Gayatri Spivak
From Geography
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born 24 February 1942) is an indian woman, who sees herself as a practical Marxist-feminist-deconstructionist. She is best known for her essay 'Can the subaltern speak?', in which she talks about the terms subaltern and sati. This essay is concidered a founding text of postcolonialism (wikipedia, 2012).
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Subaltern
Subaltern refers to a group that cannot represent itself or is not put in a position where it may represent itself and therefore is put outside of the hegemonic discourse. Discussing essentialism, she argues there is a risk that the voices of the subaltern people will cause generalization of the group, creating a stereotype. Spivak argued that when you have a identity, you can speak for yourself, so ‘strategic essentialism’ could help representing the group, through a temporary use of the stereotype.
Sati
'Sati', which means "good wife" is the feminin form of 'sat'. 'Sat' comes from any gender-specific notion of masculinity. This does not only concern the human, but also the spiritual universality. Through the years 'Sati' has become a proper name for woman. This is kind of ironic, because when this name is given to a child, this is associated with the fact that she will be a good wife (Morris, 2010).
Postcolonial theory
In postcolonial theory, the essay makes a clear distinction between two senses of representation: Depiction and delegation. Spivak argues depiction means speaking as others and delegation means speaking for others. She thinks it is important to distinguish the way in which these two senses of representation imply a different process of substitution between the represented and the representative.
References
Aitken S. and Valentine G., 2006, Approaches to Human Geography, p. 147-159
Morris, R.C. (2010) Can the Subaltern Speak?: Reflections on the History of an Idea. Columbia University Press
Wikipedia (2012) Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. date: 23 october 2012, on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayatri_Chakravorty_Spivak
Page edited by Malou van Woerkum, 23 october 2012
- Picture added by --AnneStrien 10:26, 26 October 2012 (CEST)
