That’s an independent net-benefit. The AFF is indeterminate AND defines people by their repression which is agency-denying.

In this review, I develop an outsider's point of view. Conceding that in the spe- cific context of revolt and resistance, the term has made a contribution, I dispute its usefulness in a general history of the 'below'. I propose that the very term 'subaltern', by begging in a research programme bound up with polarity, coercion, and resistance, has been limiting in the study of the underprivileged peoples in south Asia. This critique has two basic points.

(1) First, the term 'subaltern' refers to a fuzzy set of people. If they are the poor, then Subaltern Studies fails in meeting the most basic criterion for an adequate historiography of the poor, possessing a nuanced economic history. If they are the victims of domination, then they are indeterminate, for every victim was in principle also an oppressor. Search for ways out of that problem has almost always led Subaltern Studies to select and privilege some axes of domination over others, and to overlook the ambiguities characterising most relationships, between 'principals' and 'agents', or between the state and the subjects.

(2) Second, 'subalternity' begs in a world-view centred on the idea that the non-elite must be studied via a repression- resistance narrative. This grand narrative, the indoctrinating power of which is evident in the casual and trusting way the term is employed by the contributors and the editor to refer to whoever it refers to, is limiting in two ways. First, it over- simplifies the experience of the poor in south Asian societies. And second, it deepens the rift with economic history, which admits of a much greater openness in interactions.