Can the Subaltern Speak?
하위주체 침묵론
A landmark postcolonial and deconstructive feminist critique demonstrating how subaltern subjects, particularly colonized women, are structurally denied voice and epistemically silenced within dominant discursive systems.
| Field | Cultural Studies · Sociology |
|---|---|
| Level of analysis | Macro · Structures & Institutions |
| Paradigm | Post-Structuralism Critical Theory |
| Key figures | 👤 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (가야트리 스피박) |
| Year | 1988 |
Key Claims
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak deconstructed colonial legal archives on Sati (widow burning). Subaltern women caught between imperialist civilizing rhetoric and indigenous patriarchy cannot achieve authentic institutional speech; attempts by Western intellectuals to represent them risk reinforcing epistemic violence.
Further Reading
- Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak?. In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (pp. 271–313). University of Illinois Press.
Related theories 3개
A foundational theoretical framework in cultural-studies addressing Postcolonialism at the macro level of analysis.
A postcolonial cultural theory positing that culture is never pure, and that the productive ambivalence of colonial mimicry opens up a subversive "Third Space" of enunciation that destabilizes imperial authority.
A transformative critical legal and sociological framework asserting that social identities (race, gender, class, sexuality) do not operate independently, but intersect to produce compounding systems of discrimination and privilege.