Just Accepted

Vol. 17,  iss. 38,  May-August, 2026

Subaltern Autobiography: Tensions, Limits, and Possibilities of Expression in Contemporary Practice

Sara R. Gallardo, Universität Wien, Austria

In this article, I examine, from a theoretical perspective, the access of subaltern subjects to a place of enunciation (Ribeiro) through contemporary autobiographical narration. This enables a partial overcoming of their condition of being spoken for, while simultaneously serving as a representation of the collective to which they belong. Both dimensions of representation (Darstellung and Vertretung, in Spivak’s terms) function as both tools and limits of the sayable: on the one hand, they challenge testimonial injustice by granting access to the literary field as authors; on the other, they expose tensions with hermeneutical injustice (Fricker), as legibility—even when resisting normative discourses— is never guaranteed. Subaltern autobiography, understood as a practice of identity, thus emerges as a form of self-affirmation and collective mediation, even when it inevitably involves substituting for the integral witness (Agamben) who remains absent in any act of representation.

Keywords: autobiography, contemporary literature, subalternity, authorship, place of enunciation, identity, Spivak, Ribeiro

Survive, Write, Persuade: Adversity as Rhetoric in Pizarro, Orellana, and Carvajal

Eric Salazar, Universidad de Talca, Chile

The article examines adversity as a rhetorical capital in the writings of Gonzalo Pizarro, Francisco de Orellana, and Gaspar de Carvajal concerning the search for cinnamon (1541), the Amazonian navigation and its aftermath (1542). Drawing on an analysis that combines Aristotelian rhetoric with colonial studies, it demonstrates how deprivation, in its broadest sense, was transformed into a tool for royal favor, defense, and divine intercession. The corpus consists of the letters of Pizarro and Orellana, together with Fray Gaspar de Carvajal’s Relación, the only extant account written by a member of these expeditions. The juxtaposition of these narratives generates a dissonant archive that both opposes and complements itself within a single discursive operation. This displacement reveals a different facet of the same event, an inverted colonial epic.

Keywords: Gonzalo Pizarro, Francisco de Orellana, Gaspar de Carvajal, adversity, rhetoric, cinnamon, navigation, Amazonia