Subaltern Geographies

Subaltern Geographies stands as the inaugural comprehensive exploration into the intersection of subaltern studies’ historical breakthroughs and the critical methodologies of cultural, urban, historical, and political geography. Editors Tariq Jazeel and Stephen Legg embark on an intellectual journey to scrutinize the relationship between space and spatial categorizations, posing pivotal questions about the methodological-philosophical potential that a geographically grounded engagement with the concept of subalternity offers in both historical and contemporary contexts. This edited volume seeks to unravel the implications and impact of subaltern studies scholarship on geographical thought, while navigating beyond methodological nationalism and Eurocentrism. The book’s contributors, comprising historians, geographers, urban theorists, and a social activist, present diverse studies spanning colonial India, post-colonial Tanzania, Andean Ecuador, Delhi’s recycling centres, Bolivian protest sites, the Indian Ocean, and urban fragments. The volume contends that politicointellectual skills are vital for conceiving and representing subaltern geographies. This craft involves grappling with the complexities of translation, mistranslation, and the untranslatability inherent in radically different geographical descriptions. The book further explores the challenges of retrieving notionally subaltern space from archives or through ethnographic and textual research. Lastly, it addresses the representational hurdles posed by ordinariness and everyday spatiality in contrast to conventional geographical descriptions.