May the subaltern speak? Researching the invisible ‘other’ in higher education

Abstract

This paper, written as a confessional tale, explores the dialectic between the perception of the researcher (‘how the multiple positions HE researchers simultaneously occupy in the field influence the framing of the research’) and the reception of the researcher (‘how the playing out of the researcher's role within the specific context – as an ‘insider’ amongst the ‘invisible other’ in a HE institution – was facilitated and constrained by the multiplicity of positions') and how this bequeathed both a multiplicity of levels of access and a complex burden of responsibility towards the data and its subsequent ab/uses. The paper reflects on a study of the changing class locations of ‘non-academic’ ‘knowledge workers’. Studying ‘the other’ requires access to what Scott describes as ‘hidden transcripts’, which take place within subaltern space. Endogenous research allows access but brings ethical, political and social challenges. Spivak claimed that the subaltern cannot speak; these study data suggest that even where the subaltern acquires the dominant discourse and learns to speak, subalternity marks their voice with ‘accent’ which precludes their being heard.