Power and Autonomy: Subaltern Studies and the History of the Subaltern Groups

Year 2020, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, 1 - 12, 21.06.2020

Serhan Afacan

Abstract

Historiography or the philosophy of history is an integral part of history-writing. The findings of historians do not only bring into light new information regarding what happened in the past but can also pose challenges to the theoretical frameworks used while dealing with the existing historical source materials. In this sense, historical and historiographical discussions are closely interrelated. This study deals with Subaltern Studies initiative which started in the early 1980s to revisit and rewrite the Indian history and in time developed into a useful history-writing paradigm for historians from all over the world. First of all, the article discusses the context in which Subaltern Studies came into being by paying attention to the links between that and post-modernism and post-colonialism. Subaltern Studies was developed at a time when the fundamentals of modernism had already been vociferously put into question for a few decades by intellectuals from the East and the West. This intellectual legacy enabled the Subalternists to question the British rule in Indian history by paying particular attention to agency the understudied groups in the making of Indian independence. Secondly, the basic approaches of the Subalternists to the Indian history and to historical source materials are investigated. Here, the relationship between Subaltern Studies and other Marxist intellectual trends are emphasized. Finally, the article shares certain concluding remarks regarding the use of Subaltern Studies for historians working on other cases.

Keywords

Subaltern Studies, subalternity, post-modernism, post-colonialism

References

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