what Saidiya Hartman is doing in her work in speculative history / critical fabulation is filling in the gaps the archival record has a vested interest in keeping. she is trying to write from the perspective of the one's dismissed in official documentation. she is aiming to paint a picture of the lives of people not otherwise seen and her approach means sometimes the voice is hers, sometimes it is who she is writing about, mostly it is a seamless blend of perspectives, giving voice to those written out of history.
one can say this method is not appropriate or flawed in some way, but what one cannot do is dismiss that this is the stated method. the shifting use of vernacular gives hints about whose perspective is at the forefront. Hartman is on the side of the 'wayward' that much is clear. so, when it reads 'she was no prostitute' my reading ear hears that in the voice of Esther, and i hear it as being anti-work as well as Esther knowing she is not outside the law. because as the rest of the text makes clear, often it did not matter to social workers or police if one was or was not a prostitute, as poor Black girls were already seen that way by officialdom.
what Saidiya Hartman is…
what Saidiya Hartman is doing in her work in speculative history / critical fabulation is filling in the gaps the archival record has a vested interest in keeping. she is trying to write from the perspective of the one's dismissed in official documentation. she is aiming to paint a picture of the lives of people not otherwise seen and her approach means sometimes the voice is hers, sometimes it is who she is writing about, mostly it is a seamless blend of perspectives, giving voice to those written out of history.
one can say this method is not appropriate or flawed in some way, but what one cannot do is dismiss that this is the stated method. the shifting use of vernacular gives hints about whose perspective is at the forefront. Hartman is on the side of the 'wayward' that much is clear. so, when it reads 'she was no prostitute' my reading ear hears that in the voice of Esther, and i hear it as being anti-work as well as Esther knowing she is not outside the law. because as the rest of the text makes clear, often it did not matter to social workers or police if one was or was not a prostitute, as poor Black girls were already seen that way by officialdom.