At the Altar of Subalternity

Abstract

Examining the politics and discourses around Muslim women as the subalterns of the previous `other' order that must now speak—and must speak particular dictions, the article attempts to place the `new world order' within the `old' spectrum. Under the clamor of revitalized orientalist and occidentalist narratives, it suggests that the articulation spaces for women are shrinking, and both their suppression and their agency are being coopted as expressions of political binaries, reducing empowerment-talk to kitsch. The discursive value of invoking women's voices goes beyond political endorsement to the very structures of authoritarian order and moral principles of representation: the author argues that women are a critical signifier in the process of interpellation of people as subject to both.