(Re) writing our story(ies) from the archives in Guyana 2025

Screen shot from "Items used in research into Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture"

 

(Re) writing ..

 "How can all this work on the archives ,,, help us ?" the man asked in the discussion during the Launch activity for the digital collection of Items used in research into Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture" by Gaiutra D. Bahadur.

The launch event was held virtually on 30 July, 2025.   This discussion happened before fire destroyed archives of the Guyana Trades Union Congress on 1 August, 2025.

Dr Lisa Edwards of the Institute of Gender Studies at the University of Guyana welcomed the collection as it increased access to younger scholars who did not have access to the colonial archives in Europe and elsewehere. The Institute of Gender Studies hosted the event with the Guyana Gender Hub. 

Gaiutra Bahadur read from the book. She talked about writing with the archives and writing against the archives, and filling the gaps and silences in the archives. 

Writing against the archives since the makers of the documents in the archives were telling their own stories from the oppressor perspectives. 

Our story(ies)

In the TV series Washington Black (written by Guyana born Selwyn Seyfu Hinds after a book by Esi Edugyan), the narrator Medwin says about the main character ".. this is not his story.. this is our story.." 

And Gaiutra's writing the story about her great-grandmother Sujaria, is one story, our story of the labour of ancestors on the plantations.  

One participant was emotional when talking about finding the name of her great-grandmother who also traveled alone on the ship from India. 

(I was silent about the water coming to my eye when I first opened a ship register, not looking for 'my story' , but the story of a man from Trinidad who asked if I could check for his ancestor's certificate. 

Our story. )

And the horror when reading the notices in the newspapers about the sale of the enslaved and punishment for resistance amidst all the other notices.  

Not my story. 

Our story

And the assistant saying oh yes, some people start crying when they find their ancestors' certificate.

And in the discussion , the following other questions,  lamentations and possibilities were raised:

• What is the state of the often started but never completed online access to the Indian immigration records in Guyana's National Archives? Many participants gave tribute to the work of the staff of the National Archives, while lamenting the lack of any action from the Government to provide the resources and transparent and inclusive mechanisms to continue and complete the project.
• The importance of documents in the Guyana archives , as being from 'on the ground' compared to the summary analysis in colonial and US archives
• The bewilderment as many stakeholders with resources and the interest of expanding access to Guyana's historical records cannot seem to find ways of helping the State of Guyana to sustain 'our story'
• The importance of community archives to 'our story'.
• The possibility of using this collection and other collection in Caribbean Digital Humanities work to imagine new stories and futures.
• That the answer to the man's question about the archives helping us out of the sustained colonial legacy could lie in understanding liberatory memory work "The aim of liberatory memory work is to release societies from cycles of violence, prejudice, and hatred and instead to create vibrant and conscious societies that strive to achieve a just balance of individual and collective rights.” “Chandre Gould and Verne Harris, “Memory for Justice,”quoted in Caswell, M. (2021). Urgent Archives: Enacting Liberatory Memory Work (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003001355 " 

 "Oh shoots, was yesterday.. I missed it" the woman , descended from Indian women who survived the plantations and other forms of violence told me. 

The conversation though as her story , grounded in 2025 with access to employment and a role in public life, even as the 'domestic sphere' has echoes of the insults and expectations which trailed after our women ancestors who boarded ships to leave India. 

And another woman descended from women who worked on the plantations, consumed with guilt at not being good mother or daughter even as she has done all to the best , while contributing to public life as well. 

And in the living archive to say hey hey.. read Coolie Woman and understand why you feel this way. 

Their stories

Our stories. 

"..Archives are about the future.. "

The feedback after the session included recommendations and references.

Dr Baytoram Ramharack recommended use of the term 'Girmitiya' , originating in Fiji but now used by other descendants of indentured labourers from India in other countries. And using as 'coolie' remains a negative term in many contexts.

Dr Joanne Collins-Gonsalves shared Episode 30 of the podcast Archives and Things. This powerful discussion is about the silences in colonial archives, the removal of documents . Historian Dr Audra A. Diptee states that '..history is about the future , archives are about the future.. " .  

That the history work, like what Gaiutra Bahadur has done ,  and others are doing , could help us to imagine new and different inclusive and thriving futures rather than sustaining the colonial legacies and power structures which continue long after 'independence' and which limit so many of us.

Other references and resources shared:

• The work done by Sister Noel Menezes, including in cataloguing at the UK National Archives 
• The US State Department records of British Guiana/Guyana recommended by Dr Roberta Kilkenny 
• The Exhibition curated by Karen Budhram in Guyana in  2017
• Journey Through the Generations 
• Botanical afterlife of Indenture
• Ro(u)ted  by our stories
• The Cutlass Magazine