Subaltern Modernity: Kerala, the Eastern Theatre of Resistance in the Global South

Abstract

In engaging with the debate on modernity, this article constructs the notion of a ‘subaltern modernity’ as a process of epistemological – spatial/temporal/agential – coalescence constituting a transverse solidarity politics. This is empirically informed by the narratives of the livelihood-environmental resistance launched by subalterns in the Indian state of Kerala, known for its twin legacies – of communist government and social development – which have proved to be a direct challenge to the state/corporate-led developmentalism in the region. The article thus attempts to contribute to the debate on modernity more from the perspective of resisting subjects and agents, with their particular subjective experience and understandings of science and reasoning. However, their resistance generates transformative events of universal relevance and thereby global issues of epistemology. As such, the article develops a theory of knowledge that takes subaltern resistance itself as modernity.