Spivak analyzes the conversation between Foucault and Deleuze to argue three main points: 1) Poststructuralist theorists like Foucault and Deleuze commit "epistemic violence" by projecting European frameworks of knowledge onto non-Western contexts. 2) Representing subaltern groups speaks is problematic as it risks homogenizing their experiences. Subaltern subjects are inherently heterogeneous and their subjectivity arises from dislocation rather than unity. 3) The death of Bhuvaneshwari Bhaduri, who burned herself upon her husband's funeral pyre in 19th century India, cannot truly be known or represented, demonstrating the limits of speaking for subordinate groups

1. Faculty of Humanities
Department of English Language and Literature
Post Graduate Program
English Literature Ph.D. Program
Bahir Dar University
Presentation for the course Literary Theory and Criticism II:
Contemporary Debates/Cultural Studies (Lite- 702)
June, 2022
Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
Can the Subaltern Speak?
An Essay by Gayatri Spivak
By: Dawit Dibekulu Alem

2. Spivak
• Post colonial theorist
• Translated Derrida’s of grammatology
• theoretical approach: blend of Feminist studies,
deconstructionism, post colonialism and Marxism
• Made a contribution to contemporary cultural
studies and critical theories
• Challenges the idea of Marxism and post-
marxism, post structuralism and feminism

3. Can the subaltern speak?
• First published in the journal ‘Wedge’(1985)
• Reprinted in the collection ‘Marxism and the
interpretation of culture(1988).
• A detailed analysis of the conversation between
the post-stractualism philosophers Michel
Foucault and Gilles Deleuze.
• She speaks about the harm done to the poor,
women and non Europeans by the privileged West.
• Writes against the ‘Epistemic Violence’ Done by
the discourse of knowledge.
• She borrowed from Gramsci’s idea of subalternity.

4. Key terms
• Hegemony: hegemonic power or
dominant discourse is predominantly
that of a white male.
• Equivocation:
Spivak is suggesting that we have to be
sure in the theoretical rigor of our use of
terms.
We need to avoid using terms that have
multiple meanings.
She wants us to avoid equivocation.

5. ...cont’d
• Subjectivity:
Foucault and Deleuze ascribe to the
poststructuralist traditional model that believe
desire, interest, and intent are all united and all
the same in the formation of the subject.
They conflate the terms.
However, Spivak argues for Akrasia and
Marxist subjectivity, which is the antithesis of
Foucault and Deleuze.
She believes that desires and interests are not
the same.
She suggests subjectivity doesn’t come from
unity but dislocation.

6. …cont’d
• Subaltern:
In post colonial term designates the colonized mass who
are socially, politically and geographically excluded
from the hierarchy of power.
For Spivak the subalterns are those who belongs to the
third world countries.
Subaltern is that identity that has no possibility at social
mobility.
No possibility to speak and to be heard.
Intransability of the Subaltern’s structural position.
Who are the subject to the hegemony of the dominate
class.

7. ...cont’d
• Intellectuals and power:
conversation between Michel
Foucault and Gilles Deleuze (1972)
Appeared in Michel Foucault’s
language counter-memory, practice:

8. Spivak’s interest in the conversation
• Problematize the function of the post colonial intellectual.
• Connects these two:
1. The radical claims of 20th C French intellectual
Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze to speak for the
disenfranchised.
2. The self-righteous claims of British colonialism to
rescue native women from Hindu widow sacrifice.
• Propagates the limits of French post-stractualist theorist (
Foucault, Lacan, Guattari and Deleuze)
• Uses the tool of deconstruction.

9. Spivak’s Criticism of both Deleuze and Focuault
• Deleuze is trapped in his unconscious Euro-centrism.
• Foucault and Deleuze favor micrological structures of
resistance which are basically determined by local conflict.
• Spivak reject the post-stracuralists micrological
determinations.
• Argues that the micrological forms of resistance must not
be used to eliminate the larger macrological configurations
of power.

10. Spivak’s Strategies
• One of the first to articulate postcolonial theory through a
deconstructive lens.
• Dismantled the tradition of western thought that has
provided the justification of European colonialism and
neo-colonialism.
• Argued that the development of western philosophy is
connected to the history European imperial expansion from
19th C British imperialism to 20th C American policy
making.

11. Gift of the Conversation
• Foucault and Deleuze discuss
The link between the struggles of women,
homosexual, prisoners etc. to class struggle,
and
The relationship between theory, practice
and power

12. Deleuze
• We are in the process of experiencing a new relationship
between theory and practice.
• Practice was considered an application of theory. But
practice inspires theory too .
• Confined individuals need to speak for themselves.
• purpose of Foucault’s information group for prisons(G.I.P.)
1. to create conditions for prisoners to speak.
2. a theorizing intellectual is not a representative
consciousness.
3. those who act and struggle are not represented by any
group or a union.
4. the right to reprinted the conscience is appropriate by
the group.

13. Foucault
The political involvement of
the intellectual: product of two
different aspect of his activity:
1. His position as an
intellectual in bourgeois
society
2. His proper discourse that
disclosed political r/nship
The intellectual spoke the truth:
To those who had yet to see
it,
For those were forbidden to
speak the truth;
He was conscience,
consciousness, and eloquence
The intellectual discovered that:
The mass no longer need him to
gain knowledge:
They know far better than him
And they are certainly capable
of expressing themselves
A system of power which blocks,
prohibits and invalidates this
discourse
 intellectual are themselves agents
of this system of power
The intellectual's roles is to
struggle against the form of power
To undermine where it is most
invisible and insidious

14. Deleuze
• A theory is exactly like a box of too.
• If no one uses it, then the theory is worthless.
• The notion reforms is stupid.
• Reforms are:
1. designed by people who claims to be
representative or
2. arise from the complaints and demands of those
concerned.
• Hence it is not a reform but revolutionary action
that question that totality of power and the
hierarchy that maintains it. (as is evident in prisons)

15. ...cont’d
• Foucault:
• Prisoners speech: is the form
of discourse which matters.
• A discourse against power,
• Is the counter-discourse of
prisoners and not a theory
about delinquency
• People hate the judicial
system because they think
power is always exercised at
the expanse of the people.
• Deleuze:
• power develops a
global vision.
• All the current
forms of repression
are totalized forms
the point of view of
power.

16. ...cont’d
• Foucault
• Yet to fully
comprehend the nature
of power.
• Who exercises power?
And in what sphere?
• power is exercised the
way it is in order to
maintain capitalist
exploitation.
• The generality of the
struggle specifically
derives from the
system of power.
• Deleuze :
• it is clear who exploited,
who profits, and who
governs, but power
nevertheless remains
something's more diffuse.
 Marxism defines the
problem essentials in terms
of interests.
But interested is not the
final answer: because
interest always desire
• therefore every
revolutionary attack is
linked to the workers’
struggle.

17. Guha’s idea
• one must nevertheless insist that the colonized
subaltern subject is irretrievably heterogeneous.
• Against the indigenous elite we may set what Guha
calls ‘the politics of the people,’ both outside and
inside the circuit of colonial production (Guha
1982).
• Against the possible charge that his approach is
essentialist, Guha constructs a definition of the
people that can be only an identity-in-differential.
• He proposes a dynamic stratification grid describing
colonial social production at large.

18. …cont’d
• Even the third group on the list, the buffer group, as it
were, between the people and the great macro-
structural dominant groups, is itself defined as a
place of in-betweenness, what Derrida has described as
an ‘antre’ (1981):
1. Dominant foreign groups. Elite
2. Dominant indigenous groups on the all-India level.
3. Dominant indigenous groups at the regional and local levels.
4. The terms ‘people’ and ‘subaltern classes’ used as
synonymous throughout [Guha’s definition].
• The social groups and elements included in this
category represent the demographic difference between:
the total Indian population and
 all those whom we have described as the ‘elite.’

19. Beyond Postcolonialism
• Spivak is considered a leading postcolonial critic but
her critical work is difficult to define.
because Spivak constantly revises her arguments to refuse
identification by any single category or label such as
‘postcolonial’, ‘feminist’ or ‘Marxist’.
• She is committed to re-thinking and revising theoretical
concepts and approaches in response to:
social,
economic and
political changes in the contemporary world order.
• She embodies what it means to be a philosopher,
because there’s always new interpretations and new modes
of reviving/revising schools of thought.

20. Deconstruction
• Spivak has often been criticised for drawing on the
western post-structuralist theory of Derrida, Foucault
and Lacan.
• This criticism is based on the assumption that
poststructuralist theory is a product of European
philosophy and culture and
is therefore inadequate to criticise the cultural, social and
economic legacies of European colonialism.
• For Spivak, the idea of an indigenous theory
uncontaminated by the legacy of 19th C colonialism is
unrealistic.
• Derrida, Foucault and Lacan provide Spivak with a
conceptual apparatus that enables her to question the
cultural and philosophical foundations of western
imperialism.

21. Post Structuralism
• The very existence of this body of knowledge is
debated.
• Some define post structuralism
 as a theory that is concerned with the relationship between
human beings and the world and the practice of
reproducing meaning.
• Others argue there is no clear definition.
• Spivak sets her argument in opposition to French
poststructuralists.
• Some argue that post structuralism is a product of a
single historical moment
It is also considered to mark the beginning of
decolonisation.
• Post structuralism sought to explain successful
decolonisation.

22. Marxist Conception
• Hegemonic power (HP) – want to:
 increase their influence and power and
 decrease resistance.
• HP is challenged by a well informed population/proletariat
who realise they are being exploited and so they create an
opposition.
• HP want to create a block between themselves and the
proletariat;
so the proletariat remain unaware of the intention to create a
system of delusion (otherwise known as ideology).
• Ideology controls the population by pacifying and making
them docile, creating a false consciousness.
• HP controls the thoughts and behaviour of the proletariat to
decrease the likelihood of a revolt and create a false
consciousness and a sort of akrasia.
• Class consciousness is a result of material circumstances.

23. Ideology for Marx
• Capitalism must construct a system of indoctrination
to defend property.
For example: Marx would argue that we are deluded into
believing that the more we work the more value we will
accumulate.
• HP don’t have to work as hard, they rely on
investment – and the more the proletariat work the
more money HP makes.
• HP constructs capital as inevitable and a force of
nature.
• Any alternative to capital is degraded.

24. Post Structuralists Criticise Marxism
• Post structuralist (PS) reject false consciousness –
they argue:
1. If every member of the proletariat is misinformed it’s
unhelpful if there is no consciousness that exists that
is not distorted.
 We cannot make sense of false consciousness if everyone
is deceived.
2. There is no such thing as a group/collective
consciousness - it should be replaced with more
useful analysis of culture using discourse or
background.
3. Global consciousness is even more impossible.

25. Rejecting False Consciousness
• PS argue that ideology doesn’t influence or
coerce the population.
• The system is secured by CONSENT.
• The proletariat consent to dominance and
being governed if their basic needs are being
met.
• The oppressed consent to passivity to preserve
the structure of power.
• PS do not believe there is any deception.

26. How is Speaking Subject being Produced?
Savior -
white man
Injurer -
brown man
Injured -
brown woman
Brown woman oppressed as structural
necessity
Saving brown woman is also a structural necessity

27. …cont’d
• In order to give authority to Spivak’s sentence:
• ‘white men are saving brown women from brown men’, the portrayal
of each participant and then their relationship in the texts may be
analyzed.
• as one interpretation of the relationship between colonizer and
colonized.
• The recurring dehumanization of the brown men, by allowing
individual identity to be replaced either by large bloodthirsty crowds
or animalistic qualities, creates the impression of a wild and
dangerous populace.
• Brown men also encompasses the notion of Hinduism and its
domination.
• Here the power of religion can be inferred, its practices supersede the
maternal bond and are thus something women and children need
saving from.

28. …cont’d
• The motive for this representation is summarized by
Morton:
‘by representing sati as a barbaric practice, the British
were thus able to justify imperialism as a civilizing
mission,
white British colonial administrators believed that they
were rescuing Indian women from the reprehensible
practices of a traditional Hindu patriarchal society’.
• This elaboration of Spivak’s sentence demonstrates:
how the British dealings with India were vindicated by
contrasting their benevolent intentions against the
iniquitous behavior of brown men.

29. Woman as a Subject
• Woman remains an unthinkable figure that
needs saving, protection, an assigned
identity, a set of limits, rules.
• Where do the rules/norms/ideas of identity
come from?
• How are the rules, norms, identities
POLICED?

30. Subaltern Identity
• Accepts wretchedness as normality
• Millennial cognitive damage done to
subaltern
• Valid institutional background can
help subaltern speak

31. Agency
• Agency is the CAPABILITY or POWER to affect a
desired change.
• Agency is NOT the same as :
Rights,
Freedoms,
Privileges,
 Advantages,
 Abilities.
• Agency is more specific to time, place, socio-economic
context.
• Agency is increasingly perceived as a key goal of
development.

32. New Subaltern Identity
• Subaltern becoming permeable because of
desire to “do good” or “do something”
• Allow subaltern to speak and be heard
• A general will to create exploitation into the
subaltern, too, is present.

33. Spivak argues:
1. The subaltern is oppressed.
2. The subject is divided.
Subjectivity arises as a consequence of dislocation.
Any attempt to make sense of contradiction and
dislocation homogenises the subject.
3. There are two forms of representation.
A. Representation (Vertreten) - political representation from
within the hegemonic power.
B. Representation (Darstellen) - re-presentation -
something that has been presented will be re-presented
(self-re-presentation). Transforming the nature of
representation.
4. We need try to clarify our use of terms to avoid
equivocation and re-present concepts.

34. Can the subaltern speak?
Truth
construction
Eurocentric
knowledge is
not innocent
Criticism of
essentialist
ideologies
Death of
Bhuvaneshwari
Bhadari

35. Eurocentric
knowledge is not
innocent
• Eurocentric
knowledge is
produced by the
colonizers and they
export the same to
the third world
countries and
therefore such
knowledge is never
innocent.
• British intervention saved
the lives of many women
• According to Britishers
“wihte men saved brown
women from brown men”
• Spivak criticize Foucault
and Deleuze for
Committing Epistemic
Violence
• Which is projecting
Eurocentric knowledge to
the third world countries
Truth construction

36. Criticism of Essentialist ideologies
• Use Marxist ideology to criticize the leftists
• The leftists consider themselves and the third
world people as those who have the same
identities and therefore it has negative impact on
the subalterns.
1. Paves way for colonialism
2. Provides a logocentric assumptions of cultural
unity among heterogeneous people
3. Subaltern depends on western intellectually

37. Death of Bhuvaneshwari Bhaduri
• There was a belief that if a teenage girl commits
suicide she would have done that to cover up a
relationship.
• Bhuvaneshwari killed herself when she was
menstruating and was a proof that she was not a
victim of railed romance.
• After a decade or so her family found out that she
was a member of the anticolonial group.
• She failed to carry out the task of killing a
political figure and this turned out to be the cause
of her death.

38. Summary
• Spivak’s sentence does reflect the coloniser/colonised
relationship to an extent, or certainly some of the mentality
behind the colonial effort, however it is not a ‘clinching
solution’.
• In discovering other interpretations of the relationship it is
clear that the sentence is only limitedly applicable, and that
essentially the interpretations lie against the post that brown
women do not need saving.
• The portrayal of British dealings in India is dependent on the
motive and context:
brown women need saving when the British are justifying their
presence in India and trying to save themselves from native
rebellion.
White women need saving in India when the British need to justify
the civilising mission, whilst other political motivations assert
brown women more power and the ability to save themselves.
Ultimately, brown women are not being saved by white men and
the coloniser is represented as the intruder rather than the hero.