Subalternity reloaded: singularity, collectivity and the politics of abstraction

• Autores: Jamila M. H. Mascat
• Localización: Cultural Studies, ISSN-e 1466-4348, Vol. 30, Nº. 5, 2016, págs. 774-792
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This contribution aims at outlining two different trajectories that can be traced throughout Spivak’s works, both of which take the concept of subalternity as their point of departure: the first analyses subalternity as a path to singularity and problematizes its consequences and impasses, while the second focuses on subaltern politics as a process of generalizability to be accomplished through self-synecdoche, namely through a metonymic process of de-singularization that only allows the subaltern to understand itself as a part of a collective whole (i.e. citizenship). The essay attempts to show the mutual complementarity of these two (seemingly) opposite moves in the direction of a possible strategy of desubalternization.