founding statement lassg

8/9/2019 Founding Statement LASSG

1/13

Founding StatementAuthor(s): Latin American Subaltern Studies GroupSource: boundary 2, Vol. 20, No. 3, The Postmodernism Debate in Latin America (Autumn,1993), pp. 110-121Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/303344 .

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2/13

Founding

Statement

LatinAmerican SubalternStudies Group

Introduction

The

work

of the

Subaltern tudies

Group,

n

interdisciplinary

rga-

nization

of South Asian scholars ed

by Ranajit

Guha,

has

inspired

us to

founda similar

roject

edicated o

studying

he

subaltern

n

Latin

America.'

The

present

dismantling

f

authoritarian

egimes

n

Latin

America,

he

end

ofcommunism nd theconsequentdisplacementfrevolutionaryrojects,

the

processes

of

redemocratization,

nd the

new

dynamics

reated

by

the

effects of

the

mass mediaand

transnationalconomic

arrangements:

hese

are

all

developments

hat

call

for new

ways

of

thinking

nd

acting

politi-

cally.

The redefinitionf LatinAmerican

olitical

nd

cultural

pace

in

recent

years

has,

in

turn,

mpelled

cholars

of

the

region

o revise

establishedand

previously

unctional

pistemologies

n

the socialsciences and

humanities.

1. The

group

explains

hat

t

uses

the

word

ubaltern

as

a name for he

general

attribute

of subordinationnSouthAsiansocietywhether his is expressedintermsof class, caste,

age, gender,

and office or

in

any

other

way.

See

Ranajit

Guha, Preface,

n

Selected

Subaltern

Studies,

Ranajit

Guha and

Gayatri

Spivak,

eds.

(New

York:Oxford

University

Press,

1988),

35.

boundary

20:3,

1993.

Copyright

1993

by

Duke

University

ress.CCC

190-3659/93/$1.50.


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3/13

Latin mericanubalterntudies

Group

Founding

tatement

111

The

general

trend

owarddemocratization

rioritizes

n

particular

he re-

examination f the conceptsof pluralisticocieties and the conditionsof

subalternity

ithin

hese societies.

The

realization

hatcolonial

and

postindependence

lites

agreed

in

theirviews of

the subalterned

the

Subaltern tudies

Group

o

question

he

master

paradigms

sed

in

representing

olonial nd

postcolonial

ocieties,

both

in

the cultural

ractices

of

hegemony

developedby

elite

groups

and

in

the

disciplinary

iscourses of

the

humanities

nd social sciences

that

seek to

represent

he

workings

f these societies. Guha's

naugural

rticle

in

the firstvolume

of the Subaltern tudies

series, published y

the

group

beginning

n

1982,

lays

outthe ambition f

the

project

o

displace

he

casual

and

descriptive ssumptions

boutSouth

Asiancolonial

history

mbedded

in

the dominantmodelsof

colonial,nationalist,

nd traditional

Marxist is-

toriography.2

is

1983

book,

Elementary spects

of

Peasant

Insurgency,

criticizes he

prejudice

n

previous

istorical

cholarship

avoringnsurgents

who

present

written

gendas

and

carefully

hought-out

rograms.

This

de-

pendency

on

the written

ecord,

Guha

notes,

betrays

a

prejudice

or

both

literacy

nd

foreign

and

indigenous

lites

in

the

very

construction f

South

Asian

historiography.

Reading

his

historiography

in

reverse

or

against

he

grain,

n

the idiomof

deconstructionometimesused

by

the

group)

o recover he

cultural nd

political

pecificity

f

peasant

nsurrections

as,

for

Guha,

wo

components:

dentifying

he

logic

of the distortions

n

the

representation

f

the subaltern

n

official r elite

culture;

nd

uncovering

he

social

semiotics

of the

strategies

andcultural

ractices

f

peasant nsurgencies

hemselves.3

The

insight

of Guhawas thatthe

subaltern,

y

definition ot

registered

r

registrables a historicalubject apableofhegemonic ction seen,that s,

through

he

prism

of colonial

administratorsr

educated

ative

eaders),

is

nevertheless

present

n

unexpected

tructural

ichotomies,

issures

in

the

formsof

hierarchy

nd

hegemony,

nd,

in

turn,

n

the

constitutionf

the

heroes

of the

national

rama,

writing,

iterature,ducation,

nstitutions,

nd

the

administration

f lawand

authority.

The

subaltern,

n

other

words,

s

not

only

acted

on,

despite

the ten-

dency

in

traditional

aradigms

o see

it

as

a

passive

or

absent

ubject

hat

can be mobilized nly romabove; t alsoacts toproduce ocial effects that

2.

Ranajit

Guha,

On

Some

Aspects

of the

Historiography

f Colonial

ndia,

n

Selected

SubalternStudies,

37-43.

3. The

classic statement of

this double

endeavor is Guha's The

Prose of Counter-

Insurgency,

n

Selected

Subaltern

Studies,

45-84.




4/13

112

boundary

/

Fall

993

are

visible,

f

not

alwayspredictable

r

understandable,

y

these

paradigms

or the state policiesandresearchprojectsheyauthorize. t s the recogni-

tionof

this

roleof

the

subaltern,

ow

t

curves,

alters,

modifies ur ifestrate-

gies

of

learning,understanding,

nd

research,

hat underlies

he doubts

besetting

hese traditional

isciplinary

nd

historiographic

aradigms, ara-

digms

hatarethemselvesrelated o

the

social

projects

f

national,

egional,

and internationallites

seeking

to

manage

or control

ubject

populations

and that

bring

ntheirwake the

danger

of

filtering

ultural

egemonies

all

the

way

across

the

politicalpectrum,

rom he elitesthemselves o

the

epis-

temologies

and discourses

of

revolutionary

ovements

ooking

o subvert

their

power

n

the name

of the

people.

The

Subaltern

n

LatinAmericanStudies

The limits

of elite

historiography

n

relation

o

the subaltern

do

not

come

as an

unexpected

heoretical

urprise

n

Latin

American

Studies,

whichhas

long

worked

with

he

assumption

hat

nationandnational

re not

popular,

ll-inclusive

erms.The

concept

and

representation

f

subalternity

developed

by

the SouthAsianSubaltern tudies

Group

does not

gain

cur-

rency

until

he

1980s;

but LatinAmerican tudies

has been

involved

with

related

ssues

since its

inauguration

s a field

n

the

1960s.

The

constitution

of

the

field tself

and

of

the LatinAmerican tudies

Association

s its

orga-

nizational

orm)

as

a

necessarily

nterdisciplinary

ormation

orresponds

o

the

way

in

which he

South

Asian

groupconceptualized

he

subaltern

s

a

subject

hat

emerges

across,

or at

the

intersections

f,

a

spectrum

of

aca-

demic

disciplines

anging

rom

he

philosophical

ritique

f

metaphysics,

o

contemporaryiteraryndculturalheory,ohistory ndthesocialsciences.

Indeed,

he

force

behind he

problem

f the subaltern

n

Latin

America

ould

be

said

to arise

directly

ut of

the need to

reconceptualize

he relation

f

nation,

tate,

and

people

n

he

three ocialmovements

hathave

centrally

shaped

the contours

nd

concerns

of

LatinAmerican tudies

as

of

modern

Latin

America

tself):

he

Mexican,Cuban,

and

Nicaraguan

Revolutions.

We

may plot

the

relationship

f

the

emergence

of

Latin

American

Studies

with

he

problem

f

the

conceptualization

f

subalternity

n

terms

of threemajorphasesfrom1960to thepresent.

Phase

One:

1960-1968

As is

well

known,

lthough

mostof Latin

America

ained

ormalnde-

pendence

in the

nineteenth

century,

he

resulting

postcolonial

nation-states




5/13

Latin merican

ubaltern

tudies

Group

Founding

tatement

113

were

ruled

predominantlyy

white

criolloswho

developed

internal

olo-

nial

regimes

with

respect

o the

Indians,

heslaves

of

African

escent,the

mestizo or mulatto

peasantry,

and

the

nascent

proletariats.

he

Mexican

Revolution

marked

point

of

departure

rom his white-

and male-)

domi-

nated,

oligarchic,

nd Eurocentric

modelof

development,

epending

as

it

did

on the

agency

of Indiansand

poor

mestizos not

only

as

soldiers

but

also

as leaders

and

strategists

of the

revolutionarypheaval.

n

postrevo-

lutionary

Mexico,however,

n

a

process

that has

been

amply

tudied,

his

protagonism

was bluntedat the

economic,

political,

nd culturalevels

in

favorof the

rise of

a

new

mestizo

upper

and middle lass

by

the

suppres-

sion of Indian

eadersand

communities,

nd

by

the

resubalternizationfthe

Indian s

a

cultural

rtifact f the new

state

apparatus

e.g.,

in

Mexican

muralism)

ather han as

an actual

historical-political

gent.

The

Cuban

Revolution

epresents

a

partial

evivalof the

impulse

toward

surfacing

f the

subaltern,

n

particular

aising gainst

he

primacy

of

Eurocentric

istoriographic

nd cultural

aradigms

n

both a

practical

and a

theoretical

evel he

question

f the non-

or

post-)

European

haracter

of

the

social

subject

of

Latin

American

istory

n

the context

of

decoloniza-

tion.RobertoFernandezRetamar's

ereading

f Fanonand the discourse

of

national

iberation

n

his

essay

Caliban

was an

example

of the new

ways

of

conceptualizing

atin

American

istory

nd

identity.

This

impulse

nfluenced

ot

only

he Boom

writers

n

literature,

uch

as

Mario

Vargas

Llosa,

Carlos

Fuentes,

and

Gabriel

Garcia

Marquez,

ut

also

intellectuals

n

the

social

sciences,

such as

Andre

GunderFrank

nd

the

dependency-school

heorists.Both

groups

came

to see

the

establish-

ment

of

viable

economiesand

societies

in

Latin

America

s

contingent

n

a

radicaltructural break ith hedominantystem,a break hat,at leastin

theory,

wouldboth

allow

and be

produced

y

the

protagonism

f

subaltern

subjects.

The

Cuban

Revolution

pened

up

cultural

nd

political

ractices

hat

were

no

longer

satisfiedwith

the

representation

f the

social

subject

of

Latin

American

istory

s the

middle

r

upper

lass. The

new

prestige

he

revolution

ave

to

Marxism

mong

Latin

American

ntellectuals

nd cul-

tural

workers

provided

n

optimism

nd

epistemological

ertainty

egarding

the natureof historical gency.Theconceptof the peopleas the work-

ing

masses

became the

new

center

of

representation.

mong

he

most

significant

esults

of this

shift

n

the

field

of culture

were

the

documentary

film

school

of

Santa Fe

created

n

Argentina

y

Fernando

Birri,

he

films

of

the

Brazilian

Cinema Nouvo

and Cuba's

ICAIC,

he

Bolivian

concept

of




6/13

114

boundary

/

Fall

1993

film

with-the-people eveloped

by

Jorge

Sanjines

and

Grupo

Ukamu,

he

Colombian teatro e creaci6ncolectiva, he TeatroEscambraynCuba,

and relatedmovements

n

the

United

States

like he Teatro

Campesino.

But,

even where

this work

engaged problems

f

gender,

race,

lan-

guage,

and

the

like,

ts insistenceon a

unitary,

lass-based

subject

and its

concomitant

ssumption

f the

identity

f

theoretical-literary

exts

produced

by

elite intellectuals

with

his

subject

veiled he

disparity

f

blacks,Indians,

Chicanos,

and

women;

alternative

models of

sexuality

and of

the

body;

alternative

pistemologies

nd

ontologies;

he existenceof those who had

not entered

ntoa social

pact

with he

(revolutionary)

tate;

the

lumpen.

(A

good

dramatization

f

the

issues

involved,

ut

one that also

is

part

f

the

problem

n

its manner

f

posing

hem,

was

Sara

G6mez's

exploration

of

class, race,

and

gender

conflicts

n

postrevolutionary

uba

n

her

film

De

Cierta

Manera

One

Way

or

Another].)

he

subject

of

history

was

never

n

question,

and

so neitherwas the

adequacy

of its

representation

both

n

the

mimeticand

the

political

ense)

by revolutionary

ects,

by

the new forms

of art

and

culture,

r

by

new theoretical

aradigms

ike

dependency

heory

or AlthusserianMarxism.

Phase

Two: 1968-1979

The crisis of

the

model

of

protagonism

epresentedby

the Cuban

Revolution

omes

with the

collapse

of Che

Guevara's

uerrilla roup

in

Bolivia

and of

the foco-based

guerrilla

ronts

generally

n

the late

1960s,

a

collapse predicated

n

part

on

the

separation

etween hese

groups

and

the

masses

they

sought

to

dynamize

nto

revolutionary

ction

(an eerily

apt image

of

this was Guevara's

ecognition,

oted

n

his

Bolivian

Diary,

of

the lack of responseinthe eyes of the Aymara-speakingeasantsof the

altiplano

e was

trying

o

organize).

The

U.S.

NewLeftandantiwar

movement,

he

French

May,

nd

the

student

demonstrations

nd

subsequent

massacreat

Tlatelolco

n

Mexico

in

1968

signal

the entranceof students

as

political

ctors onto

the

world

stage,

displacing

raditional

ocial-democratic

r Communist

arties

and

formations.

he cultural

ractices

nforming

his

insurgency

re

exemplified

in

Latin

America

by

VioletaParra

and the nueva

trovamovement

n

Latin

Americanmusic,or bythe emergenceof reggaeandsome formsof rock

as

oppositional

musics.

The moment s

characterized

olitically,

n

the

one

hand,

by

a

generational

truggle

between

elite and middle

ectors

and

a

new,

class-amorphous

ocial

sector,

which

he

student-based

New

Left

seeks to

represent;

on the

other,

by

the broad alliance

politics

or

popu-




7/13

Latin

mericanubaltern

tudies

Group

Founding

tatement

115

larfrontism f movements uch

as the Chilean

UP

(Popular

Unity)

under

Allende.

In

cultural

roduction,

he

emergence

of testimonial nd

documen-

tary

formsshifts

dramatically

he

parameters

f

representationway

from

the writer

and

the

avant-gardes.

n

contrast o

the

ambition f the

Boom

novelists o

speak

or Latin

America,

he

subaltern

ubject

represented

in

the

testimonial

ext

becomes

part

of the

construction f the text itself.

The

dissatisfaction

with

he

Boom's

male-centered

trategy

of

metafiction-

ality

eads to a new

emphasis

on the

concrete,

he

personal,

he

small

history,

riting

or

video

work)

by

women,

political risoners, umpen,

and

gays,

raising,

n

the

process, questions

of who

represents

whom.

Simulta-

neously,

there

is the initiative

n

academic

iterary

riticism o

constructa

social

history

f

Latin

American

iterature,

epresented

y projects

uch

as the

Ideologies

and Literature

roup

at the

University

f

Minnesota nd

the

Instituto e

Estudios

LatinoamericanosR6mulo

Gallegos

n

Caracas,

both

nourished

y

the

diaspora

f

SouthernCone leftist

ntellectuals

n

the

years

following

973.

This

phase

also

marks

he

introductionntoLatin

America f French

poststructuralist

heory,

GramscianMarxism,ndthe

heritage

f theFrank-

furt

school,

which

serves to destabilize

ome of the

assumptions

of the

various

ormsof

orthodox

Marxism

ominant

n

the

1960s and the

model

of

modernization

enerated

n

U.S. social

sciences.

In

response

to the

formalism

f

structuralist

emiotics,

a

social

emiotics

stressing

hetero-

glossia,

dialogism,

ndthe

multiplicity

f

discoursesand

signifying ractices

gains

currency,

mpelledby

the Latin

American

eception

of the

workof

Bakhtin,

Voloshinov,

Lotman nd the

School

of

Tartu,

nd the

emerging

fieldof popularulture tudies ntheUnitedStates andGreatBritain.

Phase

Three: The

1980s

The

Nicaraguan

Revolution,

nd the

contingent pread

and

impor-

tance of

liberation

heology heory

and

practice,

become

primary oints

of

reference

in

this

phase.

Culture,

democratization,

global, post- (Marx-

ism,

modernism,

tructuralism)

ecome

key

words.

High

ulture

orms

uch

as

literature

re

bracketed

by

the

critiques

developed

by

deconstruction,

feminism, lackandChicanotudies n heUnited tates,and n heirplace,

an

anthropological

ense of culture

s

lived

xperience

omes to

the

fore.

In

tandemwith

he

emergence

of

projects

uch

as the

Subaltern

Studies

Group,

or

the

Birmingham

Centerfor

Cultural

Studies

directed

by

Jamaican

Stuart

Hall,

Latin

Americanists

begin

to

question

deeply

the

persistence




8/13

116

boundary

/

Fall

1993

in

Latin

American

modernity

f colonialor neocolonial

ystems

of

repre-

sentation.4There s a newsense that bothcultural ndpolitical ynamics

have

begun

to function

n

a

global

context hat

problematizes

he center-

periphery

modelof

dependency

heory

s

wellas the

strategies

f economic

nationalism

hat ollow rom

t

(the

end

of

the

growth

ycle

of the sixties and

the

debt

crisis

willbe the dominant conomic acts of the decade

in

Latin

America).

The

rapid

development

nd

spread

of information

echnology

s

the

defining

echnological

eature f

this

phase,

permitting,

mong

other

hings,

the circulation

f texts and

cultural

ractices

romareas

of the

formerly

colonial

world

n

new,

global

circuits f information

etrieval nd

exchange

(the

publication,

ubsequent

reception,

and

current

entrality

n

the U.S.

multiculturalism

ebate

of

Rigoberta

Menchu's

estimonio,

s

one

small,

but

significant,

xample

of the

new

ways

in

whichcultural

bjects

are

created

and

circulate).

With

he

proliferation

f

television,

he dominant

ew cultural

form

n

Latin

Americabecomes

the

telenovela,

and communications

he

fastest

growing

cademic

ield.

It

is

the

moment,

precisely,

of the

emergence

of

Cultural tudies

within he

Anglo-American

cademy,

an

emergence

ueled

by

the

conjunc-

tion of

feminist

heory

and

activism,

he

critique

f colonial

discourse,

new

formsof

Marxism

nd

social

theory

Jameson,

Mouffe nd

Laclau's

post-

Marxism,

yotard's

ostmodern

ondition),

he

psychoanalytic

ccount

of

the

construction

f the

subject

provided y

Lacanian

heory,

he new

at-

tention

o

the mass

media

and

popular

ulture,

nd

the

new

experiences

of

globality

and

simultaneity.

Witha

delay

of about

ive

years,

this

emer-

gence

is

replicated

n

Latin

America

tselfand

in

Latin

American

tudies.

It

wouldbe appropriate,hen,to conclude his narrativef the relation f the

problem

of

subalternity

o

Latin

American tudies

with wo observations:

(1)

the

project

of

developing

a

Latin

American ubaltern

Studies

Group

such

as

the one

we are

proposing

epresents

ne

aspect,

albeita

crucial

one,

of the

larger

mergent

ield

of LatinAmerican

Cultural

tudies;

2)

in

the new

situation

f

globality,

he

signifier

Latin

American

tselfnow

refers

also

to

significant

ocial

forces

within

he United

States,

whichhas now

be-

come

the fourth-

r

fifth-largest

panish-speaking

ation

n the world

out

of twenty).

4.

See,

for

example,

Angel

Rama's

posthumous

La

ciudad

letrada

(Hanover,

N.H.:

Edi-

ciones

del

Norte,

1984).




9/13

Latin mericanubalterntudies

Group

Founding

tatement

117

Founding

Concepts

and

Strategies

It

s above allthe

emerging

onsensus

on

the need

fora

democratic

world

rder hat

sets the

stage

for

ourwork.The

ethicaland

epistemological

natureof this

consensus and

the fate of the

processes

of redemocratiza-

tion

in

LatinAmerica tself

are,

we

believe,

inked

n

ways

that

mpose

new

urgencies

and

challenges

on

our work

as scholars and

teachers. These

involve,

on

the one

hand,

a

heightened ensitivity

o the

complexities

of

social

difference

nd,

on the

other,

he

composition

f

a

plural,

ut

bounded,

space

or

platform

f

research nd

discussion

n

which

veryone

has a

place.

Traditional

onfigurations

f

democracy

and the nation-state ave barred

subaltern ocial classes and

groups

rom

actively

participating

oth

in

the

political rocess

and

in

the constitution f

academically

uthorized

nowl-

edge,

and have not

recognized

heir

potential

ontributionss a

pool

of

human

capital, xcept

by

default.

What

s clear from he work

of

the

South Asian

SubalternStudies

Group

s the

axiom hat

the

elites

represented y

the national

bourgeoisie

and/or he

colonial dministrationre

responsible

or

nventing

he

ideology

and

reality

fnationalism.heir

way

of

looking

t

things

s locatedwithinhe

parameters

f

the

nation-state s constituted t

points

of

intersection,

nd

interest,

between a

formerly

egemonic

olonial

power

and a future

post-

colonial

ystem

of

new

states,

in

which

hey

will

playkey

leadership

oles.

At the

same

time,

it

is what

Guhacalls

the

historic

ailure

of the

nation

to come into

ts

own, 5

failure

due to

the

inadequacy

f

elite

leadership,

that is the central

problematic

f

postcoloniality.

he new

global

political

economybrings

n

its wakea

conceptual

movement

o

de-emphasize

para-

digmsof nationandindependence,a shift hataccounts or the changes

in

terminology

in

the

social sciences.

Consensus,

pluralism,

democracy,

subalternity,power

shift,

new

global

order,

and Grand

Area are

examples

of this

mutation.

They

have

substitutederms

such as

modernization,

ic-

tatorship,

party,

revolution,

metropolis/periphery, development,

national-

ism,

and national

iberation.One of

our first

asks is to

track he

ways

in

which erms

mutate,

and

what

t

means to use

a

given

erminology.

In

addition o

conceptualizing

ation

as at

least a dual

space

(colo-

nialormetropolitan/Creolelites;Creole lites/subalternroups),hestudy

of

the

subaltern

n

Latin

America nvolves

other

structural

ichotomies.As

5.

Guha,

On

Some

Aspects,

43.




10/13

118

boundary

/

Fall

1993

a

space

of

counterposition

nd

collision,

he nation ncludes

multiple

rac-

turesof language,race,ethnicity, ender,class,

and

the

resulting

ensions

between assimilation

ethnic

dilution nd

homogenization)

nd confronta-

tion

(passive

resistance,

nsurgency,

trikes,

errorism).

hesubaltern

unc-

tions as a

migrating

ubject,

both

n

its own cultural

elf-representations

and

in

the

changing

natureof

its

social

pact

with he

state(s).

According

o

both

the mode of

production

arrative f classical

Marxism nd

the mod-

ernization

arrative f

sociological

unctionalism,

migrating

ubject

must

be

plottedagainst

its

position

n

the

stages

of

development

f a national

economy.

In

such

narratives,

he consent

of the subaltern

lasses and

their

identity

s

economic

categories

underwritehe

increased

productivity

hat

is the

sign

of

progress

and economic

stability.

he

question

of

the nature

of the subaltern

ocial

pact

s

integral

o the

effective

unctioning

f

govern-

ments

in the

present,

as muchas

to

plotting

heir uture.

De-nationalization

s

simultaneously

limit

and

a

thresholdof

our

project.

The de-territorialization

f

the nation-state

nder

he

impact

of

the new

permeability

f frontiers

o

capital-labor

lows

merely

replicates,

n

effect,

the

genetic

process

of

implantation

f

a colonial

conomy

in

Latin

America nthe sixteenthandseventeenthcenturies. tis notonlythatwe

can

no

longer

operate

solely

within he

prototype

f

nationhood;

he con-

cept

of

the

nation,

tself

ied to

the

protagonism

f

Creoleelites concerned

to dominate

nd/or

manage

other ocial

groups

or

classes

in

heir

ownsoci-

eties,

has

obscured,

rom he

start,

the

presence

and

reality

f subaltern

social

subjects

in

Latin

American

history.

We

need,

in

this

sense,

to

go

backward

o consider

both

pre-Columbian

nd

colonial

ormsof

prenational

territorialization,

s

well as

forward

o

think

about

newly

emerging

errito-

rialsubdivisions,permeable rontiers, egionalogics,andconceptssuch

as

Commonwealth

or

Pan-Americanism.

Calling

he

concept

of

nation

nto

question

affects,

n

turn,

national

notions

of

elite and

subaltern.

n

Latin

America

and

now

in the United

States), patterns

of

migration,

r

the recent

phenomenon

f

resettlement,

impinge

n

existing

ocial

and

economic

ormations,

heir

egal

status

guar-

anteed

by

the

state,

and

consequently

n

the

representation

nd

protago-

nism

of

the subaltern.

Whatare

the boundaries

f

Latin

America

f,

for

instance,we considerNew Yorkhe largestPuertoRicanmetropolis nd

Los

Angeles

the

second-largest

Mexican

metropolis?

Or,

f

we are

dealing

withthe

English-speaking

fro-Caribbeans

f

the

Atlantic

Coast

of

Nica-

ragua

who call

themselves

Creolesand

whose

cultural

astes

include

U.S.

country

music

and

Jamaican

reggae?




11/13

Latin

mericanubalterntudies

Group

Founding

tatement

119

This nsistenceon

thinking

he

subaltern

rom

he

standpoint

f

post-

modernity

oes

not

mean that

we do not intend o

pursue

the traces

of

previous

ultural

egemonies

n

the formationf the subaltern r of the cor-

responding

rea-elites.

We

can

find he subaltern

nly

n

the seams of

the

previously

rticulated

ocioculturalndadministrative

ractices

and

episte-

mologies,

n

the

cloning

of cultural

mentalities,

nd

in the

contingent

ocial

pacts

that occur at

every

transitional

uncture.According

o elite

writings,

nationalisms

an idealist

venture

conducted

by

the

same

elite,

guided

in

part

by

a

literary

deal

of nationhood.

he

native

elite,

with

ts

antagonism

toward he

colonizer,

llegedly

advocates he

good

of

the

people,

the sub-

altern

lasses,

claiming

ltruismnd

self-abnegation

nsteadofa searchfor

class

empowerment.

he

history

f the national

bourgeoisie

becomes the

spiritual

auto)biography

f

the

elite,

a fact not oston

the

subaltern lasses

and

directly

ontributing

o their

political

nd culturalormations

the

well-

known esistance o

Spanish-languageiteracy

n

some Indian reas

and

to

high

ulture

enerally

n

the

part

of subaltern

roups,

or

example).

Not

to

acknowledge

he

contributionf the

people

o theirown

history

manifests

the

poverty

of

historiography

nd

points

o crucial easons for the failures

of nationalprograms f popular ntitlement. ubalterntrans)nationalism

is

recorded

negatively

only

as a

problem

f law

and

order,

and

positively

only

as a

response

to

the charisma f elite

leaders,

n

other

words,

as ver-

tical

mobilization

hrough

he

populist

r media

manipulation

f

groups

and

factions.

To

represent

ubalternity

n

Latin

America,

n

whatever orm

t

takes

wherever t

appears-nation,

hacienda,

work

place,

home,

informal

ector,

black

market-to

find the

blank

space

where

it

speaks

as

a

sociopoliti-

cal subject,requiresus to explore he margins f the state. Ourpremise,

again,

s

that he

nation,

s

a

conceptual

pace,

is

not denticalo the

nation

as state.

Our nitial

oncepts

are thereforemore

geographical

han

institu-

tional.Our

research

strategies

oblige

us to

do

archaeological

work

n

the

intersticesof the

forms

of eitherdomination-law

and

order/military

nd

police

powers-or

integration-learning

nd

schooling.

From he

perspec-

tive of

subalternity,

he

alternateuse

of

police

and

teachers

may

well

be

coordinated

trategies

of

transnational

rojects

or

economic

xtraction nd

territorialdministration. e mustbe careful,nthe processof conceptu-

alizing

subalternity,

ot

to ensnare

ourselves

in

the

problem,

dominant n

previous

articulations f

national

iberation

for

example,

n

some

forms

of

PuertoRican

nationalism

r

in

Latin

American

iteraryArielism),

f the

national elite itself as

subaltern,

that

is,

as

transcriber, ranslator,

nterpreter,




12/13

120

boundary

/

Fall

993

editor:

o

avoid,

n

other

words,

he

construction f

postcolonial

ntelligen-

tsias as sharecroppersnmetropolitanultural egemony.This is notto

dismiss the

problem

but

simply

o

indicate hat

retaining

focus on the

in-

telligentsia

nd on its

characteristic

ntellectual

ractices-centered

on

the

cultivation f

writing,

cience,

and the

like-leaves us

in

the

space

of his-

toriographic

rejudice

nd

not-seeing

hat

Guha dentified

n

his studies

of

peasant insurgency.6

To the extent that nation

and national

are

reconceptualized

s

colored,

and move fromcriollo o

mestizo,

rom

mestizo o

mulatto,black,

and

Indian,

rommale to

female,

we

approximate

more

closely

the idea

of

territoriality-areas, paces,

and

geography-we

seek to

encompass.

In

other

words,

t

is

the

inter/national,

nternecine einstitutionalizedocial

subject

that confirms

he

structure f

globalization,

f

population

ontrol

(political

s much as

biological),

e

it in

terms of

prestige,

culture,

r

maquiladoras.

Paying

attentiono and

acknowledging

he

presence

of this

subject

s an indexof

the

importance

f the subaltern

roups,

of how

they

force

themselves into

he

administrativetructures nd

practices

of domi-

nationas

flesh-and-blood

iving eings.

Since

colonial nd

national

piste-

mologieshavegiventhemthe statusofobjects, heiractivityeems erup-

tive,

breaking

withmodelsof vertical

mobilizationnd

calling

nto

question

hegemonic

party/state

ormsof social control

and

representation,

orcing

the state and

its

agents

(including niversity

rofessors

nd

research

oun-

dation

taff)

o

negotiate

a

morehorizontalocial and

research

dynamic

r

to face

the bomb

n

the

path

of

theirown

project

f

making

history.

We do

not,

however,

want to

simply

exclude the

question

of

the

national

nd

forms

of nationalism

nd

national-popular

obilization,

forexample,the sort involvedn the SandinistaRevolutionn Nicaragua

(we

are

influenced

here

by

the work

of CarlosVilas

on

the

question

of

6. This

may

indicate

one

point

of difference

between the Subaltern

Studies

proposal

and

those

of,

for

example,

Roberto

FernandezRetamar

r Edward

aid,

withwhich

t

shares

many

concerns.

In

his

foreword

o Selected

Subaltern

Studies,

Said

puts

Guha

and

the members of

the

group

in

the

company

of

Fanon,

Salman

Rushdie,

GabrielGarcia

Marquez,

Ngugi

wa

Thiongo,

C.

L.R.

James,

et cetera

(ix-x).

This is

appropriate

o

the

extent

that their

work

is,

in

Said's

words,

a

hybrid,

artaking

ointly

of Western

and

non-Westernconcerns and theory.But where Said and Retamarenvisiona new type

of intellectualas

the

protagonist

f

decolonization, he,

admittedly

aradoxical,

ntentof

Subaltern

Studies is

precisely

to

displace

the

centrality

f intellectuals

and

intellectual

culture

n

social

history.




13/13

Latin mericanubaltern

tudies

Group

Founding

tatement

121

the

identity

of

the

social

subject

of the

revolution).7

eitherdo we

want

to establish a fissure

betweenthe

theoretical

nd

the

political.

The sub-

altern s

not

one

thing.

It

s,

to

repeat,

a

mutating,

migratingubject.

Even

if

we

agree

with he

general

concept

of the subaltern s

the masses of the

laboring

opulation

nd

the intermediate

trata,

we

cannot

abjure

he inclu-

sion of

nonworking

ubjects

unless

we

want o

run he risk

of

repeating

he

mistake

of

classical Marxism n

the

question

of

how

social

agency

is con-

structed.

We

need to access

the

vast

(and mobile)

array

of

the

masses-

peasants, proletarians,

he informalndformal

ectors,

the sub- and

under-

employed,

vendors,

hose outsideor at the

margin

f the

moneyeconomy,

lumpens

and

ex-lumpens

f all

sorts,

children,

he

growing

numbers f the

homeless

...

We need to conclude his

statement,

however,

with

a

recognition

f

the

limits f

the

idea

of

studying

he subaltern nd a caution

o

ourselves

in

setting

outto do

this.

Our

project,

n

whicha teamof researchers

nd

their

collaborators

n

elite

metropolitan

niversities

want

o extricate romdocu-

mentsand

practices

he oralworld f the

subaltern,

he

structural

resence

of the

unavoidable,ndestructible,

nd effective

subject

who has

proven

us wrong-she/he who has demonstratedhat we did not knowthem-

must itselfconfront he dilemma f subaltern esistance

o and

insurgency

against

elite

conceptualizations. learly,

t

is a

question

not

only

of

new

ways

of

looking

at

the

subaltern,

new

and

more

powerful

ormsof infor-

mation

retrieval,

utalso of

building

ew

relations

betweenourselves and

those

human

ontemporaries

homwe

posit

as

objects

of

study.Rigoberta

Menchi's

njunction

t

the

end

of her amous estimonio

s

perhaps

elevant

in

this

regard:

I'm

till

keeping

ecretwhat

Ithink

no-one

shouldknow.Not

evenanthropologistsrintellectuals,omatter owmanybooks heyhave,

can

findout

all oursecrets. 8

7. CarlosVilas,TheSandinistaRevolution: ationalLiberationndSocial Transformation

in

Central

America

(New

York:

Monthly

Review

Press,

1986).

8.

Rigoberta

Menchui,,

Rigoberta

MenchO:

n

IndianWoman

n

Guatemala,

rans.

Ann

Wright London:

Verso,

1984).

founding statement lassg

Documents