Global Guyana: Shaping Race, Gender, and Environment in the Caribbean and Beyond

Global Guyana exposes the global threat of environmental catastrophe and the forms of erasure that structure Caribbean women's lives in Guyana, a nation often overlooked. It highlights the shift towards oil production and its impact on the environment and the lives of women. LaBennett employs the pointer broom to disentangle the symbiotic relationship between Guyanese women's gendered labor and global racial capitalism, illuminating how oil extraction and sand export are implicated in pillaging the Caribbean's natural resources while masking the ecological consequences that disproportionately affect women and children.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 02 April 2024
Publisher: New York University Press

Global Guyana exposes the global threat of environmental catastrophe and the forms of erasure that structure Caribbean women's lives in the overlooked nation of Guyana. Previously ranked among the hemispheres poorest countries, Guyana is becoming a global leader in per capita oil production, a shift which promises to profoundly transform the nation. This sea change presents a unique opportunity to dissect both the environmental impacts of modern-world resource extraction and the obscured yet damaging ways in which intersectional race and gender formations circumscribe Caribbean women's lives. Drawing from archival research and oral history, and examining mass-mediated flashpoints across the African and Indian diasporas—including Rihanna's sonic routes, ethnic conflict reportage, HBO's Lovecraft Country, and Netflix's Indian Matchmaking—Global Guyana repositions this marginalized nation as a nexus of social and economic activity which drives popular culture and ideas about sexuality while reshaping the geopolitical and literal topography of the Caribbean region. Oneka LaBennett employs the powerful analytic of the pointer broom to disentangle the symbiotic relationship between Guyanese women's gendered labor and global racial capitalism. She illuminates how both oil extraction and sand export are implicated in a well-established practice of pillaging the Caribbean's natural resources while masking the ecological consequences that disproportionately affect women and children. Global Guyana uncovers how ecological erosion and gendered violence are entrenched in extractive industries emanating from this often-effaced but pivotal country. Sounding the alarm on the portentous repercussions that ambitious development spells out for the nation's people and its geographical terrain, Global Guyana offers a critical intervention into the ways in which the Caribbean is being transformed by the forces of globalization and the global economy. By highlighting the ways in which Caribbean women's lives are shaped by these forces, Global Guyana calls for a more just and equitable world in which all people can thrive.

Weight: 400g
Dimension: 153 x 230 x 17 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781479827015