Notes on the Role of the Concept of Subalternity in the Dispute about Postcolonial Theory: Gayatri Ch. Spivak and Vivek Chibber

Abstract

This article deals with the debate sparked by the American sociologist Vivek Chibber’s fundamental critique of Subaltern Studies in his work Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital (2013). His aim was to demonstrate the «failure of Subaltern Studies» arguing that a whole series of theoretical and historical misinterpretations had led to a departure from the basic principles of the Enlightenment and to the revival of an essentializing Orientalism. After a rough summary of Chibber’s theses, I focus on a remarkable circumstance in the ensuing discussion: while Gramsci plays practically no role in his theoretical argumentation (unlike in his more recent book The Class Matrix, 2022), he is very much taken up by Partha Chatterjee and Gayatri Ch. Spivak in their responses. Spivak, in particular, takes the opportunity of the debate to recapitulate her own reading of Gramsci and, above all, her use of the concept of subalternity. How Spivak positions Gramsci against Chibber, and what needs to be critically noted, is the subject of this paper.