An Ordinary Landscape of Violence: Women Loving Women in Guyana tells a new history of queer women in postcolonial Guyana. While the country has experienced a rise in queer activism, especially toward human rights efforts, members of the Guyanese queer community have also been victims of extreme violence. This book asks how a hetero-patriarchal state shapes queer and "women-lovin’ women’s" experiences, and how such women navigate racialized, sexualized, and homophobic violence. With a unique focus on the lives of queer women in Guyana, it reveals their manifold experiences of violence, explores regional differences, and shows their complicated understanding of what exactly constitutes “rights” and the limitations of those rights in their lives. While activism against violence is crucial, this book addresses not only the violence against women, but theorizes the intimate partner violence between women, and demonstrates the ways that violence is both racialized and sexualized.
Introduction: Babita’s Story 1
1 Statecraft and Affective Economies 33
2 Religious Affects: Fear and Shame 57
3 Queer in Berbice: Embodying Respectability 74
4 Between Women: Jealously, Desire, and Intimate Partner Violence 93
5 Still Life: Affective Landscapes of Death and Denial 111
Conclusion: Shallow Graves 129
Appendix 137
Acknowledgments 145
Notes 149
References 157
Index 177
