The Romance of the Subaltern in the Twilight of Citizenship

This essay addresses the place of the subaltern in the discourse of the Global South. What are the modes and effect of our engagement with the marginalized populations of the world? Who are the subjects of global South discourse? The essay considers the Global South as a new cartography, or normative knowledge project, that emerges along the pathways of transnational capital, and reflects on its relation to the subalterns who stand at the political and affective center of this work. In particular, it queries the "romance" of the subaltern, in which ethical affiliations with subaltern subjects rescues a politically moribund, left elite. The essay argues, in line with the emphasis of Suabaltern Studies, that the figure of the subaltern is inevitably a terrain of representational maneuver in the production of elite knowledge. It advocates for a form of global South discourse that would recognize, as an effect of the neoliberal globalization in which it seems to intervene, the irreducible limits on thinking the South from within the institutions of the North and the discursive practices they sustain.