REPRESENTATION: It is all a matter of representation. Whose voice is being heard?

Are “representatives” just the mouthpiece for the subaltern? Or are representatives (s)elected to be themselves on behalf of the subaltern?

And who/what is the subaltern?

• a group politically suppressed by outside forces?
• is it simply an imbalance of power?
• or exclusively webbed to colonialism, by definition?

Is representation inherently “dirty”? Is there an alternative?

Do we, as academics, forfeit our right to being a subaltern (despite our ethnicity, class, gender, race, religion, etc.) by appropriating Western hegemonic scholarship?

Is revolution the only way out? Is there an alternative?