In Spivak's own words: " Situated within the current academic theater of cultural imperialism, with a certain carte d'entree into the elite theoretical ateliers in France, I bring news of power lines within the palace"
For understanding Spivak's role in a Spivakian way, I like the article Everybody’s Afraid of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: Reading Interviews with the Public Intellectual and Postcolonial Critic. As someone who circulates a lot in western continental philosophy-associated academia, Spivak has been the subject of numerous interviews and analyses: "This article reads Spivak through her interviews, a formidable body of work in itself, where she not only articulates strategic essentialism but performs it".