About this Event
Previously ranked among the hemisphere’s 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, LaBennett issues a warning for all of us about the looming threat of global environmental calamity.
Oneka LaBennett is joining us on the Busboys stage alongside Natalie Hopkinson, author and Associate Professor of Media, Democracy and Society at the American University, to “expose and challenge political economies of erasure, deftly sweeping into our frame and inviting us to reckon with the everyday practices upon which our current global order depends” (Alissa Trotz, University of Toronto). Copies of the book will be available for purchase during and after the event, and LaBennett will be signing following the program.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 5:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of GLOBAL GUYANA will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please note that this event is in person and will not be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books
Oneka LaBennett is Director of the Black Studies Initiative/Emerging Center, and Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity and Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Southern California. LaBennett is the author of Global Guyana: Shaping Race, Gender, and Environment in the Caribbean and Beyond (NYU Press 2024), She's Mad Real: Popular Culture and West Indian Girls in Brooklyn (NYU Press 2011), and co-editor of Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century (UC Press 2012). Her Op-Eds and public commentary on figures such as Kamala Harris, Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Nicki Minaj have appeared in platforms such as Ms. Magazine, Newsweek, The Guardian, Politico, and NBCNews.com. Elle Magazine ranked her course, “Women in Hip Hop,” among the top ten in a list of “College Classes that Give Us Hope for the Next Generation.”
Natalie Hopkinson is Associate Professor of Media, Democracy and Society at the American University. Her 2018 book, A Mouth is Always Muzzled, was a cultural history of her parents’ native Guyana. She is also the author of Go-Go Live (2012, Duke University Press) and Deconstructing Tyrone with Natalie Y. Moore (2006, Cleis Press). Hopkinson is Chief Curator of D.C.’s Go-Go Museum.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Busboys and Poets 14th & V, 2021 14th St NW, Washington, United States
USD 0.00
