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Cultural Conversation: Celebrating Global Guyana

Shaping Race, Gender & Environment in Caribbean and Beyond

Join our conversation with Oneka LaBennett, author of Global Guyana: Shaping Race, Gender, and Environment in the Caribbean and Beyond.

Dr. Oneka LaBennett is the author of Global Guyana: Shaping Race, Gender, and Environment in the Caribbean and Beyond. November 25th's Cultural Conversation will feature Dr. La Bennett discussing her most recent book, published by New York University Press (2024).

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. 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.

Dr. La Bennett is an Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity and Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Southern California. She’s the author of She’s Mad Real: Popular Culture and West Indian Girls in Brooklyn and co-editor of Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century.

The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC), Florida International University (FIU), and the African American Research Library and Cultural Center (AARLCC) have collaborated to feature a Caribbean Studies conversation series during 2024. The past featured author included Dr. Danielle Boaz, author of Voodoo: The History of a Racial Slur, a recently released book in Caribbean Studies.  The books are available in the AARLCC, Miami Dade Public Library, and Florida International University library collections.

About the African American Research Library and Cultural Center 
The Broward County African American Research Library and Cultural Center (AARLCC) is located in the Sistrunk community, one of the oldest historically Black communities named for one of Fort Lauderdale’s first Black physicians. Opening to the public on October 26, 2002, AARLCC became the third public library of its kind in the United States dedicated to the study of Black history and culture. The 60,000 square-foot Center serves as a repository of materials related to the local, national, and international voices of the African diaspora with more than 85,000 books, manuscripts, artifacts, framed art, print, photography, audiovisual, and documents held in our Adult Services Section and Special Collections. The Youth Services Section features a special collection of Coretta Scott King Award books and the Ashley Bryan Art Collection from illustrators of African Descent. AARLCC also features a 5,000 sq. ft. museum, a 300-seat state-of-the-art theatre, and a Computer Training Center.

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