Subaltern Studies and Subaltern Theory in Literature

Subaltern Meaning

The term “Subaltern”, means the people “of inferior rank or status”. In critical theory and postcolonialism, subaltern refers the populations that are socially, politically and geographically outside the hegemonic power structure of the colony and colonial homeland. Subaltern classes may include peasants, workers and other groups denied access to hegemonic power.

Subaltern Studies Meaning

The terms subaltern and subaltern studies entered postcolonial studies through the works of the subaltern studies group, a collection of South Asian historians who explored the political actor role of men and women who comprise the mass population rather than the political roles of the social and economic elites, in the history of South Asia. Marxist historians have been investigating colonial history as told from the perspective of the proletarian: using the concept of social classes as being determined by economic relations.

In 1970s, subaltern began to denote the colonized peoples of the Indian subcontinent and described new perspectives of the history of an imperial colony as told from the point of view of the colonized rather than the colonizers. In 1980’s the scope of enquiry of Subaltern Studies was applied as “an intervention in South Asian historiography”. The term subaltern is still problematic and it is used in the fields of history, anthropology, sociology, human geography and literary criticism.

Read More https://www.eng-literature.com/2021/02/subaltern-studies-spivak.html