Tracing Colonial Violence in Women-Loving Women’s Relations: Towards a Decolonial Approach
Document Type
Book Chapter
Date of Original Version
2023
Department
Gender and Women's Studies
Abstract
Qualitative research methods and methodologies are experiential approaches that offer rich and vivid snapshots of social life amongst a group of people, as it occurs in everyday life. Employing qualitative research methods involves investigating the lived experiences of complex subject matters and subgroups that remain highly marginalized. This chapter explores how women engaging in same-sex/gender relationships self-identified and navigate(d) violence and human rights violence in the post-colonial nation of Guyana. Using in-depth interviewing and participant observation, it shows how women-loving women (WLW), and LGBTQ emerges as self-identification categories and aid in negotiating violence, geographical spaces, and communal structures. Data were collected from 33 self-identified women between the ages of 18–60 from urban Georgetown and rural Berbice about their understanding of self-identifications and perceptions of violence. The techniques of in-depth interviewing and participant observation allows us to glean how marginalization of WLW and LGBTQ subgroups navigate different discourses of violence and work towards developing specific interventions based on the needs of this vulnerable group.
Publication Title, e.g., Journal
The Routledge Companion to Applied Qualitative Research in the Caribbean
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Kumar, Preity. "Tracing Colonial Violence in Women-Loving Women’s Relations: Towards a Decolonial Approach." The Routledge Companion to Applied Qualitative Research in the Caribbean, edited by Corin Bailey, Roy McCree, Latoya Lazarus, and Natalie Dietrich Jones. Taylor & Francis, 2023, pp. 112-126. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003263043-10