Stories the mangroves hold: reflections on Indo-Caribbean feminist community archiving

doi:10.13169/jofstudindentleg.1.1.0063

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Journal for the Study of Indentureship and its Legacies is published by Pluto Journals, an Open Access publisher. This means that everyone has free and unlimited access to the full-text of all articles from our international collection of social science journals. Furthermore Pluto Journals authors don’t pay article processing charges (APCs).

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Journal of Indentureship and its Legacies

Volume 1, Issue 1

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Stories the mangroves hold: reflections on Indo-Caribbean feminist community archiving

research-article

Author(s): Ro(u)ted by Our Stories Collective

Publication date (Print): 1 September 2021

Journal: Journal of Indentureship and its Legacies

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: Indo-Caribbean archive, Indo-Caribbean feminism, oral history Indo-Caribbean, intergenerational silence, domestic violence Indo-Caribbean

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Abstract

This article invites the reader into conversation about silenced stories, intergenerational connection and what it means to reimagine Indo-Caribbean feminist histories. The authors of this article are coauthors of a digital archive, Ro(u)ted by Our Stories, which centres the stories of Indo-Caribbean women and those of marginalised genders in the US across generations. In this piece, we draw from historical material, our lived experiences as descendants of indenture, and a recorded conversation we had between members of our collective about our experiences working to create a community-owned digital archive. We share our visions for creating the archive and questions we have grappled with throughout the process, including our own limitations and reflections on archives as always unfinished and incomplete. Furthermore, we discuss the ways in which we see storytelling as a healing practice, our efforts to remain grounded in the needs and desires of community members and our hopes for the future of the archive. By including multiple voices in this piece, we hope to lift up the collaboration, interdependence and ‘weaving together’ of stories that informs the lens we bring to this work.

Content

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.2307/j50022885

Journal ID (jcode): jofstudindentleg

Title: Journal of Indentureship and its Legacies

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN: 2634-1999

ISSN: 2634-2006

Publication date (Print): 1 September 2021

Volume: 1

Issue: 1 ( doiID: 10.13169/jofstudindentleg.1.issue-1 )

Pages: 63-83

Affiliations

Ro(u)ted by Our Stories Collective is a US-based collective of eight women and gender-expansive people

Article

Publisher ID: jofstudindentleg.1.1.0063

DOI: 10.13169/jofstudindentleg.1.1.0063

SO-VID: 3bfc80a2-723e-42c5-8198-c67ea6fdbea2

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All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

History

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lang eng

ScienceOpen disciplines: Literary studies,Arts,Social & Behavioral Sciences,History

Keywords: intergenerational silence,Indo-Caribbean archive,domestic violence Indo-Caribbean,oral history Indo-Caribbean,Indo-Caribbean feminism

References

Agrawal, Anuja. 1997. ‘Gendered Bodies: The Case of the Third Gender in India’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 31(2): 273–97.
Bahadur, Gaiutra. 2013. Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Das, Mahadai. 1988. Bones (Leeds: Peepal Tree Press).
Field, Sean. 2008. ‘Imagining Communities: Memory, Loss, and Resilience in Post-Apartheid Cape Town’ in Linda Shopes and Paul Hamilton (eds), Oral History and Public Memories (Philadelphia: Temple University Press).
Gilroy, Paul. 1993. The Black Atlantic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Khan, Aliyah. 2016. ‘Voyages across Indenture: From Ship Sister to Mannish Woman’, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 22(2): 249.
Mahabir, Joy Allison Indira. 2006. Jouvert (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse).
Mehta, Brinda. 2006. ‘Engendering History: A Poetics of the Kala Pani in Ramabai Espinet's The Swinging Bridge’, Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 10(3): 19.
Pirbhai, Miriam. 2010. ‘The Jahaji-Bhain Principle: A Critical Survey of the Indo-Caribbean Women's Novel, 1990–2009‘, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 45(1): 37–56.
Sheffield, Rebecca. 2017. ‘Community Archives’ in Heather MacNeil and Terry Eastwood (eds), Currents of Archival Thinking (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO).
Shepherd, Verene A. 2002. ‘Constructing Visibility: Indian Women in the Jamaican Segment of the Indian Diaspora’ in Patricia Mohammed (ed.), Gendered Realities: Essays in Caribbean Feminist Thought (St Augustine: University of the West Indies Press), 107–28.
Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. 2014. ‘Unbecoming Claims: Pedagogies of Refusal in Qualitative Research’, Qualitative Inquiry, 20(6): 811–18.

Comments

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[1] Agrawal, Anuja. 1997. ‘Gendered Bodies: The Case of the Third Gender in India’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 31(2): 273–97.

[2] Bahadur, Gaiutra. 2013. Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

[3] Das, Mahadai. 1988. Bones (Leeds: Peepal Tree Press).

[4] Field, Sean. 2008. ‘Imagining Communities: Memory, Loss, and Resilience in Post-Apartheid Cape Town’ in Linda Shopes and Paul Hamilton (eds), Oral History and Public Memories (Philadelphia: Temple University Press).

[5] Gilroy, Paul. 1993. The Black Atlantic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

[6] Khan, Aliyah. 2016. ‘Voyages across Indenture: From Ship Sister to Mannish Woman’, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 22(2): 249.

[7] Mahabir, Joy Allison Indira. 2006. Jouvert (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse).

[8] Mehta, Brinda. 2006. ‘Engendering History: A Poetics of the Kala Pani in Ramabai Espinet's The Swinging Bridge’, Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 10(3): 19.

[9] Pirbhai, Miriam. 2010. ‘The Jahaji-Bhain Principle: A Critical Survey of the Indo-Caribbean Women's Novel, 1990–2009‘, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 45(1): 37–56.

[10] Sheffield, Rebecca. 2017. ‘Community Archives’ in Heather MacNeil and Terry Eastwood (eds), Currents of Archival Thinking (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO).

[11] Shepherd, Verene A. 2002. ‘Constructing Visibility: Indian Women in the Jamaican Segment of the Indian Diaspora’ in Patricia Mohammed (ed.), Gendered Realities: Essays in Caribbean Feminist Thought (St Augustine: University of the West Indies Press), 107–28.

[12] Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. 2014. ‘Unbecoming Claims: Pedagogies of Refusal in Qualitative Research’, Qualitative Inquiry, 20(6): 811–18.