Subaltern Silence: A Postcolonial Genealogy

Winner, 2025 Charles Taylor Book Award, APSA Interpretive Methodologies and Methods Conference Group

Subordination did not simply fade away in the aftermath of colonialism. Instead, this illuminating book shows, a host of subtle new techniques have arisen that dominate vast categories of people by rendering them silent. Kevin Olson investigates how contemporary societies silence the subaltern: sometimes a literal silencing, often a metaphor for other ways of making people unheard. Such forms...