The irony of the AFF is that no one that supposedly resides in the subaltern claims the term.

Yet, as one of the reviewers of this article pointed out, the term ‘subaltern’ has become in a certain way an abstract academic cul-de-sac, a rather elusive and rarely theorized concept in archaeological literature (see also González-Ruibal 2019b, 104–6). In fact, many analyses of the subaltern—not only in archaeology—have overlooked the heterogeneity of these groups and the existing antagonisms within them. In their homogenizing endeavour, these studies have conflated the peasant proprietor or better-off subaltern with the poor peasant (Brass 2017), or the discrimination of the Western female subject with the double effaced experiences of ‘Third World’ women (hooks et al. 2004; Mohanty 1991; Spivak 1988). In archaeology, scholars have very often conflated the subaltern with colonized and/or indigenous groups, disregarding the heterogeneity encompassed by the term (cf. Cañete Jiménez & Vives-Ferrándiz Sánchez 2011; Cuozzo & Pellegrino 2016; Dietler 2010; Ferris et al. 2014; Gnecco & Ayala 2011; Kistler & Mohr 2016; but see González-Ruibal 2019a; Liebmann & Murphy 2010; Spencer-Wood 2010). They have denied colonial violence by celebrating a peaceful cohabitation of colonist/colonized groups (cf. Antonaccio 2013; Greco & Mermati 2011; Malkin 2002; but see Delgado Hervás 2010; Zuchtriegel 2018); or they have disproportionally represented indigenous people as vanquishers of European colonial powers—see especially the case of colonial Chile (Boccara 2008; Dillehay 2007; Sauer 2015).

However, subalterns are neither (only) colonized people, nor homogeneous, quite the opposite. The subaltern is an invented concept that no-one has ever claimed. It does not refer to the identity of any known social group, nor is it an ideality shaped by political philosophers—peasant, proletariat, worker, citizen, indigenous, refugee, etc.—and asserted by historical beings for political reasons (Banerjee 2015, 39, 42–3). In fact, Gramsci stretched his notion of subalterns to a wide range of oppressed groups (1975, 2286): ‘Often, subaltern groups are originally of a different race (different religion and different culture) than the dominant groups, and they are often a mixture of different races, as it is the case of the slaves’. He also included peasants, religious groups and proletarians into the subaltern category (Gramsci 1975, 2286). In fact, Gramsci considered as subalterns all those subordinated groups whose political activity was ignored, misrepresented, or were on the margins of dominant discourses (Green 2013), similar to the SSG in India (Arnold 1984; Chaturvedi 2000; Guha 1988a, 35).