I started this blog several years ago to develop my own understanding of subaltern studies, a system of analysis which author Ileana Rodriguez defines as the “radical critique of elite cultures, of liberal, bourgeois, and modern epistemologies and projects, and of their different propositions regarding representation of the subaltern.” Edward Said, whose seminal work, Orientalism, served as an important catalyst for the development of postcolonial theory, described subaltern studies as “intellectually insurrectionary.” In other words, this a place to write about how decisions made by powerful people and enforced by powerful institutions impact those with limited power and no voice.