Gayatri Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak”

IG: @theory_and_philosophy

In this episode, I turn my attention to Gayatri Spivak's "Can the Subaltern Speak," a seminal text in the field of post-colonial studies. Spivak argues that between patriarchal and imperial forces, subaltern people--women, specifically--are denied the capacity to speak.

[jedsamuels]

You are one of the best channels I have discovered. When I have a source of income, I will be a patron.

[kokoafria]

this has been very useful, I've been struggling with bits of the text until I found your video

[sriya.]

I had to present on this essay and had so much trouble reading and analysing the test. This video really helped!

[anindyaausful]

Excellent presentation! Your pronunciation of 'Indian' words is immaculate. One correction: Bengal is in the eastern part of India, not in north India.

[levonkutcy]

This essay is so dense. Thank you for this

[Zing_art]

Very meticulous work, David! Spivak’s seminal work constitutes one of the most important South Asian texts on Post-colonialism.

However, I beg to differ on very many occasions with Spivak.
Particularly, her take on Sati, wherein she says that the British, behind the veneer of dismembering the socio-cultural fabric of India, abolished the practice which Spivak believes to have been an act embodying the will and thus abolishing Sati meant taking away the brown woman’s voice along with a rupture of the cultural fabric.
It is important to acknowledge that India is /was a society of brutal public scrutiny and what appears to be a ‘choice’ is well dictated and even imposed. Even if the act of immolating oneself appears ‘voluntary’, it also happens because of the ‘social expectation’ and the consequent stigmatisation of the woman who denies performing the ritual. There has always been a fear lurking behind doing this act...the fear of being outcast...although ironically, even if a widow were alive, she was treated as an outcast (the traces of which last till date) . What I mean is it is always the patriarch who has been insidiously imposing his will through what appears to be a ‘voluntary choice of the woman’. Also, I dont understand why Spivak broaches this up in a post colonial study because there are better examples to understand the colonising mechanism in India. Like the heightened connectivity through railways, was essentially a British ploy to make the country more accessible for their own interests and even that disturbs the socio-cultural fabric of the landscape because indigenous families were displaced and uprooted to give this mega project shape. I think her argument with regard to Sati is a kind of an unnecessary intellectualisation of something that ideally should have been done away with. And I give no credit to the British, the apparent benefactors for that.


Further, it is important to understand that India is a land with multifarious structures of hegemony which co-opt at different levels to form more oppressive regimes. Caste (the very foundations of Hinduism) is the most oppressive structure, downplayed by Spivak in this text. Caste and religion have been allies for the colonial machinery to sustain itself in India.

Also, even if we take the feminist discourse to study, the lower caste brown woman, in such conditions, becomes the most marginalised. Spivak belongs to an upper caste elitist Indian family and seems to have assumed the representational voice of the subaltern and ironically, this is what privileged people do, in their ‘benevolence’, they take the very spaces, the very voices, that is of the Other.

I think subjectivity is also a privilege for it becomes the site of power and assuming subjectivity is always relational to the hegemonic normative as it is always recognised by this normative. The brown woman, in the pre independent Indian society, was not even marginalised. She was invisible (the brown ‘backward’ Indian woman, still remains invisible to this date) i.e. a site with no potential, no recognition and thus no voice.

P.S. Spivak was also influenced by Mahashweta Devi who has done some exemplary work for the emancipation of the tribal Indian woman. Spivak has translated a couple of her short stories called ‘Breast stories’ and that would present you a better picture of what it is /was being a brown marginalised Indian woman. Give it a read, if you wish to know more.

I think you had tried uploading Spivak’s works earlier as well but deleted it later? Finally, you are here. Congratulations:)

[crischiwantsariot]

Really great video, it helped me a lot to understand the nuances of Spivaks text. One thing I still find hard to follow is the jump from the deconstruction of the subject / object split to the proposal of 'handing out subjectivity' to those earlier considered objects. It is just establishing that there is no Subject without and Object to oppose it to, so 'gifting' someone else Subjectivity can't function without others either still staying as Objects, or someone else becoming the 'Other', the Objects. What I mean is, I think, how did anyone come to the conclusion, that this could be a possible solution, or even the logical next step?
Anyways, love the video, subscribed and will definitely spend some time browsing through your catalogue.

[shahanmajid]

I am very glad to find your channel, and by the way the comments are very helpful too. Thank you guys

[ogareetkamaleddine]

I think Spivak points out that they have a voice but cannot be heard. So, Third World women aren't completely voiceless.

[funkrobert]

This is a brilliant explanation and analysis of this work. Well done

[bobfranklin]

Hey, you gave a few quotes, and I can't seem to find them in the current spivak essay I have.

Stuff like "subaltern is not similarly privileged, and does not speak in a vocabulary that will get a hearing in institutional locations of power".

[BelleBeaute]

Thanks! It was really helpful to grasp the essence of the text!

[howtodisappearedits]

Thank you so much! Super helpful and you explain it wonderfully

[houneidabenmahidi]

Thank you! This was extremely helpful.

[debashissengupta]

Is the subaltern are lower section of society ? Are they visit up and down and are to be controlled.

[manaschakraborty]

This extremely educated lady is from Ballygunge Kolkata just opposite of my residence. Her dedication to be able to become the voice of the landless people in Eastern part of India deserves great appreciation. I like her just not because she speaks in Marxian light but because she did great things for many poor people in India. Personally I am not a Marx fan...

[samcopeland]

Thanks for this video – very well done. I do have to say that I found the stuff about sati to be pretty noxious. The excruciation and death of those women is real, so playing these sorts of historicist intellectual games with it feels very gross to me.

I mean, might we say that antisemitism is a part of traditional german culture, which the Allies had no right to “erase” by liberating the concentration camps? I think it’s clear that the very question is morally repugnant.

I’m sad to say that the subaltern probably cannot speak if their suffering is reduced to pawns in intellectual chess between Deleuzians and Derrideans.

More of a criticism of Spivak than of you. Thanks again for the video. Will be watching more.

[chetanscore]

Race emerges in a proper way in Society must be defended. I don’t know why that text is usually ignored when we discuss race and Foucault. His idea of Race might be limiting in particular ways but it isn’t that hasn’t addressed it.

[MaryofCupcakke]

Pray for me, I have to take a single exam in post colonial theories, but this stuff is too hard for my fragile brain. How do y’all understand these things?😰

[echolyu]

This is great! Helps me understand this essay a lot!