Can the Subaltern be heard? : A Discussion on ethical strategies for Communication in a Postcolonial World

Sammanfattning: This thesis relies on the works of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Seyla Benhabib in the field of Postcolonialism. Guided by their theoretical insights it is aiming at providing an understanding of how postcolonial structures within the International Humanitarian Aid discourse takes form and discuss strategies for communication that would be deemed justified in this context. Through a field research in Lebanon, focusing on the Lebanese Red Cross and their methods used for communication, it provides a scrutiny of the theoretical insights of Spivak and Benhabib, in order to see how plausible they are when discussing the way Global Humanitarian Organizations operate in todays’ world. In the conclusive discussion, the study exposes the importance for these organizations to let go of their essentialist way of looking at the subaltern, continuously depriving her of her subject position. In a context of asymmetrical power relations, there is a need for these organizations to ”learn to learn from below”. The people of the Western world need to unlearn Western privilege to enable themselves to relate to people and communities outside of their own paradigm and thus create presuppositions for an ethical communication.