While the notion of strategic essentialism is really interesting, I found it hard to apply to processes of ethnic politicization. If the essentialism is strategic, the main goals will to be found outside of the essentialized category (like women having individual benefits of the essentializing strategy of the women's movement). In the case of ethnicity, the strategic use seems to be limited to what is elsewhere called "multiculturalism", that is positive discrimination of different types. When it comes to claims for autonomy and self-determination, the essentialism loses this strategic component - and turns to an ethnic reconstruction that does not provide greater degrees of freedom to the individuals in question - or, only inside of the essentialized category.

Actually, I wrote something on this in German.

Article Strategischer Essentialismus als Wiederaneignung von Geschic...

 Spivak's theory  de facto is more misunderstood than understood. As you perhaps are aware that it refers to a strategy that ethnic and other minority groups  deploy to present themselves as assertive as possible. While strong differences could exist between and among the members of these groups, and among each other. These dynamics are of value to them even though display  temporary an essentializing dictum within, to portray its group identity even though in a minimalised project to achieve their objectives.

They even impact on other movements with similar and con current situations.  The minorities do not interact or confer among them, but there is indeed a psychological ramification among them minorities to ' group together' to assert, protect and  campaign for a cause shared within. A sense of enemy everywhere, while in fact the enemy is within. Could agree with Altmann,  but the essentailsation is  a matter, campaigned  by the majority when the minority in a given situation also attempts to essentilize the small-ness as ideolologically BIG which is politicised. Hence the debate becomes a political category which needs further clarification. However, ontologically the small-ness is real as much as the big-ness. They cannot be one and the same at the same time, hence Spivak was misunderstood because she argues like a promoter of the concept of essentialism in the enhancement of the those subaltern groups and voices. Her prime attention is on such groups within her own locality in the context of India, she politicises her home ground which as a south Asian I can relate to well. 

Mirza's question of ethnic identity formation in divided society is a FACT indeed. That is what Spivak argues through and through with her Indian experience. The ethnics ( both minorities and majorities, India is full of it, Africa's is a tribal equal)  will push forward their identity formation  processes by hook or by crook, because that is the only way to BE, and being so will give them significance and significance gives them dignity and it is dignity that bestows them IDENTITY. Politicised group identity what gives a group political power too.

For me the main problem is the notion of "strategic"  - this concept seems to imply an already existing actor, and thus already contains within it an "essentialist" notion of the subject. Thus, it is hard to imagine how the creation of an essentialist identity could be strategic, because, before the essentializing move itself, how would one know the objectives and interests around which to build a conception of strategic intent?

I used Strategic Essentialism as my theory to discuss identity formation (Indian individuals). As far as I have read, Spivak has given up on this term, because it is misunderstood. However, I find that this term has very good use in terms of being able to de-center oneself from all the essentialized perceptions. What is does is that, this term strategically de-constructs the property which is essentialized. therefore, one gets to understand and explore the real essence of the property (individual, ethnic, race, gender, groups, etc). It enables one to ignore generalized conceptions and be conscious not to categorize and reckon the flaws of labelling. So, wish you all the best and its a very good term to be used and I hope it will become popularized and people will learn of its benefits, despite Spivak who perhaps have given up on the term. 

The study of sociolinguistics can be a start. The quest for authenticity in sociolinguistics extends back to the earliest precursors of the field in dialectology and anthropology. Both of these tields were founded on the belief that the scholarly gaze must be cast back from modernity to a prior time —or at least to a place out of modern Western time — in order to make sense of the modern present. In this way, authenticity as a bond to the past emerged as a quintessentially modern concept. Such a theoretical commitment to the historical continuity of past and present surfaced in somewhat different ways in each field, but in both cases this 'desire for origins' (as Frantzen 1990 terms a similar phenomenon in the history of Old English studies) led to a concerted effort to valorize via scholarship an earlier epoch imagined as directly tied to — yet irrevocably sundered from — the present day.

Shamal,

here are the publications:

https://oda.hio.no/jspui/bitstream/10642/588/2/511697.pdf

http://sociology.sunimc.net/htmledit/uploadfile/system/20110213/20110213135536108.pdf#page=454

also , see attached