Summary
This paper is a long-form blog that is deliberately reflective, theoretically grounded, and rooted in People Street’s lived practice. I’ve written it to think with Spivak rather than simply about her, and to show how her questions actively shape how People Street designs and approaches holds community research. I draw directly on Spivak’s own questions and provocations from Can the Subaltern Speak? (1988) and explicitly connect them to design justice, outreach, power, mediation, and the ethics of representation in research.
Key findings
Spivak warns us that representation is never neutral. She distinguishes between speaking for and re-presenting, reminding us that even well-intentioned advocacy can erase the political agency of those it claims to centre. So we must ask ourselves, as researchers and designers: Who frames the research question? Who decides what is “data”? Who translates lived experience into insight, evidence, or policy recommendation? And who benefits from that translation? These are not abstract concerns. They are everyday ethical decisions embedded in research design, funding structures, timelines, and outputs. Read the full report for more....