ABSTRACT
Throughout this chapter I use the term ‘transnational migrant subject’, which refers quite specifically to the subject who crosses borders and occupies a subaltern position. In using the term ‘subaltern’, I borrow from the insights of postcolonial theory and the subaltern studies project that I discuss in Chapter 2, which have highlighted the fact that certain voices have been excluded from the dominant narratives and telling of history. The subaltern studies project regards hegemonic history as part of modernity’s power/knowledge complex, which in the context of colonialism was deeply implicated in the ‘general epistemic violence of imperialism’ (Otto, 1996; Spivak, 1985, p 251). It focuses on ‘listening to the small voice of history’, including peasants, women and even religious, sexual and racial minorities (Guha, 1996, pp 1-12). In the context of law, the subaltern project challenges the assumptions about universality, neutrality and objectivity on which legal concepts are based, exposing such concepts to be products of the ruptures produced in and through the colonial encounter.
