Beyond Representation? The Impossibility of the Local (Notes on Subaltern Studies in Light of a Rebellion in Tepoztlán, Morelos)

Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Odile Moreau

This chapter explores movement and circulation across the Mediterranean and seeks to contribute to a history of proto-nationalism in the Maghrib and the Middle East at a particular moment prior to World War I. The discussion is particularly concerned with the interface of two Mediterranean spaces: the Middle East (Egypt, Ottoman Empire) and North Africa (Morocco), where the latter is viewed as a case study where resistance movements sought external allies as a way of compensating for their internal weakness. Applying methods developed by Subaltern Studies, and linking macro-historical approaches, namely of a translocal movement in the Muslim Mediterranean, it explores how the Egypt-based society, al-Ittihad al-Maghribi, through its agent, Aref Taher, used the press as an instrument for political propaganda, promoting its Pan-Islamic programme and its goal of uniting North Africa.


Author(s):  
Vijay Iyer

Improvisation has been construed as Western art music’s Other. This chapter urges music theorists to take the consequences of this configuration seriously. The decision to exclude improvisation as inherently unstable is not neutral, but is bound up with the endemic racism that has characterized social relations in the West and that is being brought to the fore in Black Lives Matter and other recent social and political movements. Traditional music theory is not immune from such institutional racism—its insistence on normative musical behaviors is founded on the (white) phallogocentrism of Western thought. Does the resurgent academic interest in improvisation offer a way out? No, at least not as it is currently studied. Even an apparently impartial approach such as cognitive science is not neutral; perception is colored by race. To get anywhere, this chapter argues, improvisation studies must take difference seriously. Important impetus for a more inclusive critical model comes from such fields as Black studies, Women’s studies, subaltern studies, queer studies, and disability studies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
The Editors ◽  
Dipesh Chakrabarty

Abstract Dipesh Chakrabarty is Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor in History and South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books, including The Crises of Civilization (2018) and Provincializing Europe (2000); and was one of the principal founders of the editorial collective of Subaltern Studies. In this discussion he ruminates upon the state of globality; its relationship to the planet Earth; the scope and possible duration of the Anthropocene; and some of globalization's consequences for humanity and human understanding. The interview was conducted by managing editor, Kenneth Weisbrode.


2021 ◽  
Vol N° 335 (4) ◽  
pp. 16-16
Author(s):  
Hélène Frouard
Keyword(s):  

At-Tafkir ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-39
Author(s):  
Ramli Cibro
Keyword(s):  

Tulisan ini ingin mengulas biografi pemikiran seorang intelektual muda Aceh yaitu Kamaruzzaman Bustamam Ahmad. Pemilihan nama Kamaruzzaman Bustamam Ahmad (selanjutnya disebut KBA) dilakukan karena pertama, gagasan intelektualnya yang berpengaruh di Aceh. Secara umum, mazhab Acehnologi yang dikembangkan dari wacana subaltern studies, telah menarik perhatian publik dan diperbincangkan secara nasional maupun internasional. Kedua, karena nama tersebut telah menjadi perhatian penulis sejak tahun 2013, dimana penulis kemudian banyak berinteraksi dengan KBA mengkoleksi hampir seluruh karya tulisnya, dan mempelajari pemikiran-pemikirannya. Metode penelitian yang dilakukan adalah diskursus analisis, berupa analisa dan bedah terhadap karya dan pemikiran KBA. Dari studi pendahuluan, penulis mengetahui bahwa pada mulanya  yakni sejak tahun 1996 KBA memilih konsentrasi Islam Politik perihal hubungan antara keislaman dan kebangsaan. Pada tahun 2015, KBA kemudian beralih pada studi kawasan khususnya studi Asia Tenggara meliputi studi pemikiran Islam, Jama’ah Tabligh dan Terorisme.  Pada tahun 2009 bertepatan dengan saat ia kembali ke Aceh, KBA mengerucutkan kajian ke dalam studi keacehan, hingga melahirkan mazhab Acehnologi pada tahun 2011. Sejak saat itu, hingga selanjutnya, penulis mengasumsikan pemikiran KBA dalam kerangka Acehnologi. Bahkan ketika tahun 2017 KBA melibatkan diri dalam diskusi Masa Depan Dunia, Islam Nusantara dan Imajinasi Kebangsaan, penulis masih meletakkannya dalam kerangka Acehnologi. Artinya, ketiga tema terakhir tersebut dibedah oleh KBA melalui world-view Acehnologi.


2012 ◽  
pp. 39-54
Author(s):  
Marianna Scarfone

After briefly considering the influence of Gramsci's thought on the founders of Subaltern Studies in India, the author outlines the theoretical and thematic transformation which the approach went through since the mid eighties, under the inspiration of the "cultural turn". In the second part of her essay Scarfone traces the spread of Subaltern Studies to other parts of the world, such as East Asia, Latin America and Europe, thanks also to the multiplier function of American and European universities. Whereas its influence on post-colonial and cultural studies is sizable, Subaltern Studies never became a widely recognized model to the practice of historiography, partly because of its later full immersion in postmodern waters. However, its contribution to the theory of history as a discipline and as practice should not be underestimated.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-261
Author(s):  
Jessica Hinchy ◽  
Girija Joshi

Abstract Indrani Chatterjee’s ground-breaking research has shown the centrality of obligation and provision to historical forms of slavery in South Asia, deepening our understanding of slave-using societies beyond the plantation systems that have dominated historiography, as well as historical memory. In this interview, Chatterjee explains why the crucial question in the context of South Asian slavery was: who do you serve and for what purpose? Enslavers were obliged to materially provide for their slaves, in return for the enslaved person’s service, labor and loyalty, creating varied relationships of dependence. By foregrounding the complex set of relationships and obligations in which slaves were enmeshed, Chatterjee seeks to “make people out of laborers.” This has led her to rethink the ways that resistance and agency have been conceptualized in slavery studies and Subaltern Studies, emphasizing the relationships within which a person became an agent. Her research has also deepened our understanding of colonialism and slavery. British colonizers generally ignored slaves’ entitlements to certain labor or taxation exemptions from the state, and colonial revenue-collection made the already-burdened doubly burdened. But in a hetero-temporal colonial context, older ways of identifying and forms of relationships endured. Chatterjee argues that this history of the provision of survival in contexts of enslavement is not “romanticizing,” but rather historicizes multiple forms of violence and shows a fuller, more varied picture of slavery.


2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-147
Author(s):  
John Roosa

Abstract This essay evaluates the changing research agendas of Subaltern Studies, an influential series of books on South Asian history that began in 1982. The essay criticizes the original research agenda as articulated by the series editor, Ranajit Guha, and the subsequent agenda proposed by several members of the Subaltern Studies collective. Guha initially proposed that studies of colonial India understand power in terms of unmediated relationships between “the elite” and “the subaltern” and endeavour to answer a counterfactual question on why the “Indian elite” did not come to represent the nation. The subsequent agenda first formulated in the late 1980s, while jettisoning Guha’s strict binaries and crude populism, has not led to any new insights into South Asian history. The turn towards the issues of modernity and postcolonialism has resulted in much commentary on what is already known. Some members of the collective, in the name of uncovering a distinctly “Indian modernity” and moving beyond Western categories, have reified the concept of modernity and restaged tired old debates within Western social theory.


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