Decolonial research and its limits

Abstract

The subject of "subaltern speech" has generated a great controversy within Postcolonial Studies, also influencing some referents of the decolonial option. A well-known intellectual like Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (2011) decreed the impossibility of the speech of the subordinate sectors, Edward Said has responded that the history of the liberation movements of the 20th century, demonstrate that the subordinate can speak (Said, 2010: 40- 41) and; From anthropology and sociology it is often argued that the fact that the subordinate can speak does not mean that his voice is heard and that these sectors will lose their status as subalternity. In my opinion, the confusions lie between conceiving subalternity as a relationship that produces a condition of silencing and conceiving it as individuals or groups; This last approach is ontological in nature. Both interpretations require a sociological theory of representation and not a mere linguistic distinction between the terms darstellung and vertretung. If we want to continue investigating from the decolonial option, we will necessarily have to include more political-sociological theory and less literary theory in its corpus of research (and I have no question of principles against literary theory).