From Full Negro to Dougla Girl: “All ah You in Here Is Black People!” (2024)

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

Oneka LaBennett

Published:

2024

Online ISBN:

9781479827039

Print ISBN:

9781479826995

Contents

  • < Previous chapter
  • Next chapter >

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

Oneka LaBennett

Chapter

Get access

Oneka LaBennett

Oneka LaBennett

Find on

Oxford Academic

  • Published:

    April 2024

Cite

LaBennett, Oneka, 'From Full Negro to Dougla Girl: “All ah You in Here Is Black People!”', Global Guyana: Shaping Race, Gender, and Environment in the Caribbean and Beyond (New York, NY, 2024; online edn, NYU Press Scholarship Online, 19 Sept. 2024), https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479827039.003.0005, accessed 5 Oct. 2024.

Close

Search

Close

Search

Advanced Search

Search Menu

Abstract

Chapter One uncovers the erasure of Blackness within social constructions of mixed African and Indian ancestry (categorized under the term “Dougla” in Guyana, Trinidad, and Suriname). It highlights transnational gendered racializations across the experiences of five generations of female kin, beginning with the author’s great-great-grandmother, an indentured laborer from India who had a child with an Afro-Guyanese man when such a relationship was strictly tabooed. It traces descent beginning with this remarkable union and continuing down the maternal line to offer a woman-centered account of defining family, defying sexual taboos, and claiming ethnic identifications, chronicled from the late nineteenth century to the contemporary period. By sweeping a tattered photograph of a Guyanese couple into the morning light, it deploys what the author terms autoethnographic kinship formation to unsettle the notion that Afro-and Indo-Guyanese identities have been incompatible from the start. It applies a pointer broom analytic to interracial intimacies and kinship configurations, disaggregating the muddled detritus of the political economy of erasure, and revealing how Guyanese girls and women were stereotyped as “unmarriable” and “rebellious,” whilst also being elided from the scholarship on Indo-and Afro-Caribbean identity, when they in fact have always been central to global gendered racializations.

Keywords: Indian, Black, Autoethnography, Gender, Dougla, Family, Archives, Race, Mixed Race, Transnationalism

Subject

Gender and Sexuality

You do not currently have access to this chapter.

Sign in

Get help with access

Personal account

  • Sign in with email/username & password
  • Get email alerts
  • Save searches
  • Purchase content
  • Activate your purchase/trial code
  • Add your ORCID iD

Sign in Register

Institutional access

    Sign in through your institution

    Sign in through your institution

  1. Sign in with a library card
  2. Sign in with username/password
  3. Recommend to your librarian

Institutional account management

Sign in as administrator

Get help with access

Institutional access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Sign in through your institution

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

  1. Click Sign in through your institution.
  2. Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
  3. When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
  4. Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Sign in with a library card

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

  1. Click Sign in through society site.
  2. When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
  3. Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

Personal account

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

  • View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
  • View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

Institutional account management

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Purchase

Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.

Purchasing information

Metrics

Total Views 0

0 Pageviews

0 PDF Downloads

Since 10/5/2024

Citations

Powered by Dimensions

Altmetrics

×

More from Oxford Academic

Gender and Sexuality

Social Sciences

Sociology

Books

Journals

From Full Negro to Dougla Girl: “All ah You in Here Is Black People!” (2024)
Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Arline Emard IV

Last Updated:

Views: 6005

Rating: 4.1 / 5 (52 voted)

Reviews: 83% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Arline Emard IV

Birthday: 1996-07-10

Address: 8912 Hintz Shore, West Louie, AZ 69363-0747

Phone: +13454700762376

Job: Administration Technician

Hobby: Paintball, Horseback riding, Cycling, Running, Macrame, Playing musical instruments, Soapmaking

Introduction: My name is Arline Emard IV, I am a cheerful, gorgeous, colorful, joyous, excited, super, inquisitive person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.