BRINGING together three generations of scholars, thinkers and activists, the book – Indo-Caribbean Feminist Thought – is said to be the first trace of a genealogy of the specific contributions Indo-Caribbean women have made to the Caribbean feminist epistemology and knowledge production.

This was the idea brought out last Friday when Guyana’s very own Port Mourant native, Dr. Lisa Outar returned to Guyana with her Trinidadian counterpart, Dr. Gabrielle Hosein to launch the book which they both edited, at the University of Guyana. Attending the event was Vice-Chancellor and UG Principal Professor, Ivelaw Griffith who hosted the women, Chair of the Gender Equality Commission, Indra Chanderpaul, senior university staff, prominent local activists and other members of civil society.

It was stated that the work of the feminist thought encompassed, “new Caribbean studies.” “Challenging the centrality of India in considerations of the forms that Indo –Caribbean feminist thought and praxis have taken, the authors turned instead to the terrain of gender negotiations among Caribbean men and women within and across racial, class, religious and political affiliations.”

The book is also said to address the specific conditions which emerged within the region and highlights the cross-racial solidarities and the challenges to narratives of purity that have been constitutive of Indo Caribbean Feminist thought.
“This collection connects to the broader indentureship diaspora and what can be considered post-indentureship feminist thought,” the gathering was told. Through examinations and literature, activism, art, biography, scholarship and public sphere practices, the collection of thoughts highlight the complexity and richness of the Indo-Caribbean engagements with feminism and social injustice.

The Indo-Caribbean Feminist Thought is said to offer, “A unique and ground -breaking portrait of the contributions of Indo-Caribbean women to feminist epistemology; foregrounds the complexity of Indo-Caribbean feminist thought by considering gender relations through a range of disciplines including literature, activism, art and public sphere practices.
The scholars said that the book also aims to shed light on the relationship between Caribbean feminisms and those emerging across the indentureship diaspora.

Dr. Hosein has a BA in Political Science from the University of Toronto, a MPhil in Gender and Development Studies from the University of the West Indies and a PhD in Anthropology from the University College of London. She is a lecturer and Head of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies and has been in Caribbean feminist movement building for two decades, among other achievements.

Dr. Outar who is an independent scholar, said she was delighted to be back in Guyana to share the work that she had aided in producing. The scholar researches Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean literature. She has a BA from Princeton University and an MA and PhD in literature from the University of Chicago. Outar publishes in areas of Caribbean literature and feminist thoughts among others. She is an editor of the Journal of West Indian Literature.

Outar said that 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the end of indentureship. She said, “It is an appropriate time for reflection on the traumas and legacies of that system and on the complex societies that have been left in its wake and in the wake of slavery and colonialism.”