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An Exploration of Identities, Belonging, and Communities in Urban and Rural Guyana

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Women Lovin’ Women: An Exploration of Identities, Belonging, and Communities in Urban and Rural Guyana PREITY R. KUMAR A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN GENDER, FEMINIST AND WOMEN’S STUDIES YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO December, 2018 ©Preity R. Kumar, 2018 i ABSTRACT Over the last decade, there has been a surge of LGBTQ human rights movement and activism in the Caribbean region. Guyana, located in South America, and woven into the anglophone Caribbean, is not outside of these shifts and changes occurring in the broader region. Despite the vast research on non-normative sexuality in the region, little is known about the perspective and experience of Guyanese women. This dissertation concerns itself with the sexual praxis, identities, and conceptualizations of LGBTQ ‘rights’ from the perspective of women who love women (WLW) and LBGQ women in Guyana. This work has three central aims: to investigate the ways in which the intersecting factors of race, class, gender, and space operate to construct and inform women’s identity and positionality in urban Georgetown and rural Berbice; to examine the different manifestations of violence within a heteropatriarchal society; and to assess the impact of transnational LGBTQ rights on women’s understanding of same-sex marriage and citizenship. To answer these questions, this study utilizes qualitative methods, namely in-depth interviews and participant observations with thirty-three Guyanese women in urban Georgetown and rural Berbice. An analysis of the interviews yields that the women’s lives are deeply complicated by their racial, gender, class and spatial positions which, at times, reinforce and challenge our assumptions about their sexual identities, praxis, community and being ‘out and proud’ in urban and rural spaces. The interviews further reveal and depart from heteropatriarchal theorizations of violence and offer an affectual counterpoint to understanding violence. The final part of this study demonstrates the contradictions in experiences embedded within LGBTQ rights as human rights, particularly same-sex marriage and citizenship. Overall, this dissertation argues that there needs to be a sustained analysis and attentiveness to ways in which differences of race, class, sexuality, gender, and regional positionalities are embodied and shape the lives of WLW ii and LGBQ women. This study adds nuances to our understandings of who WLW and LGBQ women are in Guyana and simultaneously illuminates the structural socio-political and economic context that impact lives. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A thesis does not just happen. It is co-created with much pain, anger, frustration, love, patience, and limitations. It is an on-going process that is never quite finished. To my participants, you all have invited me into your homes and your lives, sharing intimate and personal narratives of love and violence, I hope that I have done your stories justice. On this journey, you all have momentarily taken me to a sacred place with you, where I have borne witness to your vulnerabilities, and I will hold this close to my heart. All of you have given me permission to write your stories; to make meanings; to mold and shape a narrative of queer life; and a chance to connect you and this existence to a larger history. I have attempted to write your stories with love, care, and delicateness while holding the discomfort, chaos, and ongoing struggles of each of your lives. Please forgive me for any shortcomings. I will always write with each of you in mind. Thank you for this most precious gift. To my committee members, especially my supervisor, Kamala Kempadoo, you have been instrumental in seeing this project from its inception to completion. Your knowledge, insight, and feedback made this project what it is today. Please know that you have not only been a wonderful supervisor with quick feedback and guidance on this project but your presence and leading by example are what truly inspires me. Thanks for being my biggest fan. I hope in this journey I have met your expectations. From its early stages, David Murray, you have offered me a wealth of critical feedback that shaped this project. Your insistence on academic rigor helped to push and polish this project from start to end. Thank you for always engaging not only in my work, but for always participating in my antics and jokes. I also feel most fortunate to have Amar Wahab. Your limitless belief in my capacity always leaves me feeling amazed, that I could actually do this project even on days when I did not believe in myself. You have always been my emotional supporter, checking in on my well-being, and reminding me that a queer existence is beautiful in this harsh world. I also feel most humble that I had the good fortune to grow and strive within a sustainable queer community. Some of you I have met in our classes, during our first strike and our most recent strike at York, forming close bonds in a multitude of ways. Thank you Karuna Chandrashekar, Sabina Chatterjee, Shraddha Chatterjee (baby C), Jenna Danchuk, Heather Evans, Jolin Joseph, Rahul Joseph, Youn Joung Kim, Mila Mendez, Roberta Quezada-Echegoyenm, Anna Rekviashvili, and Harshita Yalamarty. Thank you all for holding space for me, letting me vent, walk in circles with me while we drink wine, and loving in nourishing ways. I look forward to growing with each of you. To my Lotus community, Talisha Ramsaroop, and Preeia Surajbali, thank you all for allowing me to create space with you and for sustaining me in the beauty of communal work. Victoria Ho and Shamina Chherawala, thank you for the laughter. Narmin Kanani, you are my toughest critic, making sure that I push through and get my work done. You have been my steady motivator and always saw my potential, thank you for always reminding of this. To Sage Milo, we have come a long way. Thank you for always engaging with me with academically and emotionally, and still reminding me to smile through it all. Distance means nothing to us. Trina De Souza, although we met in our first year during our Ph.D., time iv feels irrelevant. You are my constant in this entire process, from our Coffee Culture days, STC meetups and random food adventures. Thank you for being making Scarborough more livable for me. Aliya Amarshi, you have made this process and life more humane. You have kept it real, offering me tough and necessary advice, even when I don't ask for it, but I expect nothing else. We have grown together and separate through the years, but I know one thing for sure, you will have wine for me, always. And finally, Suzanne Narain, without you in my corner none of this would have been possible. We have traversed many landscapes together, sometimes departing but always returning. We have gone through many fires together and continue to make life. Thank you for your love in this harsh world. Finally, to my brother, Vishal, thank you for letting me stand on your shoulders while I do this work. Your Sunday cooking, sharing of space and silence has soothed my soul. You have re- made family for us. And to my mother, thank you for your silence. v “I could not simply myself” --Agha Shahid Ali1 “Because we happen where we are not” --Karuna Chandrashekar2 1 Agha Shahid Ali is a Kashmiri poet. He earned a PhD in English from Pennsylvania State University in 1984. Among his works include Rooms Are Never Finished (20012) and The Country Without a Post Office (1997). 2 Karuna Chandrashekar is Ph.D. student in Social and Political Thought at York University, Toronto, ON. She is a poet, artist, and psychotherapist. Her work has been featured in Rising Phoenix Review, Eunoia Review, and Sea Foam Magazine. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ____________________________________________________________________ ii Acknowledgements ___________________________________________________________ iv Table of Contents ____________________________________________________________ vii List of Tables ________________________________________________________________ x INTRODUCTION ______________________________________________________________ 1 LGBTQ Studies in Euro-North America and Caribbean Sexualities _______________________________________ 4 A Note on Language __________________________________________________________________________ 11 Research Objectives __________________________________________________________________________ 14 Research Questions __________________________________________________________________________ 14 Thesis Statement ____________________________________________________________________________ 15 Theoretical Frameworks ______________________________________________________________________ 18 Sexuality, Race Class and Gender in the Caribbean and Guyana _____________________________________ 18 Violence _________________________________________________________________________________ 24 Transnational Sexual Citizenship and Rights _____________________________________________________ 29 Erotic Subjectivity _________________________________________________________________________ 33 Chapter Outlines ____________________________________________________________________________ 35 Chapter 1:CONTEXTUALIZING RACE, CLASS, GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN GUYANA _______ 38 Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Period __________________________________________________ 39 The Role of Religion _______________________________________________________________________
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