Revisiting Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak” through the lens of affect theory

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to revisit Spivak’s seminal essay “Can the Subaltern Speak” and the perennial challenges of researchers to collect information about the Other, focusing on the recent developments in affect theory. Design/methodology/approach The paper brings into the conversation the recent work on affect and sentimentality by Lauren Berlant with Spivak’s claims in the essay concerning the representation of the subaltern by scholars and researchers. The paper draws on Berlant’s work to trouble the liberal culture of “true feeling” as well as the liberal subject implied in Spivak’s essay as a subject who is “actively speaking.” Findings Recent theoretical developments on the affect theory make an important intervention to the perennial methodological tensions about representation, ontology and epistemology – as raised by Spivak and others over the years – and inspire new ways of thinking with the tools of doing qualitative research. Originality/value Bringing into the conversation, the affect theory and Spivak’s iconic essay have important methodological implications for qualitative research.