For speaking against silence

Spivak's subaltern ethics in the field

Bibliographic Data

ID8963302
AuthorsMark Griffiths (0000-0002-2284-4533, Centre for International Development Northumbria University Newcastle upon Tyne UK, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume43
Issue2
Pages299-311
Publication date2017-11-20
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTransactions of the Institute of British Geographers (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-2754 • E-ISSN: 1475-5661
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/tran.12226
OpenAlexW2765631456
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited50

This paper addresses the gap between accounts of subalternity in the field and theoretical positions on ethics we find in the work of Gayatri Spivak. I provide a reading of Spivak's writing on subalternity and the ethics of representation to explicate three ethical injunctions connected to: (1) an antifoundationalist approach to subalternity; (2) “hyper‐self‐reflexivity” of an investigating subject; and (3) the imperative to name subalternity. Setting these ethical injunctions in the field, I draw on data from fieldwork with development workers on a gender education project in rural Madhya Pradesh, India, to discuss gender‐based discrimination, violence and intervention. The discussion draws out the ways that proximity to what Spivak terms the “radical alterity” of Otherness can contribute to a more ethical framework for engagement with subalternity. The paper argues that Spivak's work is not intended to implore us to further silencing, rather we must apply her work on the ground towards an ethical engagement with subalternity that rests on a mode of speaking for and about in an antifoundationalist and hyper‐self‐reflexive manner

Aesthetics · Alterity · Epistemology · Ethnography · Field (mathematics · Habitus · Political science · Politics · Postcolonialism (international relations · Problematization · Reflexivity · Representation (politics · Self · Silence · Sociology · Subaltern · Subject (documents · Anthropology · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Gender Studies · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Law · Philosophy · Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development

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