SUBALTERN STUDIES. What does it mean when a peasant resistance movement and a religious movement are one and the same phenomenon? In the last three decades, three different themes have surfaced in the interface between the study of religion and Subaltern Studies: (1) the idea of religion as a function of the Marxist/Gramscian view of early Subaltern Studies; (2) the changing debates about religion as the Subaltern Studies project became more involved with cultural studies, postmodernism, and the postcolonial project; and (3) the approach to Subaltern Studies within the study of religion.

The Idea of Religion as a Function of the Marxist/Gramscian View of Early Subaltern Studies

Subaltern Studies began in India with an explicitly but not exclusively Marxist and Gramscian focus. It analyzes and advocates for the "bottom layer of society" by challenging capitalist logic (Spivak, 2000, p. 324); thus it has both a negative task of undoing...