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Subaltern Studies 11: Community, Gender, and Violence. Edited by PARTHA CHATTERJEE and PRADEEP JEGANATHAN. London: Hurst, 2000. viii, 347 pp. $52.25 (paper).
That Subaltern Studies needs little introduction to the readers of this journal is a testament to the success of its academic venture. As the series completes two decades of publication, it is important to locate this volume within the history of the series to see what it can tell us of the changing nature of this important intellectual project since the first volume was published in 1982. Subaltern Studies started as a group of historians led by Ranajit Guha, who shared a certain dissatisfaction with existing historiography of South Asia. Distancing themselves from nationalists, traditional Marxists, as well as the Cambridge school, Subalternists represented themselves as the iconoclasts of South Asian history. Two decades later, this volume represents some continuities but also important changes marking the project. Institutionally, from combating the mainstream, Subaltern Studies is now virtually required reading for graduate students in a variety of disciplines. As a result, wannabe iconoclasts can and do now represent Subaltern Studies as a legitimate target! Methodologically, from an initial rejection of elite histories and sources in the search for subaltern voice and agency, most leading subalternists now prefer locating fragments of subalternity within the folds of dominant discourses. Disciplinarily, from being a project manned (and I use the word advisedly) exclusively by historians, we see this volume without a single professional historian as a contributor. Demographically, the editorial collective itself has changed, and three of the...