Did the subaltern speak? mayhew and the coster-girl

Abstract

This essay focuses on some of Mayhew's interviews in London Labour and the London Poor, and especially his interview with one coster-girl. Do these sources express the lived experience of a speaking subject; or do they merely rehearse contemporary cultural and linguistic codes? There is no subject without language; language precedes and determines the subject, but nor is there language without subjects. Language exists only insofar as individuals and groups utilize it, reproduce it and transform it - and always within specific social relations and networks of power and in a relentlessly material world. Mayhew's writings provide a wonderful resource to explore some of these complex struggles over meaning - in a precise time and place.