Subalternity and Representation: Arguments in Cultural Theory (Post-Contemporary Interventions) - Hardcover

Beverley, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0822323826 ISBN 13: 9780822323822

Publisher: Duke University Press Books, 1999

Synopsis

The term “subalternity” refers to a condition of subordination brought about by colonization or other forms of economic, social, racial, linguistic, and/or cultural dominance. Subaltern studies is, therefore, a study of power. Who has it and who does not. Who is gaining it and who is losing it. Power is intimately related to questions of representation—to which representations have cognitive authority and can secure hegemony and which do not and cannot. In this book John Beverley examines the relationship between subalternity and representation by analyzing the ways in which that relationship has been played out in the domain of Latin American studies.

Dismissed by some as simply another new fashion in the critique of culture and by others as a postmarxist heresy, subaltern studies began with the work of Ranajit Guha and the South Asian Subaltern Studies collective in the 1980s. Beverley’s focus on Latin America, however, is evidence of the growing province of this field. In assessing subaltern studies’ purposes and methods, the potential dangers it presents, and its interactions with deconstruction, poststructuralism, cultural studies, Marxism, and political theory, Beverley builds his discussion around a single, provocative question: How can academic knowledge seek to represent the subaltern when that knowledge is itself implicated in the practices that construct the subaltern as such? In his search for answers, he grapples with a number of issues, notably the 1998 debate between David Stoll and Rigoberta Menchú over her award-winning testimonial narrative, I, Rigoberta Menchú. Other topics explored include the concept of civil society, Florencia Mallon’s influential Peasant and Nation, the relationship between the Latin American “lettered city” and the Túpac Amaru rebellion of 1780–1783, the ideas of transculturation and hybridity in postcolonial studies and Latin American cultural studies, multiculturalism, and the relationship between populism, popular culture, and the “national-popular” in conditions of globalization.

This critique and defense of subaltern studies offers a compendium of insights into a new form of knowledge and knowledge production. It will interest those studying postcolonialism, political science, cultural studies, and Latin American culture, history, and literature.

About this title

From the Publisher

“A brilliant discussion of current debates in cultural studies and subaltern studies. Beverley’s style is vibrant, irreverent, subversive, and a pleasure to read. This is clearly one of the most interesting contributions to subaltern studies since Ranajit Guha’s definition of the field in the early 1980s.”—José Rabasa, University of California, Berkeley

“An excellent, compelling overview and mise en question of subaltern studies. At once clear and conceptually sophisticated, this book engagingly rehearses many of the basic issues, texts and problems of the field but is in no way derivative. It is an intelligent, thorough, thoughtful ‘reading’ of an increasingly important area of study.”— Brad Epps, Harvard University

From the Back Cover

"An excellent, compelling overview and "mise en question" of subaltern studies. At once clear and conceptually sophisticated, this book engagingly rehearses many of the basic issues, texts and problems of the field but is in no way derivative. It is an intelligent, thorough, thoughtful 'reading' of an increasingly important area of study."-- Brad Epps, Harvard University

Edition details

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0822323826
• ISBN 13: 9780822323822
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 224