Rethinking Ecological Subalterns in Tanure Ojaide’s The Activist

This study explores the concept of subaltern and how its meaning has evolved over the years within the broader scope of postcolonial theory. The study shall trace the concept of subaltern from its anthropocentric meaning in Antonio Gramsci’s writings to Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Spivak’s ideological perspectives. We shall also trace its inroad into the ecocritical study in the works of Michael Egan and Sergio Ruiz Cayuela while maintaining its anthropocentric leaning. The study shall further attempt a redefinition of the subaltern concept to accommodate non-humans in the class of the subordinated social group. Bearing in mind the anthropocentric leaning of the concept of the subaltern, which excludes non-human members of the ecology, we shall redefine the term from its previous usage in environmental literary studies and expand it to include non-humans as a subordinated group. The study shall analyse the relationship between humans and non-humans to determine if non-humans are treated as subordinates or worse than subordinated humans. The study shall draw instances from Tanure Ojaide’s The Activist (2006) to justify the classification of non-humans as the ultimate ecological subalterns of the Niger Delta Environment. We shall consider human relationships with non-humans (land, air, water, animals, vegetation, sea lives) to determine their status as subalterns. The crux of the study is basically to expand the scope of the subaltern theory by analysing the environmental despoliation prevalent in the oil-rich Niger Delta environments of Nigeria.

PEREMPUAN TERBUNGKAM DALAM R.A. MOERHIA: PERINGETAN MEDAN 1929—1933SUBALTERN SPIVAK

ABSTRAKPada masa Hindia Belanda, perempuan bumiputra mendapatkan banyak penindasan sehingga mendorong mereka menjadi pihak subaltern. Subaltern merujuk kepada pihak yang berposisi inferior dan tunduk kepada pihak dari kelas berkuasa. Pihak subaltern tidak memiliki kemampuan untuk bersuara. Permasalahan tersebut dapat ditemukan dalam novel R.A. Moerhia: Peringetan Medan 1929—1933 karya Njoo Cheong Seng. Penelitian ini membahas subalternitas perempuan bumiputra pada masa Hindia Belanda dan berbagai bentuk penindasan yang dialami dalam novel R.A. Moerhia: Peringetan Medan 1929—1933 karya Njoo Cheong Seng melalui teori subaltern Spivak dengan metode deskriptif analitis. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan terdapat penindasan terhadap perempuan bumiputra sebagai pihak subaltern. Bentuk penindasan tersebut seperti ketidaksetaraan posisi yang menempatkan perempuan bumiputra sebagai nyai serta pelekatan stereotip buruk yang bersifat selayaknya barang, materialistis, dan digambarkan suka menggunakan hal irasional, misalnya sihir.Kata kunci: perempuan, bumiputra, subaltern, R.A. Moerhia ABSTRACTDuring the Dutch East Indies period, Indigenous women had an immense amount of oppression that classified them as the subalterns. Subaltern refers to people that is inferior and submits to people from the dominant class. The subalterns do not have the right to voice their opinions. This issue can be found in the novel, R.A Moerhia: Peringetan Medan 1929-1933 (R.A. Moerhia: Memories of Medan 1929-1933) by Njoo Cheong Seng. This research discusses the subalternity of Indigenous women in the Dutch East Indies as well as the different forms of oppression they endured, which are depicted in the novel, through Spivak’s subaltern theory utilising the analytical descriptive method. The results indicate that there is oppression towards Indigenous women as the subalterns. The form of oppression include inequality of positions that place Indigenous women as nyais and being stereotyped abysmally as being materialistic as well as portrayed as undertaking in acts that were irrational, e.g. magic. Keywords: women, Indigenous, subaltern, R.A. Moerhia

Forms of Discrimination on Subalternity Group in Navis’s Saraswati : Si Gadis Dalam Sunyi Shortstory

This research is motivated by the colonial problem in the archipelago which still leaves a trail of oppression as well as the struggle of the natives to escape the impact of this ideology. The colonial trail that still lags behind creates an indigenous group that becomes a subaltern - an isolated, oppressed, and exiled group. In the postal colonial subaltern theory Gayatri Spivax stated that among the groups that were the most victims of colonialism were the subalterns. Relevant to the problem, this study aims to describe the forms of discrimination against subaltern groups, especially women who become subaltern groups, against colonial ideology. Data obtained from Saraswati : Gadis dalam Sunyi shortstory by A. A Navis that is analyzed qualitatively. Based on research data sources namely Saraswati : Gadis dalam Sunyi shortstory by A. A Navis. The results of this study indicate that the figure Saraswati became subaltern because she is marginalized, economically impoverished, labeled, and sexually abused.

SUBALTERNITY IN AMITAV GHOSH’S SEA OF POPPIES: REPRESENTATION OF INDIAN WOMEN’S STRUGGLE AGAINST PATRIARCHY

This study analyses the subaltern that represented by Deeti in Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies. The subject of the subaltern as an Indian woman is struggling against patriarchy in society. This study uses the postcolonialism theory, including the theory of subaltern to analyze the representation of the subaltern subject who fights against patriarchy. That subject represented by Indian women as the subject of the subaltern. The narration of Deeti in the first Trilogy Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh is the main focus of this study. This study using postcolonialism theory from Homi K. Bhabha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, then subaltern theory also using Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak which describes how 'colonialized subject' lives and theories from Sylvia Walby and Gerda Lerner for the definition of patriarchy. So, this study mainly about how patriarchy will be related to Deeti as the subaltern explained by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. The data will be taken from many aspects such as dialogues, a depiction of the situation, characters, etc. This study analyzed two problems, which are (1) How is subalternity represented in Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies? (2) How do Indian Women’s struggle to fight against patriarchy in Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh? The results of this study show that Subaltern represented by Indian Women. Then the struggle of Deeti as an Indian Woman and the other characters fights against the patriarchy.

Theorising the Politics of Yakshi in Malayalam Cinema

The fear of the monstrous feminine, yakshi, may be read as an element of collective political fear, threatening the stability and functioning of established systems of power and normalcy. Films attempted a curious balancing of tradition with modernity. The film representations of female ghosts mark a transformation of Kerala's cultural psyche in its relation with the supernatural. One of the common characteristics of yakshi legends and their film representations in Malayalam is that class/caste identity of the woman plays a significant role in the experiences narrated. The myth of yakshi—a cultural fantasy still popular in Kerala, forming an integral part of Malayalam film industry from 1964 to 2017—is analysed through the subaltern theory popularised by Gayathri Spivak and various other theorists together with the psychological theories of the conscious evolved by Freud and Jung. The refashioning of the image from the voluptuous and monstrous one to a more realistic and relatable image proclaims the politics and the social context of fear evoked through this terrible concept.

Queering Lucrezia’s Virtú

This article argues for a feminist reinterpretation of the ‘radical Machiavelli’ tradition which pushes Machiavelli’s performative theory of power towards emancipation. I base my argument on a rereading of Niccolò Machiavelli’s Mandragola, whose historical use of the mandrake legend, I claim, symptomatizes historically gendered forms of labour expropriation characteristic of early modern capitalism. Against the background of that historical contextualisation, I then argue against James Martel’s interpretation of Machiavelli’s theory of open secrets, as one that remains unable to extend to Lucrezia the democratic insights that he identifies in Callimaco and Ligurio’s textual conspiracies. Dialectically relocating the political heroism of this play in Lucrezia’s performance, I conclude, Machiavelli’s comedy becomes nevertheless useful for a subaltern theory of democratic action.

Justice, subalternism, and literary justice: Aravind Adiga’sThe White Tiger

This article analyses Aravind Adiga’s Booker prize-winning novel The White Tiger (2008) through the lens of justice: philosophical, legal, and literary. What is justice when its agent is subaltern — disprivileged by both caste and class — and delivers justice to himself? I argue that the fictional representation of class, caste, poverty, and violence can be similar to the structuring and translations of justice. By writing his novel from the perspective of a subaltern character, Adiga joins the call by Dalit critics to reconfigure modernity from the interests of the oppressed and the marginalized. In the process, there can be a rethinking of postcolonial literary criticism from within the postcolonial nation, rather than the established perspective of the postcolonial nation understanding its own colonial oppression. My essay provokes wider insights into the implications for justice and human rights as they are informed and represented by literary fiction, subaltern theory, and deconstructive theory. How can a writer conceive of and represent justice — literary justice — by working within and against philosophical and legal conceptions of justice? The philosophers and theorists I invoke include Drucilla Cornell, Jacques Derrida, Wai Chee Dimock, Emmanuel Levinas, Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak, and Robert Young.

Tabooed Subaltern: A Study of Ghulam Abbas’ Reshma and The Women Quarter

Woman in Pakistan is defined through her body. Throughout her life she bears the burden of family honour and prestige to move in patriarchal society of Pakistan. In such a society where women experience different socio-cultural and economic marginalization, it becomes difficult to articulate oppression of the fallen women who trade their honour and prestige for the sake of money. While challenging the sociocultural standards of honour, the sufferings of their lives are completely neglected within the confinements of hegemonic patriarchy. These socially outcast women are tabooed subaltern who experience the brutalities not as human beings but as objects and commodities. An invisible line is being drawn by the patriarchs between these fallen women and the mainstream society whereby the respectable women devoid of any socio-economic discrimination live and struggle for their survival. To investigate the intricate lives of tabooed subaltern, present study dwells on subaltern theory of Gayatri C. Spivak. This research aims to investigate that how tabooed woman exhibits her agency but remains unheard or silent and how the literary world articulate intricate existence of tabooed subaltern within socio-cultural chains? To examine this, I have selected Ghulam Abbas’ Reshma and The Women’s Quarter which discuss the positioning of tarnished women who are, because of their ruined celibacy, alien to the society where men and women perform their traditional roles with honour and respect. The study is significant to extend and develop Spivak's dealing of socio-cultural silence to identify how literature might form an alternative archive attuned to the complexities of voicing the tabooed subaltern.