Subalternity Reloaded: Singularity, Collectivity and the Politics of Abstraction

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Abstract

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.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)774-792
JournalCultural Studies
Volume30
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016

Keywords

  • Subalternity
  • singularity
  • collectivity
  • abstraction
  • desubalternization

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