Dominacja bez hegemonii – pojęcie władzy w studiach postkolonialnych szkoły Subaltern Studies
Domination without Hegemony – the Concept of Power in Post-colonial Studies at the school of Subaltern Studies

Summary/Abstract: Subaltern Studies is a research project that has been created in the early 80’s and is still active. It was formed around the Subaltern Studies publishing series, which has up until now ten volumes. It gained worldwide recognition with the entry into the American academic world by the publication of Selected Subaltern Studies in 1988 with the preface of the then world-renown post-colonial studies theorist, Edward Saïd. The selection was made jointly by Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Guha is considered the “founding father” of the group, while Spivak is the most recognizable character whose essay Can the subordinates speak? gained the status of a canonical text. His representatives and representatives lecture in a number of world-renowned universities. In my article I analyze concept of power in Guha’s book Dominance without hegemony, recognizing it as a representative example of postcolonial theory of the Subaltern Studies project. I also present the criticism of Guha’s concept of power developed by American sociologist Vivek Chibber, according to which the thesis formulated by Guha about the “specifically Indian” road to capitalism (“domination without hegemony”), understood as an unsuccessful formation of democratic power, contrasted with this western successful road, is a typical form of power under capitalism. A typical form of democracy in capitalism is dominance based on the systematic exclusion of the working class from the power structures, this exclusion does not indicate the non-existence of the working class, but only that it is subjected to class domination.

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