14. Keeping Wake

Figure 14.1 My family farm in Mahaicony, Demerara, Guyana. Maya Mackrandilal, Up Mahaicony, 2011, digital photography. © Maya Mackrandilal. Courtesy of the artist. CC BY-NC-ND. In the summer of 2011, I was awarded a grant to travel to Guyana, my mother’s country of birth. It was the first time I had visited since 1997 (I was twelve), and the first time I had made the trip on my own. As an American-born artist, I had been researching stories of Guyanese migration for ..

Liminal Spaces

Liminal Spaces is an intimate exploration into the migration narratives of fifteen women of Guyanese heritage. It spans diverse inter-generational perspectives – from those who leave Guyana, and those who are left – and seven seminal decades of Guyana’s history – from the 1950s to the present day – bringing the voices of women to the fore. The volume is conceived of as a visual exhibition on the page; a four-part journey navigating the contributors’ essays and artworks, allowing the reader to trace the migration path of Guyanese women from their moment of departure, to their arrival on diasporic soils, to their reunion with Guyana. Eloquent and visually stunning, Liminal Spaces unpacks the global realities of migration, challenging and disrupting dominant narratives associated with Guyana, its colonial past, and its post-colonial present as a ‘disappearing nation’. Multimodal in approach, the volume combines memoir, creative non-fiction, poetry, photography, art and curatorial essays to collectively examine the mutable no on of ‘homeland’, and grapple with ideas of place and accountability. This volume is a welcome contribution to the scholarly fi eld of international migration, transnationalism, and diaspora, both in its creative methodological approach, and in its subject area – as one of the only studies published on Guyanese diaspora. It is essential reading to those studying women and migration, and scholars and students of diaspora studies. As with all Open Book publications, this entire book is available to read for free on the publisher’s website. Printed and digital editions, together with supplementary digital material, can also be found at www.openbookpublishers.co