What Can the Subaltern Speak About?
By Guilherme Fians (University of Brasília)
Postcolonialism has taught anthropology that the Global South is not only an assemblage of fieldsites, but also a space where knowledge is produced. Yet, while anthropologists from nonhegemonic traditions see their voices being taken more seriously in academia worldwide, this seeming openness poses another issue: What are Global South anthropologists really entitled to talk about?
Approaching the issue from a South American viewpoint, the visiting professorships held in Brazil in the 1930s by anthropologists such as Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roger Bastide helped consolidate this country among the fieldsites to be explored by French ethnographers. At present, it is widely accepted that also non-European anthropologists can study Brazil and the Global South. Yet, the reverse does not always hold true: as a Brazilian whose latest field research took place in France, I frequently came across French professors who—not always openly—encouraged me to shift my focus to my home country. After all, as one of these professors said, “there’s so much diversity in there, so many interesting peoples to be studied.” The same happened to a Japanese colleague who conducted fieldwork in the outskirts of Paris and was cordially invited by his French supervisors to choose a research subject that resonated more with his “identity.” Why should scholars from the Global South stick to doing anthropology “at home”? Are the French not “exotic” enough for anthropology? Or, instead, are Global South scholars discouraged from inverting the geographical equation involving fieldsite and knowledge-production centers?
Post-fieldwork, my professional experience at the margins of Euro-America entails being largely constrained by my positionality. In Brazil, ethnographers doing fieldwork abroad seldomly secure funding from national research foundations, since studying other countries is not exactly a priority for these foundations’ strategic plans. In a top anthropology department in the country, a Global South scholar working on the Global North becomes a matter of curiosity, perceived much in the same way anthropologists once regarded outlandish peoples. Furthermore, a Brazilian ethnographer working in a Brazilian university and whose research focuses on France is hardly seen in France as an expert in French-based ethnography. Relatedly, my Japanese colleague could not find room in Asian universities for his scholarship on Western-related populations and had to leave academia.
Much can still be unlearned, and there is ample space for hegemonic and nonhegemonic anthropological traditions to learn dialogically. The Rest should also have the right—de facto, not only de jure—to produce knowledge about the West. Yet, for now, the subaltern are expected to study the subaltern, as well as to recognize that Euro-Americans remain the universal human specimens capable of transcending their positionalities for the sake of science.
Wall covered by graffiti—showing mostly personal names and dates, but also text in Portuguese, Italian and French—in a university building on the Ilha do Fundão Campus, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Before the wall, there are eight old school chairs lined up. (Photograph by Guilherme Fians, December 2021)
BIO
Guilherme Fians is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Brasília (Brazil) and co-director of the Centre for Research and Documentation on World Language Problems (Netherlands/USA). His research interests and publications revolve around social movements, nationalism, language politics, and digital media, with a focus on France. In line with his commitment to multilingualism in academia, he has published and presented his research outcomes in English, Portuguese, French, German, and Esperanto.