples of India who, are
“irretrievably heterogeneous.”
 The subaltern is often thought of in a way
associated with “essentialism,” meaning they are
all lumped into one category and are not
considered as individuals (2194).
 Spivak emphasizes that this is not a healthy way to
look at and study a community that is so obviously
diverse.
ENGLISH IN TASTE
 When focusing on the subaltern group of
disenfranchised Indian men and women, it is
important to take into account their problematic
view of Western culture as a “higher culture”
(2198).
 Spivak borrows a term from Michel Foucault
and calls this “epistemic violence,” meaning the
“forcible replacement of one’s structure of
beliefs with another” (2197).
ESSENTIALIST AGENDA
 Members of subaltern groups often have
difficulty struggling between the culture of
the oppressed (their original culture) and
that of the oppressor.
 Ranjit Guha, who wrote Subaltern Studies,
calls this a “master-slave dialectic”
(2201).
FEMINISM
 Spivak supports feminism as a theory, but
believes that it often leaves out disenfranchised
subaltern women.
 She sites this as the central problem with how
women and non-white males are viewed:
 “White men are saving brown women from brown
men” (2294).
 Non-white men are demonized and made the scape-
goats for any number of atrocities in the world.
 This is a traditionally imperialistic viewpoint.
BHUBANESWARI BHADURI
 Spivak brings up the story of a young woman in Calcutta
who committed suicide.
 She was involved in a radical movement and was unable
to carry out the assassination she was ordered to
perform.
 In order to prevent people form believing her death to be
related to an illicit affair, she waited until her menstrual
cycle so a pregnancy could be ruled out.
 Instead of understanding her message, however society,
including her family, believed she killed herself because
of an innapropriate relationship.
BHADURI’S MESSAGE
 To Spivak, Bhaduri’s message remains unheard to this
day.
 She sites Bhaduri’s fictional decedents who still believe
the old lies surrounding her death and one great-great
granddaughter in particular who is overjoyed to get a job
in the United States.
 “The post colonial migrant investigator is touched by the
colonial social formations” (2207).