History

Latin American subaltern studies was a group founded in 1992 by John Beverley

John Beverley (Latin Americanist)

John R. Beverley II is a literary and cultural critic who works at the University of Pittsburgh. He is a professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature and Cultural Studies as well as an adjunct professor in the English and communication departments...

 and Ileana Rodríguez. Inspired by the South Asian Subaltern Studies

Subaltern Studies

The Subaltern Studies Group or Subaltern Studies Collective are a group of South Asian scholars interested in the postcolonial and post-imperial societies of South Asia in particular and the developing world in general. The term Subaltern Studies is sometimes also applied more broadly to others...

 group, its aim was to apply a similar perspective to Latin American studies

Latin American Studies

Latin American studies is an academic discipline dealing with the study of Latin America and Latin Americans.-Definition:Latin American studies critically examines the history, culture, politics, and experiences of Latin Americans in Latin America and often also elsewhere .Latin American studies...

. It was one of the more important recent developments within Latin American cultural studies, though in the end the group folded owing to internal differences that were both scholarly and political.

The group's "Founding Statement" was published originally in the journal boundary 2

Boundary 2

boundary 2 is an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies, theory, libertarian politics and literary criticism. In the 1970s and 1980s it was one of the primary venues for poststructuralist literary theory in the United States. It is edited primarily at the University of Pittsburgh and...

, attacking "the limits of elite historiography in relation to the subaltern" (112). As Horacio Legras summarizes, the group "was largely preoccupied with the different forms in which elite practices disavowed the originality and independence of subaltern actions" (126).

The group's work resulted in a Reader, various journal special issues, and also influenced individual book projects of some of those who are among the most significant contributors to their field.

Among the group's members were:

• John Kraniauskas
• Walter Mignolo
  Walter Mignolo
  Walter D. Mignolo is an Argentine semiotician and professor at Duke University, who has published extensively on semiotics and literary theory, made up over a dozen new words, and worked on different aspects of the modern and colonial world, exploring concepts such as global coloniality, the...
  
  
• Alberto Moreiras
  Alberto Moreiras
  Alberto Moreiras is a Spanish-born academic and cultural theorist who currently works at Texas A&M University. Previously he taught at Duke University and at the Centre for Modern Thought at the University of Aberdeen....
  
  
• Abdul-Karim Mustapha
• José Rabasa
• Josefina Saldana
• Javier Sanjinés
• Patricia Seed
  Patricia Seed
  Patricia Seed is an American historian, and author of the books To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico, Ceremonies of Possession in the New World, and American Pentimento. She specializes in the history of cartography and navigation, and is a foremost authority on the topic of latitude as it...
  
  
• Gareth Williams

Further reading

• Arias, Arturo, ed. The Rigoberta Menchu Controversy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001 (paperback, ISBN 0816636265)
• Beverley, John. Testimonio: On the Politics of Truth. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004 (paperback, ISBN 0816628416)
• del Sarto, Ana and Abril Trigo, eds. The Latin American Cultural Studies Reader. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004 (paperback, ISBN 0822333406)
• Dussel, Enrique. Etica de la liberacion en la edad de la globalizacion y la exclusion. Madrid: Trotta, 1998 (paperback, ISBN 8481642096)
• Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000 (paperback, ISBN 0826412769)
• Grandin, Greg. Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006 (paperback, ISBN 0805077383)
• Gugelberger, Georg M., ed. The Real Thing: Testimonial Discourse and Latin America. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996 (paperback, ISBN 082231844X)
• Mallon, Florencia E. Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru. University of California Press, 1995 (paperback, ISBN 0520085051)
• Mignolo, Walter. The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality, & Colonization. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003 (paperback, ISBN 0472089315)
• Mignolo, Walter. Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000 (paperback, ISBN 0691001405)
• Moraña, Mabel and Enrique Dussel, Eds. Coloniality at Large: Latin America and the Postcolonial Debate. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008 (paperback, ISBN 0822341697)
• Moreiras, Alberto. The Exhaustion of Difference: The Politics of Latin American Cultural Studies . Durham: Duke University Press, 2001 (paperback, ISBN 0822327244)
• Nance, Kimberley A. Can Literature Promote Justice?: Trauma Narrative and Social Action in Latin American Testimonio . Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2006 (paperback, ISBN 082651524X)
• Sandoval, Chela. Methodology of the Oppressed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000 (paperback, ISBN 0816627371)

External links

• brief overview of the Latin American Subaltern Studies group