ABSTRACT
Spivak begins the piece by pointing out how ‘progressive’ Western intellectuals such as Foucault and Deleuze tend to engage in gross universalizations when they speak on behalf of the Third World ‘masses’, or refer to ‘the workers’ struggle’ in a way that ignores the international division of labour (1988a: 272-4). She goes on to show how colonial and ‘native’ representations are similarly problematic. Focusing on widow-sacrifice (sati) in colonial India, she examines the British move to abolish the practice, which was justified on the basis of the British ‘civilizing mission’ in India (a move which Spivak captures in the now famous phrase: ‘White men saving brown women from brown men’) (1988a: 297). She contrasts this position with the then dominant Hindu one, which excused the practice by arguing that the widows wanted to die. Spivak indicates how each representation legitimizes the other: one purports to be a social mission, saving Hindu women from their own men, the other a reward, allowing the women to commit a ‘pure’ and ‘courageous’ act. But all the while, the widow’s own voice is ignored. ‘Between patriarchy and imperialism, subject-constitution and objectformation, the figure of the woman disappears. . . . There is no space from which the sexed subaltern can speak’ (1988a: 306-7). Spivak ends the article by pointing out that, even when the female subaltern does speak, she cannot be heard (1988a: 308). In this regard, she mentions the case of Bhuvaneswari Bhaduri, whose suicide in 1926 is interpreted as sati resulting from illicit love, in spite of her deliberately leaving signs that she committed it for other (i.e. political) reasons.
