Anthropophagus

Another blog recommendation: of late, I’ve become enamored of anthropophagus, a great blog by an anthropology student who writes about all manner of things political, anthropological, and more. A couple of examples of the sorts of things that come up, prolifically, in her links, that I would not otherwise have noticed:

Dead Nuns Still a Health Hazard? While those who survived old-style Catholic educations may only consider living nuns truly dangerous, a historic crypt in Montreal has refused to allow a crypt to be opened, because the nuns interred within died of infectious diseases. Conversation on metafilter continues. [via]

The reactionary nature of the subalternist. An article from Monthly Review, by Pratyush Chandra, writes compelling of the ‘usefulness’ of terrorism and victimization to ‘the system,’ (which I would like to see better defined) and includes a surprising quote from Gayatri Spivak (“the scholar” in the below excerpt):

Terrorism in the present shape is not a threat to the system but like its counterpart creates an opportunity for the hegemonic bloc to (re)create consensus to (counter)terrorize and further subalternize the alienated voices and stop them from ever becoming a meaningful and organized threat to the system by transcending their own subalternity.  A prominent post-modernist, post-colonialist scholar categorically said, “Who the hell wants to protect subalternity?  Only extremely reactionary, dubious anthropologistic museumizers”¹ — like terrorists and (counter)terrorists.  How do we break this vicious circle?  The scholar added: “No activist wants to keep the subaltern in the space of difference. . . .  You don’t give the subaltern voice.  You work for the bloody subaltern, you work against subalternity.”²

Terrorism in the present shape is not a threat to the system but like its counterpart creates an opportunity for the hegemonic bloc to (re)create consensus to (counter)terrorize and further subalternize the alienated voices and stop them from ever becoming a meaningful and organized threat to the system by transcending their own subalternity.  A prominent post-modernist, post-colonialist scholar categorically said, “Who the hell wants to protect subalternity?  Only extremely reactionary, dubious anthropologistic museumizers”¹ — like terrorists and (counter)terrorists.  How do we break this vicious circle?  The scholar added: “No activist wants to keep the subaltern in the space of difference. . . .  You don’t give the subaltern voice.  You work for the bloody subaltern, you work against subalternity.”²

During my qualifying exams, I got in very serious trouble for making an argument very much along these lines, following largely in the vein of Arif Dirlik, whose work I like very much. One of my committee members literally started screaming at me (thankfully, the member in question was on the phone, and not there in person).

This quote from Spivak makes me wonder what she thinks she was doing for so many years (see below, and especially in the famous exchange between Gyan Prakash and O’Hanlon and Washbrook, which picks up Spivak’s themes). Maybe she’s changed her mind, or did I misread her and the founders of ‘subaltern studies?’

• Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Marxism and The Interpretation of Culture. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, eds. London: Macmillan, 1988. pp. 271-313.
• Prakash, Gyan. Writing Post-Orientalist Histories in the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historigraphy,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, 2 (April 1990) pp. 383-408.
• O’Hanlon, Rosalind, and David Washbrook, “After Orientalism: Culture, Criticism, and Politics in the Third World,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 34, 1 (January 1992), pp. 141-167.
• Prakash, Gyan. “Can the Subaltern Ride?” A Reply to O’Hanlon and Washbrook,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 34, 1 (January 1992) pp. 168-184.