Abstract
This talk will revisit the work of the Subaltern Studies [SS] group by attending to the "subaltern intimation of freedom." Retrospectively, we can see that the emergence of Subaltern Studies is itself part of the increasing prominence of the “New Social Movements (NSMs),” new because they were focused more on oppression than exploitation. Recognizing this also allows us to discern that the Subaltern Studies project is driven by a subaltern intimation of freedom—a freedom that recognizes that domination takes the form of not only exploitation but oppression, and a freedom that, even as it exits subalternity, seeks not to make a new group subaltern. The talk will explore this subaltern intimation of freedom, focusing specifically on three concerns: how it played a role in the turn away from the focus on subaltern autonomy; how the community constituted by it differs from those constituted by claims to oppression such as those made by Hindu nationalists or white nationalists; and how it allows us to read differently the claim to indigeneity involved in the identity “Adivasi.”
Speaker Bio:
Ajay Skaria studied Political Science and History at Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara, during which period he also worked as a journalist for Indian Express. He received his PhD in History from Trinity College, Cambridge, and currently teaches at the University of Minnesota. A member of the Subaltern Studies editorial collective from 1995 till its dissolution, he is one of the co-editors of Subaltern Studies Vol. XII, and the author of Hybrid Histories: Forests, Frontiers and Wildness in Western India (1999) and Unconditional Equality: Gandhi's Religion of Resistance (2016). He is currently completing a collection of essays, Thinking With Gandhi and Ambedkar.