Subaltern Studies

Subaltern studies is a broadly influential academic movement whose goal is to refocus history on the unique role of subaltern or marginalized people in bringing about large-scale transformations in society. The implications of subaltern studies for geography are especially apparent in the group's exploration of spatialized categories of class, ancestry, and religion.

Subaltern studies began in 1982, when a collective of South Asian scholars in Britain, including Dipesh Chakrabarty and Partha Chatterjee, began publication of a book-length journal titled Subaltern Studies, edited by Ranajit Guha. Much of the collective's early work dealt with the politics of peasants who had been involved in the mass movements that ultimately led to India's independence. The journal's inauguration stemmed from a critique both of nationalist historians of India, who tended ...