Subaltern Curriculum Studies

In a recent essay written for a 7th-grade English class, my granddaughter Janelle, engaged the questions: Who Am I? Who Are You? Who Are They? Ironically, these are the very same questions that concern subaltern scholars and which guide the work of those concerned with issues of curriculum studies. In fact, the questions and subsequent discussion, especially in regard to the intersubjectivity and fluidity of identity are central to subaltern curriculum studies.

In a 2007 essay, William Pinar defined curriculum as the intellectual site where individuals [Page 823]struggle to define themselves and the world. The struggle that Pinar refers to is autobiographical, institutional, and highly complex, with new generations facing transformed worlds often times hardly imagined by their predecessors. For scholars and members of subaltern communities, however, curriculum studies also takes on the enormous burden of physical, cultural, and intellectual domination that comprise part of the legacy of colonization and imperialist practices brought on by the European domination of the world.

Referring to the European conquest of Meso-America, Pilar Gonzalbo notes that the initial conquest was a military endeavor, but the consolidation of the conquests depended on the ability to establish and maintain cultural and intellectual hegemony over the natives. This meant the annihilation of the Indigenous, cultural, discursive, and symbolic categories, or more simply put, the substitution of Western worldviews for the decimated cultural categories of the indigenous. Stuart Hall articulates the dilemma of the conquered by noting that such individuals have no history, no place to return, no language, and little knowledge of ancestors.

Subaltern is a term that is used most often in the area of postcolonial studies. The term, which originated in the work of Antonio Gramsci, is used to describe those individuals in subordinate positions of power. The term was adapted by postco-lonial scholars beginning with its use by the subaltern studies historians, including Ranajit Guha and Partha Chatterjeee, who have produced over five volumes of essays of Subaltern Studies, examining all aspects of subalternity including cultural, political, historical, and sociological themes. In an essay entitled, “Unpacking My Library … Again,” Homi Bhabha uses the term subaltern as he describes oppressed minority groups whose presence serves to define the majority group. Bhabha argues that subaltern social groups always have the power to undermine the positions of those in positions of power because the dominant culture reproduces itself on mistaken identities of the subaltern.

Identity is central to the work of subaltern scholars such as Bhabha, Hall, and Gayatri Spivak, who elaborate greatly on the complexities of attempting to engage it in the shadow of cultural ruptures of the past related to the European Imperialism. These scholars are part of a group of scholars associated with postcolonial studies, which is where the term subaltern is most often employed. Spivak in a widely cited piece, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” laments on the fruitless attempt to articulate an “impossible no,” to the hegemony of the “West” which she describes as permeating the very heart of the consciousness of the subaltern.

Indeed, curriculum scholars, both subaltern and Western, have often taken heed of the metanarratives that emerged with the advent of modernity. Bernardo Gallegos elaborates on the curriculum of domination with in the context of New Mexico and the Southwest. One of the prevalent legacies of the West's dominion over the world was the rise of modernity, characterized by the emergence of the Western (or European) Universal Subject. This theme arises in many contexts and classrooms throughout the world in the contexts of discussions about difference: Individuals may look different but all humans want the same things. The problem with the idea of the “universal subject” is that it universalizes certain traits common to Western subjects and promotes the idea that this is what is normal.

...