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History vocabulary · Historiography and Historical Thinking

Subaltern studies

Meaning in history, with examples

nounAdvanced term

In history, subaltern studies means: A historiographical approach examining subordinated groups and questioning histories organized primarily around elites.

In Turkish: madun çalışmaları

How it is used

Associated especially with South Asian historiography; attend to representation as well as social position.

Example sentences

  1. Subaltern studies prompted a rereading of the colonial report on rural protest.

    An elite record is examined for what it obscures about subordinated actors.

  2. The seminar used subaltern studies to question who speaks in nationalist histories.

    The question concerns representation within historical narratives.

Common collocations

  • subaltern studies scholarship
  • a subaltern studies perspective
  • colonialismThe policy or practice of a state taking control of other territories and peoples, settling or ruling them, and using their land and resources for its own benefit.
  • historiographyThe writing of history, and especially the study of how historians have written about a subject over time, which sources they used and how their views changed.

More terms: Historiography and Historical Thinking

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