Situating the Subaltern: History and Anthropology in the Subaltern Studies Project

Abstract Subaltern Studies provided a powerful and innovative revision of the historiography of colonial India through a fusion of history and anthropology. Yet sustained evaluation of their interdisciplinarity, its intellectual bases and programmatic accomplishments is something that has been largely neglected in the numerous scholarly reviews of the collective. This essay traces the shifts in Subaltern Studies’ methods, assumptions and propositions to identify the problems and possibilities of anthropological history when this mode of analysis is applied to questions of colonialism, resistance and power. The earlier volumes are discussed in detail and then, in conclusion, juxtaposed briefly with the latest trends in Subaltern Studies.