Workers and ‘Subalterns’: A comparative study of labour in Africa, Asia and Latin America

[...]In part, this collection of papers derives from the impact of Subaltern Studies on approaches to the history of labour. While the contributions may not be located within ‘subalternism’, to differing degrees they reflect responses in the literature to that paradigm. At the very least, there is an effort to tell a story ‘from below’, to reassess action and to reconstruct motives using elements of the subalternism approach. Reflecting the origin of the term and its usage by Antonio Gramsci –subordination on the basis of class, caste, gender, race language and culture, subalternism has long influenced the study of colonial India. Recently, however, aspects of the approach have influenced analyses of ‘struggle’, ‘resistance’, ‘apartness’ and ‘cultural distinctness’ in writing on other areas.[...]