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In this thesis I use a case study of Indo Guyanese in Barbados to explore the diverse ways the community experiences differing forms of (un)belonging, inclusion and exclusion through the varied moments of their migration. The ethnographic information was obtained over my nine-month fieldwork in Barbados, from June 2015 – March 2016, and draws substantially on time spent with twenty-eight Indo Guyanese participants of whom fifteen were men and thirteen were women. The work was undertaken in English and Guyanese Creole, and I was involved in participatory activities such as food preparation and retailing as well as socialising in public sites and attending community events. The mandir (Hindu temple) was a key site in the ethnography, as the majority of key informants practiced Hinduism, although a smaller number of participants practiced Islam. During the fieldwork, I conducted fifteen semi-structured interviews with key Bajan contributors, as well as a range of interviews with bureaucratic, academic, and civil society stakeholders. I identify as a member of the US-based Indo Guyanese diaspora; hence this research additionally addresses the complexities of being an inbetweener within the community being researched.

This thesis explores the complex interactions between nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender, and migration in a region where claims of belonging are often racialized and always fraught. This research analyses the way Afro Bajan participants perceive Indo Guyanese, and likewise how Indo Guyanese perceive themselves, in terms of ideas of legal/social undesirability, ethnic and religious difference, and gendered notions of care, love and responsibility. The combined effect is characterised by an emotion of unbelonging.

This paper contributes to debates about emotion and migration. My ethnographic data revealed that emotional experiences are central to the everyday life of migrants and deserve greater discussion and analysis in academic work. These findings illustrate how migrants continuously (re)shape their ethnic, religious, and gendered identities in response to emotional demands. Emotions are part of the constant (re)negotiation of migrants’ legal status. Recognition, belonging and acceptance are central to migrants’ expressed desires in their own stories and can bring happiness and pride. In contrast embarrassment, shame, disappointment, and guilt are associated with the failure to achieve these ambitions. My findings illustrate that foregrounding emotions can generate new insights about familiar issues in migration studies

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i               EMOTIONAL (UN)BELONGING IN MIGRANT LIFE: UNPACKING THE INDO GUYANESE MIGRANT EXPERIENCE IN BARBADOS             TATIANNA RODRIGUES UCL A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF PHD DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY   ii                          I, Tatianna Rodrigues, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis.  iii      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS  I would not have been able to complete this endeavour without the guidance and support of my primary supervisor, Ben Page. I am grateful for his continuous encouragement, endless understanding, and constant positivity, which has been instrumental to the development and completion of this project. I am thankful to my secondary supervisor, Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, for her extensive notes and feedback on earlier drafts of the thesis. I am appreciative of my examiners Mette Berg and David Howard who have taken their time to assess the thesis and provide their reviews. My fieldwork in Barbados was fruitful due to the benevolence of others. I am appreciative to the academic, research, and administrative teams who welcomed me, provided me with boundless resources, archives, and facilitated my time at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) Cave Hill campus, the Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC), Fresh Milk Studios, and the Barbados Hindu Society.  I am forever indebted to my participants for their openness, generosity, and warmth. They allowed me into the most personal and intimate aspects of their lives, and I only hope that my research reflects the respect and admiration I have for them and their stories. To my family and loved ones who have always encouraged me from beginning to end, through highs and lows, words cannot express my gratitude. We share this achievement.   In life, only one thing is certain, and I would be remiss to exclude the contributions of those who have passed on before the completion of the research:  Dane Rampersad – Head Pūjari of Sri Kali Amman Kovel (Arouca, Trinidad) and his extensive insight into suicide and the Hindu Caribbean community.  Roosevelt King – Secretary General of Barbados Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (BANGO) and his knowledge of the CARICOM migrant community in Barbados. iv      ABSTRACT  In this thesis I use a case study of Indo Guyanese in Barbados to explore the diverse ways the community experiences differing forms of (un)belonging, inclusion and exclusion through the varied moments of their migration. The ethnographic information was obtained over my nine-month fieldwork in Barbados, from June 2015 – March 2016, and draws substantially on time spent with twenty-eight Indo Guyanese participants of whom fifteen were men and thirteen were women. The work was undertaken in English and Guyanese Creole, and I was involved in participatory activities such as food preparation and retailing as well as socialising in public sites and attending community events. The mandir (Hindu temple) was a key site in the ethnography, as the majority of key informants practiced Hinduism, although a smaller number of participants practiced Islam. During the fieldwork, I conducted fifteen semi-structured interviews with key Bajan contributors, as well as a range of interviews with bureaucratic, academic, and civil society stakeholders. I identify as a member of the US-based Indo Guyanese diaspora; hence this research additionally addresses the complexities of being an inbetweener within the community being researched.   This thesis explores the complex interactions between nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender, and migration in a region where claims of belonging are often racialized and always fraught. This research analyses the way Afro Bajan participants perceive Indo Guyanese, and likewise how Indo Guyanese perceive themselves, in terms of ideas of legal/social undesirability, ethnic and religious difference, and gendered notions of care, love and responsibility. The combined effect is characterised by an emotion of unbelonging.   This paper contributes to debates about emotion and migration. My ethnographic data revealed that emotional experiences are central to the everyday life of migrants and deserve greater discussion and analysis in academic work. These findings illustrate how migrants continuously (re)shape their ethnic, religious, and gendered identities in response to emotional demands. Emotions are part of the constant (re)negotiation of migrants’ legal status. Recognition, belonging and acceptance are central to migrants’ expressed desires in their own stories and can bring happiness and pride. In contrast embarrassment, shame, disappointment, and guilt are associated with the failure to achieve these ambitions. My findings illustrate that foregrounding emotions can generate new insights about familiar issues in migration studies. v      IMPACT STATEMENT  Beyond the contribution to academia, the thesis has potentially political and social impacts particular to the Caribbean region. CARICOM leadership can use the information to consider the impacts of regional policy on regional migration and integration. Likewise, Barbadian leadership can consider impacts of domestic policy on migrant experience on the island. The information in the thesis can spark a conversation between civil society, migrant communities and government in Barbados and provide an outline for appropriate forms of engagement with the Guyanese migrant community. Additionally, the material and analysis in this research can further the discussion on causes, prevention, and intervention of Guyanese suicide.  vi      ACRONYMS & ABBREVIATIONS  BARBADOS LABOUR PARTY       BLP CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY & COMMON MARKET     CARICOM CARIBBEAN COURT OF JUSTICE      CCJ CARIBBEAN POLICY DEVELOPMENT CENTRE     CPDC CARIBBEAN VOCATIONAL QUALIFICATION     CVQ CARICOM SINGLE MARKET & ECONOMY     CSME DEMOCRATIC LABOUR PARTY       DLP EUROPEAN UNION        EU FREE MOVEMENT POLICY       FMP GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT       GDP GUYANESE ASSOCIATION IN BARBADOS, INC.     GABI HEADS OF GOVERNMENT        HOG [CARICOM] HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX      HDI INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND      IMF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION    IOM INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE      IPV MEMBER NATIONALS        MN MEMBER STATES        MS MEMBERS OF CARICOM                                   COMMUNITY NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATION     NGO ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES         OAS ORGANIZATION FOR ECONOMIC COOPERATION & DEVELOPMENT  OECD ORGANIZATION OF EASTERN CARIBBEAN STATES    OECS PEOPLE’S NATIONAL CONGRESS      PNC PEOPLE’S PROGRESSIVE PARTY      PPP  REGIONAL INTEGRATION           RI SIR ARTHUR LEWIS INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES  SALISES SKILLS CERTIFICATE HOLDERS        CERTIFICATE[HOLDERS]  UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES          UWI   vii      TABLE OF CONTENTS  ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………...iv IMPACT STATEMENT……………………………………………………………………v ACRONYMS & ABBREVIATIONS………………………………………………………...vi  CHAPTER 1           INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………...1 BACKGROUND TO THE CASE STUDY……………..…………………………...…3 BARBADOS MIGRATION POLICY 2008-2018 & DURING THE ETHNOGRAPHY...…6 AIM, RESEARCH QUESTIONS, & OBJECTIVES………………………………. …..8 KEY CONCEPTS IN THESIS………………………………………………...…...11 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………….19  CHAPTER 2 MIGRATION HISTORIES…………………………………………………………….….20 PART I………….…….…………………………………………………………….….21 BARBADOS MIGRATION HISTORY IN BRIEF………………………...………….21 BARBADOS MIGRATION UNDER THE CSME………………………...…………25 GUYANESE IN BARBADOS……………………………………………………...28 PART II…………………………………………………………………………….…..36 UNPACKING THE INDO GUYANESE EXPERIENCE…………………………...….36 CREOLIZATION………………………………………………………………..37 CREOLIZING THE INDO GUYANESE EXPERIENCE………………………….......39 DOUGLA IDENTITY……………………………………………………………45 THE AUTHENTIC INDIAN………………………………………….…………...47 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………….49  CHAPTER 3 EXISTING RESEARCH ON BELONGING AND EMOTION IN MIGRATION STUDIES……….51  EMOTIONAL GEOGRAPHIES…………………………………………….….….51  BELONGING.…………………………………………………………………..54  EMOTION AND (UN)BELONGING IN MIGRATION RESEARCH………………......57 CONCLUSION CONNECTING THE EXISTING LITERATURE TO THE RESEARCH…………….…...60  viii      CHAPTER 4 METHODOLOGY & METHODS…………………………………………………………66 METHODOLOGICAL FRAME……………………………………………………66 ETHNOGRAPHY & THE ETHNOGRAPHER………………………………………68 METHODS TO CAPTURE AND UNEARTH EMOTIONS…………………………....69 DESCRIPTION OF RESEARCH PROCEDURES…………………………………………….70 CASE STUDY LOCATION……………………………………....…………….….70 PROCESS & METHODS…………………………………………………………71 RECRUITMENT ………………………………………………………………...74 REFLECTIONS FROM THE FIELD………………………………………...……….…….75 POSITIONALITY AS ‘INBETWEENER’ ……………………………………….…...75 GAFFING & LIMING IN THE ANGLOPHONE CARIBBEAN………………….……77 GAFFING DURING A LIME AT OISTINS FISH FRY……………………….….…....79 ETHICS……………………………………………………………….………..80 TRUST, AUTHORITY, & TRUTH………………………………………………....83 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………….87  CHAPTER 5 GUYANESE UNDESIRABILITY……………………………………………………….….88 CONSTRUCTING GUYANESE UNDESIRABILITY…………………………………89 CREATING ‘SCENES OF EXCLUSION’……………………………………………97 THE GUYANA BENCH………………………………………………………….97 RAIDS………………………………………………………………………...102 VIGNETTE: SONYA…………………………………………………………...102 LIMITING MIGRANTS’ ABILITY TO DESERVE…………………………………...106 NEGOTIATING (IN)VISIBILITY…………………………….………………….115 PRONOUNCED VISIBILITY…………………………………………………….115 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………....125  CHAPTER 6 INDO GUYANESE CREOLE BELONGING………………………………………….…...127 VIGNETTE: STEPHANIE…………………………………………………….....129 ETHNIC BOUNDARY CONSTRUCTION………………………………………………....138 WHO IS CREOLE & WHO IS INDIAN?...........................................................................140 THE ‘AUTHENTIC INDIAN’……………………………………………………143 BECOMING DOUGLA…………………………………….…………………...146 CONCLUSION…………………………...…………………………………………….156 ix      CHAPTER 7 RELIGIOUS PRACTICE ……………………………………………….………….…….159 REVISITING (UN)BELONGING AND AUTHENTICITY ………………………….………164  IN CONVERSATION WITH KAREEM………………….…………….…….…….164 VISIBILITY AND EMBODYING A FOREIGN RELIGION…………….……………….……168  IN CONVERSATION WITH JOYCE…………………….…………………….….168  THE VISIBILITY OF PHAGWAH………………………………………………...173 OPEN-BOOK/READINGS AND OBEAH………………….…………………….………176  IN CONVERSATION WITH BUDDY……………………………………….…….176 BEREAVEMENT, FAMILY, AND RESPONSIBILITY…………...…………………….…….185  VIGNETTE: KAPOOR………………………………...……….……………….185 CONCLUSION…………………….………………………………….…………….….193  CHAPTER 8 INDO GUYANESE MIGRANT MASCULINITIES…………………………………………196  GENDERED MIGRATION……………………………………………………..197 EXPECTATION AND RESPONSIBILITY…………………………………………………200 ‘I IS DEH MAN’……………………………………………………………….200      HOW INDO GUYANESE MIGRANT MEN CARE………………………….…………….205   AS A FATHER………………………………………………………………....206 ‘VULNERABILITY OF THE PATRIARCHY’……………………………………………….209   VIOLENCE IN THE INDO GUYANESE MIGRANT COMMUNITY…………………209 ALCOHOL RELATED DOMESTIC VIOLENCE…………………………………..209 VIGNETTE: TULSI…………………………………………………………….215 SUICIDE……………………………………………………………….….…..218 (RE)NEGOTIATING GENDER RELATIONS AND GENDER ROLES……………………....228 POLITICS OF LIMING IN A RUM SHOP…………………………………….…...228 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………...…….235  CHAPTER 9 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………....237  KEY POINTS……………………………………………………………….…237  RETURNING TO THE LITERATURE…………………………………………….243  EMOTIONAL GEOGRAPHIES……………………………………………….…246  EMOTIONAL RESEARCH WITH GUYANESE PARTICIPANTS…………………….247 x      EPILOGUE WHAT NEXT FOR MIGRATION IN CARICOM?..........................................................248   APPENDICES BIOGRAPHICAL METADATA OF PARTICIPANTS…………………………..…….251    REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………….257  1      CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION   Movement is the thread that entwines the different strands of Caribbean people together. Due to the frequency and dynamism of migration in the region, Stuart Philpott (1968) has argued that a ‘culture of migration’ has developed in the Caribbean, becoming an inseparable attribute of Caribbean identity. This has been furthered in the works of Hall (1990; 2003), Plaza (2004; 2008), and Thomas-Hope (1998; 2009), to name a few. Migration shapes the experience of being Indo Guyanese in Barbados, while simultaneously shaping the cultural landscape of the Anglophone Caribbean. Understanding the nature of ‘what it means to be Indo Guyanese in Barbados’ requires us to attend to the emotions and experiences articulated in stories of migration.   The narratives of Indo Guyanese participants gathered during the ethnography will be presented throughout this thesis. Through these stories, these participants express the ripple effects of their movement, and how their individual decisions – often seeped with familial responsibilities and obligations – impact not only themselves, but those around them. Through fieldwork conducted in Barbados over a nine-month period, from June 2015 to March 2016, this research unpacks how Indo Guyanese make meaning and how they negotiate self and place through their migratory experiences. The contemporary flow of Indo Guyanese in Barbados speaks to the enduring yet dynamic nature of this specific culture of migration, while bringing attention to the varying experiences within a regional geography of movement. This thesis thus contributes to debates about emotion, belonging and identity in the broad fields of migration studies, social geography, and Caribbean studies.  This chapter is split into four sections. The first two sections present critical background information into the case study. This contextual knowledge is necessary to present the aim and research questions in the latter half of the chapter. The first section introduces the treaty that dictates regional movement into and out of Barbados, Article 45 of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. The details of the two categories of movement allowed under this policy (the movement of skills and the facilitation of travel) are specified in this section. I focus on facilitation of travel, or ‘hassle-free’ travel (as popularly referred to by individuals and across media and government), as this aspect of the agreed treaty has caused the most dispute in its application in national law in Barbados. Barbados migration policy from 2      2008-2018 takes the focus of the second section of this chapter. During this decade, the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) came into leadership and maintained political control in Barbados. Their campaign focused on securitizing the border, by curbing the undocumented population on the island, particularly of Guyanese. The fieldwork for this research was also conducted during this period (2015-2016). These two sections provide the details of regional and national laws which are referenced throughout this thesis. The DLP enacted restrictive domestic migration policies in response to the regional treaties which facilitate movement in the region. This has sparked tension between Guyanese nationals and leaders of regional states, towards the DLP-led government of Barbados.     Section three of this chapter presents the research aim, questions and research objectives. As this section contextualises (and the empirical evidence will present), there is contention between regional policy and national law, between migrant community and host community. In this section, I present that the goal of this research is to conduct an ethnography of the Indo Guyanese community in Barbados to explore the dynamics of migrant belonging in order to contribute to the debate about the varying ways emotion contributes to migration studies. The final section of this chapter provides an overview of the key message of the thesis; the changing and diverse experiences of Indo Guyanese migrants in Barbados are productively analysed by linking two conceptual frameworks: emotional geographies and belonging/exclusion. I argue that these are effectively explored through experiences of: desirability, creole belonging, religion and gender.              3      BACKGROUND TO THE CASE STUDY  Map 1.1. CARICOM Member States: The Bahamas, Belize, Jamaica, Haiti, St. Kitts & Nevis, Antigua & Barbuda, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, and Suriname.  Source: Drawing Office, Department of Geography, University College London  (2021)   Before addressing the aim and questions of the research it is critical to first contextualise how contemporary movement in Barbados has evolved under the regional integration movement The Caribbean Community, or CARICOM. This background information explores the political underpinnings of free movement and hassle-free movement in CARICOM and Barbados, providing insight into the foundation of the fieldwork and 4      research. This section is necessary in understanding the overlap between regional policy channels which on one hand offers allowances to facilitate movement into the island, and domestic law which simultaneously allows those who use the system to be policed, detained, and deported by authorities.  Regional movement in and out of Barbados is governed by treaties agreed upon by CARICOM. Since its inception in 1973, CARICOM has since solidified the commitment of its fifteen member states to support regional integration through the Treaty of Chaguaramas (CARICOM Secretariat, 1973). Of note, all nations of the Anglophone Caribbean are CARICOM members. Long before policy was enacted in 2006 to create a means of travel within CARICOM, the leaders of the member states (or, Heads of Government) recognised the right of nationals to move freely between their states. They referred to it as a ‘human right’ back in 1989, in Article II of the Grande Anse Declaration. In 2001, a framework to enable movement was formalised into policy under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and the establishment of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) (Lee Sam, 2012:1). Taking effect in 2006, this expanded free movement of nationals of all member states under two categories: 1) the movement of skills and 2) facilitation of travel (Anderson, 2013; Robinson, 2020).    At the time of the fieldwork (June 2015- March 2016), the category of ‘skilled’ movement encompassed ten professional groupings of wage earners1, including those who graduated with a Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) (Anderson, 2013; Robinson, 2020). The benefit of free skilled movement is that it removes the need for work visas and permits. A candidate applies for a Skills Certificate in either the desired host country or country of origin, which allows them unlimited entry to any member state and equal employment and property opportunities as host nationals (Lewis, 2020; Robinson, 2020a). During the fieldwork, as stated under the Revised Treaty, nationals applying for Certificates within the host country were to be granted indefinite stay, while nationals with Certificates issued outside of the host state had a six-month entry period, both with immediate right to work. Since 2019, however, Heads of Government declared that Certificates issued in one country must be recognised by all, eliminating the need to issue a new certificate in the host state. They additionally expanded their definition of skills to encompass a wider array  1 Graduates of any recognised university (including Associate’s degrees), musicians, artistes, sportspersons, media workers, nurses, teachers, trained domestic workers, caregivers for infants and elderly, and artisans of a skilled trade (including carpentry, electrical, metal and machinery workers, etc.). 5      of trades (including agricultural workers, cosmetologists, barbers, and security guards) (Lewis, 2020).  The second category of movement, the facilitation of travel, recognises the right of nationals of all member states (or, member nationals) to move ‘hassle-free’ between states, as outlined in the Revised Treaty (Anderson, 2013; Robinson, 2020). ‘Hassle-free’ movement was defined as ‘into and within the jurisdiction of any Member State without harassment or the imposition of impediment’ and includes granting automatic entry for six months (Article 45, Revised Treaty). In 2006, in order to achieve hassle-free travel, implementation of a CARICOM passport, along with the use of common embarkation/ disembarkation cards, and use of the same immigration lines for CARICOM nationals across ports of entry was introduced throughout the member states.   Despite the attempt towards free movement, however, the aspiration of hassle-free travel remains rife with problems. Nationals have reported refusal of entry at border crossings, followed by repatriation, conditional visas issued at ports of entry, and ill treatment by immigration guards (Stabroek News, 2009b; Kaieteur News, 2016). The issue of discrimination has regularly been brought to the attention of Heads of Government, specifically with stated concerns from the leadership of Guyana and Jamaica alleging prejudice from the governments of Barbados and Trinidad against their citizens (Stabroek News 2009a, 2009c; Lewis, 2020:56).   In 2011, the Barbadian government was sued by Jamaican national, Shanique Myrie. Myrie claimed Bajan immigration officers violated her rights as a Caribbean Community citizen, by denying her entry to the island. Suspected of trafficking drugs by immigration officials, Myrie was detained at Barbados’ Grantley Adams International Airport. According to Myrie’s account, she was subjected to hours of questioning, repeatedly insulted and berated, forced into a non-consensual cavity search, kept overnight in an airport detention facility, and subsequently sent on a return flight to Jamaica (Anderson, 2013). Myrie argued that her denial of entry was in violation of the ‘hassle-free’ and ‘right of free entry’ aspects of the Treaty of Chaguaramas (Article 45, Revised Treaty). Instead of an automatic six-month entry to the island granted to CARICOM nationals, she argues she was baselessly discriminated against based on her nationality.   6      In October 2013, the highest regional court of authority under CARICOM, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), ruled in Ms. Myrie’s favour (see [CCJ 3 (OJ)] (2013) Myrie v Barbados). In this landmark case, the CCJ, working within the framework of the CARICOM judiciary, stated that CARICOM nationals could only be denied entry to other member states if they were deemed ‘undesirable’ by the host nation ([CCJ 3 (OJ)] (2013) Myrie v Barbados:3-4). According to the CCJ, by this definition, an undesirable national either poses a security threat to state security, public morals, public security and health, or poses a strain on public funds (CARICOM Secretariat, 2017:12). These considerations of undesirability set forth by the CCJ, are to be ‘interpreted strictly and narrowly’ (Haynes, 2016). Myrie’s case gained considerable attention, with an outcome widely considered a win for CARICOM nationals. However, has the ruling changed attitudes and perceptions directed towards CARICOM nationals in Barbados? In particular, has it changed perceptions of Guyanese on the island?   BARBADOS MIGRATION POLICY 2008-2018 & DURING THE ETHNOGRAPHY  Guyanese account for the largest group with documented and undocumented status believed to be residing in Barbados, with estimates running between 20,000 and 30,000 people (IOM, 2017; UNDP, 2022). In January 2008, the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) was voted into office in Barbados, under the leadership of David Thompson. Thompson’s campaign platform took a hardline stance on the regulation of regional migration with a focus on the alleged criminality of irregular migrants (Brathwaite, 2014). The Thompson administration sensationalized estimates regarding the Guyanese community, and without providing statistics, reported to the public that it was believed half of the entire Guyanese community on the island was undocumented (UNDP, 2022:7). Undoubtedly, this encouraged Bajans to believe Guyanese on the island were largely in breach of Bajan law, influencing their attitudes and behaviours towards the Guyanese community.   Once elected, Thompson established a Parliamentary Subcommittee to revise Barbados’ amnesty laws for undocumented immigrants. In 2009, amendments in these laws prompted controversial deportations of regional nationals from the island (roughly three years after ‘hassle-free’ movement was introduced throughout CARICOM). The expulsion of particular CARICOM nationals was deemed by neighboring leaders as an aggressive nationalist approach, running counter to the purpose of CARICOM integration (as voiced 7      by PM Jagdeo of Guyana, PM Golding of Jamaica, and PM King of St. Lucia during the 2009 CARICOM summit) (BBC Caribbean, 2009; Brathwaite, 2014). Prime Minister Gonsalves of St. Vincent and the Grenadines stated that in the case of Barbados immigration law, political leaders were responsible for ‘an outpouring of malignant xenophobia particularly against Guyanese, Jamaicans, Vincentians’ and other smaller island nations, through ‘unfair, unlawful, unconscionable, and discriminatory treatment’ (Haynes, 2016:60).  David Thompson served as Prime Minister of Barbados until his death in October 2010. After his passing, Freundel Stuart assumed the position of PM, and was voted to remain in office in the 2013 elections, until being voted out in 2018 (after the completion of the fieldwork). The normalization of hostility towards regional immigrants particularly Jamaican and Guyanese, was a hallmark of the DLP’s decade in power. Guyana-Barbados relations have been strained during this time due to alleged ill treatment and discrimination of Guyanese migrants by the Barbadian government and locals. The racialization of Guyanese of East Indian indentured heritage (or, Indo Guyanese) further complicates the exclusion narrative for Guyanese migrants in Barbados (Harewood, 2010). Indo Guyanese ‘report[ing] they face discrimination or general disdain more than other’ regional and Afro Guyanese nationals (Kairi Consultants Ltd., 2013:48-49). As Niles notes:  “Joseph Atherley, the former Minister of State for Immigration in Barbados is reported to have said, ‘I think that a lot of (anti-Guyanese) utterances is being driven in the minds of people that Barbados is being overrun by non-nationals, particularly Guyanese and more specifically East Indian Guyanese.”  (2006)  This ethnography revealed that measures and policies enacted by the DLP continue to be experienced as exclusion and unbelonging by the Indo Guyanese community. According to both Bajan and Guyanese respondents, Indo Guyanese migrants remain targets of police and immigration scrutiny, due in part to their visible difference. The empirical chapters explore this relationship, as difference, (un)belonging, and inclusion/exclusion are felt by Indo Guyanese participants in distinct ways in relation to their nationality, ethnicity, religion, and gender. This thesis explores how, despite the subsequent easing of tensions directed at Indo Guyanese migrants in Barbados, the emotional impacts have wider reverberations, and the migrant community has become more reserved, cautious, and more aware of their difference. The following section expands on how this is examined through the research.  8      AIM, RESEARCH QUESTIONS, & OBJECTIVES The aim of the research is to use an ethnography of the Indo Guyanese community in Barbados to explore the dynamics of migrant belonging in order to contribute to the debate about the varying ways emotion contributes to migration studies. A subsidiary aim is to give a voice to the experiences of a marginalised migrant community within the Anglophone Caribbean context while maintaining a critical distance throughout the analysis.   I argue that interrogating emotions leads to a fuller understanding of the migrant experience. The central focus of this research, therefore, is to explore how different aspects of the social and emotional life of Indo Guyanese in Barbados influence their experience of belonging and unbelonging. Further, it analyses how unbelonging differs across markers of nationality, ethnicity, religion, and gender, and how the experience of unbelonging is shaped by the intersections of undesirability, (un)deservingness, and (in)visibility.  Each empirical chapter (chapters 5, 6, 7, & 8) is structured to cover a total of four research questions, building on the overarching themes from the previous chapters. Prior to my fieldwork, the grey literature highlighted the contention between the Barbados and Guyana governments regarding the presence of the Guyanese community in Barbados. These sources suggested that the Bajan government held a perceived bias against members of migrant community with Guyanese nationality. However, once embedded in the ethnography, it became apparent that nationality accounted for just one aspect of the Guyanese community’s exclusion. For Indo Guyanese, their ethnic difference influenced their lived experience of migration differently than their Afro Guyanese peers, adding to a second attribute of their exclusion.  While Afro Guyanese were able to ‘hide in plain sight’, Indo Guyanese were not afforded that option. As I observed in my fieldwork and based on participant accounts, the phenotypical features of Indo Guyanese heightened their visibility in public spaces. Participant stories indicated the various ways their visible ethnic difference made them prone to increased policing and scrutiny by the Bajan community. As Afro Guyanese spoke of masking their accents and voices to avoid detection and being labeled as Guyanese, Indo Guyanese spoke of having to hide parts of their physical bodies to avoid detection by authorities and the Bajan public.   In our discussions, Afro Bajan participants used the markers of religious practice and gendered behaviours associated with Indo Guyanese, to express what they believed as the defining features of ethnic difference between themselves and the Indo Guyanese migrant 9      community. On the island, Indo Guyanese are racialized as Hindu, where Hinduism is viewed as a foreign and unorthodox religion by Afro Bajans. This assertion has led Hindu Guyanese participants to convey that they believe Bajans ‘disliked’ and ‘look down’ on their religious practices. In response, Hindu Guyanese have masked outward signs of their religious following. Through the fieldwork, I was able to gain insight into the link between Hindu teachings and learned gendered behaviours. The ethnography showed how the expectation to uphold gendered notions of care and responsibility results in different forms of pressure for male Indo Guyanese in their migration. This has resulted in a reality where Indo Guyanese men are perceived by Bajan participants as ‘violent’ and ‘domineering’ towards women, and ‘like to drink, bad’ (like to consume large amounts of alcohol, regularly). Religious practice and gendered behaviours were the third and fourth key attributes cited by Indo Guyanese participants as the source of their exclusion and unbelonging.  The ethnography supported the assertion that under the DLP, Guyanese are marginalised due to their nationality in Barbados. However, for Indo Guyanese, their experience of exclusion and unbelonging is compounded due to their ethnicity. Key attributes of being Indo Guyanese, namely religious difference and gendered behaviours were viewed as undesirable and ‘not compatible’ with the ‘Bajan way of life’ by Bajan participants. And yet, as participant narratives will show, through these markers of identity, they are confronted with an array of emotional experiences which influence their migratory journeys. Themes of (un)desirability, (un)deservingness, and (in)visibility were expressed by participants across all of these associated markers of difference.  The first empirical chapter (ch.5) addresses the research question: how has the Government of Barbados promoted the trope of Guyanese undesirability? This chapter builds on the Caribbean Court of Justice’s legal framing which allows a CARICOM state to deny entry of, or deport, a CARICOM national into their state, who fits the criteria of ‘undesirable’. The DLP has taken the parameters set forth by the CCJ to determine what constitutes an undesirable CARICOM national (one who is in violation of national immigration law, one who is determined to be a burden on public funds, one who is traveling under false pretense, etc.) and has projected it onto the Guyanese community. Participants are left with the requirement to demonstrate that they are desirable, rather than the state proving they are undesirable (particularly at the first port of entry to the island and through their first contact with immigration enforcement). However, ideas of undesirability are not just attributed to national affiliation, but associated across 10      participants’ ethnic, religious, and gendered identities. Expanding on this idea of undesirability, chapter 6 includes analysis of how ethnicity plays into this conversation of difference and acceptance, and asks the second research question: how is creole belonging imagined across participants? Following from ch.5., participants in this chapter describe how they experience unbelonging and exclusion because of their perceived lack of creolization by the Afro community yet are excluded by Indo Bajans because of their perceived creolization. The narratives show that recognition of Indianness in the region remains a contested topic. Participants describe how they must attempt to hide their Indianness to avoid policing, covering hair and facial features. But beyond their bodies, Indo Guyanese must hide their traditions and customs. This is discussed in the following empirical chapter (ch.7). Participants describe how they minimise outward displays, or visible signs, of religious difference in their everyday lives. The third research question asks: in what ways does religion contribute to, or hinder, the emotional well-being of migrants? Guyanese religious practice is interpreted and understood differently across Bajan participants. For the most part, this has led to Hindu Guyanese taking steps to conceal their religious difference, particularly in public. Nonetheless, participant accounts show that religious communities can also be the source of exclusion. Building on ch.6, I discuss the notion of ‘authenticity’ and ‘inauthenticity’, which parallels the frame of (un)deserving. In this context, I explore how it is experienced across different religious groups when accessing their spaces of worship. The final empirical chapter (ch.8) continues from the previous chapter by illustrating how religious teachings continue to influence gendered notions of care and responsibility for members of the Indo Guyanese community. This final empirical chapter asks the question: what can a gendered reading of care inform us about migrant masculinities? Male migrants speak of their loneliness, persistent stress and anxiety; all feelings understood by males as sacrifice and duty in order to be providers. However, in their struggle to be providers, they may engage in harmful behaviours towards themselves and others. Unfortunately, these actions have become associated with the Indo Guyanese male community, further pronouncing their undesirability on the island. Participant narratives reveal that the male experience of migration although filled with exclusion and unbelonging, is endured for the care of loved ones. My findings highlight the complexity and range of emotions Indo Guyanese migrants encounter in Barbados in their daily lives, giving us a more comprehensive look at the nuance of migration realities in the region. 11      The research objectives were developed to gather the necessary information to answer the research questions. The objectives covered seven main points: 1) to undertake an ethnography of the Indo Guyanese community in Barbados, 2) to record stories of migration and of the experiences of settlement of a small group of community members including men and women, skilled and unskilled, with diverse immigration status, 3) to document migrants’ own accounts of feelings of belonging or unbelonging in Barbados through discussions of their biographical experiences of nationality, ethnicity, religion, and gender, 4) to interview a small group of Bajan officials, journalists, and commentators regarding their opinions on the Guyanese migrant community in Barbados, 5) to use secondary sources to place the recent migration of Guyanese to Barbados in historical, legal, and political context, 6) to interpret the information collected in the ethnography using a framework drawn from Migration Studies debates around belonging and identity, and 7) to extend debates in Migration Studies around the value of attending to emotions when analysing processes of encounter.     KEY CONCEPTS IN THESIS Throughout the thesis, I argue that the changing and diverse experiences of Indo Guyanese migrants in Barbados are productively analysed by linking two conceptual frameworks: emotional geographies and belonging/exclusion. These frameworks are constructive because they have rarely been used together in the academic literature. While ‘belonging/exclusion’ has been a relatively prominent framework in migration studies over many years its links to the newer framework of emotional geographies, which has only achieved popularity within the last decade, is under-developed (as will be expanded upon in the literature review). Four key concepts are used to link the frameworks and explore the experiences of Indo Guyanese migrants in Barbados: desirability, creole belonging, religion and gender. The ethnographic findings build the argument in Chapter 5 with the idea of the undesirability of Guyanese migrants in Barbados. As discussed, the term ‘undesirable’ emerges from the legal text of the CCJ ruling in the Myrie case, where undesirable individuals can be legally excluded from entry to a member state (CARICOM Secretariat, 2017:12). Building on this foundation, this chapter shows that Guyanese (both Indo Guyanese and Afro Guyanese) are constructed as undesirable not as individuals but as a 12      group by the Government of Barbados. For the Guyanese community, this legal undesirability takes the form of social undesirability. This is experienced as everyday unbelonging by migrants, whose stories of exclusion in their dealings with Bajans and in specific spaces (such as at the international border) are central to this ethnographic chapter.  Some voices in this chapter come from participants Sonya, Ram, and Vishal. The stories of Sonya and Ram highlight how immigration policing is structured to disrupt the daily lives of migrants constructed as undesirable. Sonya’s story centres on her experience of an immigration raid while she lived with her aunt and uncle. In Sonya’s account, the exercise is done to spread and instil fear and anxiety across the Guyanese community. However, according to the Bajan government, raids were justifiably conducted by authorities to expose undocumented Guyanese. At the time of the raid, Sonya had recently returned from visiting her two young daughters in Guyana and was within her six-month entry, which she believes is the only reason she was not detained. Another voice in the chapter is Ram. As an agricultural worker in his 50s, with no vehicle of his own, he relies on public transport to take him to various farms throughout the island. While on his way home from work, he was met with an immigration check by police officers. This resulted in him spending the night in a graveyard. These stories are often interpreted by participants in terms of the associated negative emotions that go along with exclusion, such as anxiety and shame. Despite these narratives of undesirability, however, the account from Vishal counters this prevailing narrative of exclusion. Through his bar Flash Zone, Vishal speaks about how he has been able to create a space which promotes Guyanese inclusion and celebrates Indo Guyanese traditions. Vishal explains how spaces like Flash Zone bar are at one scale sites of policing by the Bajan state but are at another scale sites where Indo Guyanese can experience the emotions of solidarity and enjoyment.  Building from this base, chapter 6 argues that the general bias against Guyanese in Barbados is even more pronounced for Indo Guyanese. In this chapter the focus is on creole belonging, where difference is demarked along ideas of ethnicity. Undesirability for Indo Guyanese participants is felt through their racialized experiences of ethnic difference. This finding is used to explore the idea of creolization, which is central to both academic and socio-political understandings of ‘the Caribbean’. Through their visible differences of their bodies, the Indo Guyanese prove easier to police in terms of exclusion than Afro Guyanese and are therefore the object of concentrated scrutiny. This double burden of being both Guyanese and also of Indian heritage intensifies the participants’ feelings of 13      unbelonging and the associated emotions. Participant narratives show that creole belonging proves to be a bit of a myth if you are of Indian heritage. Likewise, the narratives highlight how Indo Guyanese migrants negotiate ideas of Indianness within their own community, reshaping boundaries of belonging for Indo Guyanese with mixed heritage. This shows that the process of asserting unbelonging is ambiguous in that it generates a countervailing experience of belonging for migrants within the emotionally safe spaces that they control.  The experiences of Stephanie, Aisha and Brain are central to this chapter. Stephanie is Afro Bajan and speaks of her Indo Guyanese childhood nanny, Aunty Moon. It is through her time spent with Aunty Moon in her childhood that Stephanie gains an affinity for Indo Guyanese culture. This motivates Stephanie as an adult to go into business with an Indo Guyanese family in operating a roti shop. Stephanie’s vignette is enhanced with other participants experiences of roti shops to explore the complexity of ethnic relationships and cross-cultural understandings between the Bajan community and Indo Guyanese migrants. Aisha’s story focuses on her encounter with an older Muslim Indo Bajan. As a young professional who is Indo Guyanese and also Muslim, she is left offended and angered by her conversation with the man, whom she feels judged her negatively based on her nationality as Guyanese, rather than finding commonality as a fellow Muslim. Her interaction is marred by ideas of Guyanese undesirability which in this instance, intersects with both religion and gender. The chapter continues with the experience of Brian. Brian identifies as Dougla, someone of Indo and Afro heritage. He speaks of his exclusion as a child by the Indo community in Guyana, whom he recalls, refused to acknowledge his connection to Indian belonging. This is contrasted by his move to Barbados. Brian finds the Indo Guyanese migrant community supportive and accepting of his claim to Indian heritage, which he credits to their own experience of marginalisation in Barbados. These stories emphasize that the experience of ethnicity plays into ideas of emotional belonging and exclusion in sometimes unexpected ways for both migrants and host nationals.  In chapter 7 the lens of religion is used to argue that as well as their bodies, the beliefs of the Indo Guyanese make their differences even more visible. The relations between Afro Bajans and Afro Guyanese are to some extent masked and eased by shared Christian religious practices. In contrast, the key ceremonies of the mostly Hindu Indo Guyanese, draw further attention to the differences between host and migrant – a difference that is key to animating the practices of exclusion. Ethnographic findings suggests that religion is 14      key to the experience of the migrant participants because it is the single most widely cited attribute of difference of the Indo Guyanese community used by Bajans to justify exclusion from wider society. Even though the Indo Guyanese community in Barbados includes Muslims, Christians, and non-believers, they are uniformly imagined to be Hindus and as such are not just treated as ‘different’ from the wider Bajan community, but as morally inferior. For those migrants who are Hindus, the space of the temple (and the network and community connected to it) provides a site where they not only experience the emotions of belonging (solidarity and enjoyment) found in social spaces like Flash Zone, but also deeper comfort, contentment, and fulfilment. Nonetheless, as participant narratives show, religious spaces are also sites where they can experience further exclusion and must reckon with more complex, less encouraging emotions.  The stories of Kareem and Kapoor shed light into this chapter. Kareem and Kapoor are from the same village in the west of Guyana and attended the same primary school, in the late-1990s/early 2000s (Kareem and Kapoor’s younger brother were classmates). Through their respective migrations, the two have reconnected almost 20 years later, in Bridgetown, Barbados. Despite finding reassurance in the familiarity of knowing one another, the two experience personal disappointment and loneliness in their individual journeys of spirituality. Kareem came to Barbados in 2015. With no skills certificate, he followed the advice and connections of a friend, and took work as a gardener. Kareem speaks of his decision to not attend masjid after feeling excluded by the Muslim Bajan community. Despite being Indo Guyanese, as a Muslim and not Hindu, he feels his connections to his countrymen and faith are more limited on the island. At the time of the fieldwork, Kapoor was 29 and had been living in Barbados since 2007. Despite having moved to Barbados with his two brothers, Kapoor is the only one to remain. After one brother’s deportation in 2009, the remaining brother returned. Shortly after his return to Guyana, Kapoor’s youngest brother committed suicide. Due to his undocumented status, Kapoor was unable to attend the funeral in Guyana and perform the final rites as the eldest son/brother in the family. For Kapoor, the temple represents a space where he must negotiate guilt –in his attempt to find absolution and because he is unable to meet his religious obligations as a result of his brother’s passing. Kapoor dedicates his time and efforts to remitting in order to cope with his brother’s death as a means to show his care for his family and to find reprieve in unfulfilled religious duties. These experiences of negotiating obligation then turn the empirical argument to a focus on masculinities, where expectations of care and support are heavily gendered. 15      Chapter 8 of this thesis argues that Indo Guyanese migrant men experience a different form of exclusion and unbelonging based on traditionally accepted expectations. In this understanding, spirituality is linked to men’s obligation to care for their families financially. The emotional story of migration for these men needs to account for these feelings of obligation that emerge not just from their religion but from wider expectations in Indo Guyanese society. Fear of failure drives male migrants. Exclusion could potentially be experienced by these migrants not only from their Bajan hosts, but also from their own transnational families in the circumstances when they are not in a position to meet their obligations as men. Such exclusions potentially operate at an even more profound level than exclusion from Bajan society (which is expected and can be planned for), so men will do everything they can to avoid failing to provide the expected care. As the narratives illustrate, desire to meet these obligations drives Indo Guyanese men in Barbados to live in cheap, anonymous housing and work in risky visible public spaces, such as construction. In contrast Indo Guyanese women in Barbados have stronger networks based on their residence with members of their family and employment in private domestic spaces. Though domestic labour and residing with familial connections on the island carries its own risks of exploitation and violence, Indo Guyanese women in Barbados are less likely to experience emotions associated with isolation and failure than men. Feelings of loneliness and fear of shame pronounce the male experience in Barbados. The ethnography revealed that in this setting, male participants remain vulnerable to perpetuating acts of violence on themselves and loved ones as a result of these gendered expectations.     In this chapter, stressing the mandate to care for loved ones while managing exclusion and unbelonging is exemplified through the stories of Vince and Steven. Vince had his son, Aaron, soon after his move to the island. At the time of the fieldwork, Aaron was roughly five years old.. Vince works and goes to school in Barbados. And although Aaron was born in Barbados, he lives on another island with his maternal grandparents. Vince recognises that the opportunity to provide an improved quality of life for Aaron has come at the expense of cultivating a personal relationship with him. He often questions his adequacy as a father, citing the struggle between being a provider and a nurturer, and recognises the emotional toll and personal consequence of his decisions. Steven also battles with his decision to migrate in order to provide for his parents back home in Guyana. Steven remains fearful that his absence will compound his father’s alcoholism into physical abuse directed towards his mother, as it has in the past. He believes it is his responsibility to both financially provide for and prevent violence in his family home. Steven carries the strain 16      of his parent’s wellbeing literally, embodying increasing physical signs of stress throughout the fieldwork. These stories reveal the emotional burden male participants endure in their efforts to balance their obligation to care.   Through the ethnography the thesis makes an original empirical contribution which adds to our knowledge of how migration is experienced by ethnic minorities in a Caribbean setting. As part of doing so it gives voice to the experiences of a marginalised migrant community about whom relatively little has been published. In addition, it makes an innovative conceptual contribution by linking the literature on emotional geographies to the literature on belonging/exclusion in migration studies. Such a connection achieves several things, which if not entirely novel would merit continued conceptual development. First, it reveals the significance of a far wider range of emotions than is generally considered within migration studies. Second, it shows how different emotions connected to migration and belonging operate differently in different spaces (national, leisure, embodied, spiritual, domestic, ceremonial, psychological spaces). Third, it shows how the emotional experience of unbelonging as a result of migration can be gendered in profound ways. Fourth, bringing emotion and exclusion together often reveals how exclusion often unintentionally generates inclusion at a different scale (Guyanese Dougla participants who felt excluded in Guyana, found solidarity among Indo Guyanese in Barbados where all Indo Guyanese experience exclusion, for example). Finally, thinking about emotions as a topic also influences how research on belonging is undertaken. All ethnographers seek to be empathetic to their interlocutors, but an alertness to the diversity and complexity of emotions should surely help build understanding between the researchers and the community they are living with. This is true both for information collection, but also in terms of the representation of communities in subsequent writing.  Participant stories are central to this ethnography. Although selected narratives have been chosen to reflect the themes of the empirical chapters, the contributors to the research come from varied backgrounds and have rich stories to tell. While the following participants have less prominence in the thesis, their views inform overall analysis and discussion.   Alisha was a teacher in Guyana for eleven years, before receiving an offer to teach at a primary school in Barbados in 1979. Alisha emphasizes that during the late 1970s and early 1980s, the attitude towards Guyanese migrants was the polar opposite of its current state. At the time, Barbados was actively recruiting professionals from the Caribbean to improve 17      Barbadian society; ‘Nurses, teachers, typists, bookkeepers…back then, all of we were foreigners…but there were no problems…no bias against you’ (19 July 2015). Her perspective is shared by participants who have resided on the island for 30 plus years who have experienced what they see as a shift in political sentiments from regionalism to nationalism.  Participant Granny holds a similar view.  Granny relocated to Barbados in the mid-1980s, with her husband and three children. After her husband passed, she remarried a St. Lucian national who had relocated to Barbados. The pair had three children together. Granny worked for decades as a seamstress and dressmaker. She lives with her youngest daughter and several grandchildren. Despite her time in Barbados, she considers herself ‘Guyanese through and through’. However, because of her time in Barbados, she sees herself as separate and removed from the hostilities towards Guyanese immigrants. Both Alisha and Granny attribute the divisive rhetoric the Bajan government has perpetuated against Guyanese migrants as contributing to the exclusionary attitude the general public have towards Guyanese migrants. She views the negative attitudes towards what she calls ‘new Guyanese’ as a result of ‘Thompson campaign to malign people who ain’t want trouble’ based on the ‘wrong action of a few’ (29 November 2015); referencing Guyanese who are caught with forged papers and involved in criminal activity. Notably, Alisha and Granny (along with the majority of Guyanese and Bajan participants) do not dispute the ethics of Bajan law. In their view, Guyanese who are in violation of the local law are, undoubtedly, breaking the law.   Guyanese participants remain acutely aware of the consequences of being in violation of Bajan immigration law. One such participant is Mario. Mario has a Bajan-born daughter (and due to Jus Soli constitutional rights, she was granted automatic Bajan nationality), who resided with him on the island. Over his ten years in Barbados working as a mason, he has been deported from Barbados five times. Despite previous stints in Suriname, over the last decade Mario has preferred to return to Barbados because of work availability. In 2017 (post fieldwork), he was deported once again, along with his young daughter, due to her status as a minor. After eight months, he returned to Barbados, leaving his daughter behind in the care of family members in Guyana. Mario’s situation highlights just a few of the predicaments many male participants face, in what they interpret as their gendered responsibility to provide for loved ones; in this instance, family separation and the constant reality of deportation.  18      Regardless of the array of challenges faced by migrants, participants continue to move to Barbados with the aspiration of overcoming these hardships. One participant who has felt he has succeeded is Darmendra. Originally Darmendra came to Barbados as a tradesman. He worked and lived undocumented for over five years on the island. Over the years, he was able to gain status through various employers. He mastered his building skills, and now runs his own company of tradesmen. His employees are mostly Guyanese, seconded by Vincentians. Darmendra understands the financial pressures and instability new migrants face; not being able to benefit from legitimate financial streams on the island, like bank loans and money transfer services. As a response, he regularly offers loans and advances employees’ payment.   Not all participants feel that economic success translates to social acceptance. Sunita was born in Guyana but has lived in Barbados periodically since the age of two. She acquired resident status in her teenage years and is now in her late 30s. Her parents came to Barbados in 1984 as entrepreneurs and opened eateries and rum shops throughout their time on the island. As a result, Sunita has run several of her own businesses. Despite spending the majority of her life on the island, her daily interactions with Bajans, and their identification of her as ‘a Guyanese’ is a constant reminder to her that she is separate from the people on the island. Indeed, as will be explored in Sunita’s case, in ch.7 and Darmendra’s case in chapter 5, their experience speaks to their everyday realities as Indo Guyanese in Barbados, despite their resident status. Their stories, and others, will be presented throughout this thesis to explore what an emotional geographic reading of migrant’s national, ethnic, religious and gendered experiences can reveal about belonging and exclusion.               19      CONCLUSION Regional movement in Barbados is dictated by policy set forth by CARICOM. CARICOM is a regional integration agreement between 15 independent states in the Caribbean. In 2006, under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, the heads of government agreed to a framework which enabled member nationals to travel between other member states. This was done under two categories, the free movement of skills and the facilitation of travel.      The DLP was voted into office in Barbados in 2008, two years after free movement arrangement was implemented. The intersection of national law and regional policy has created tension in Barbados, after the DLP brought sweeping change to the island’s existing amnesty laws and increased policing powers of immigration officials. This was particularly impactful for the island’s Guyanese community. They account for the largest migrant group in Barbados, estimated between 20,000-30,000 people.   Given this tension between regional policy and national law, the goal of this research is to conduct an ethnography of the Indo Guyanese community in Barbados to explore the dynamics of migrant belonging in order to contribute to the debate about the varying ways emotion contributes to migration studies. The final section of this chapter provides an overview of the key message of the thesis; the changing and diverse experiences of Indo Guyanese migrants in Barbados are productively analysed by linking two conceptual frameworks: emotional geographies and belonging/exclusion. These frameworks are effectively explored through experiences of desirability, creole belonging, religion and gender.  In order to get a full understanding of the current Indo Guyanese community’s experience in Barbados, we must first understand the wider picture of both the migration history of Barbados and the history of the Indian presence in the region. To do so, the following chapter is split into two parts. The first section accounts Barbados’ migratory past to its present, from colonization to joining the CSME. The chapter then focuses on the Guyanese community on the island. As the largest migrant population, I use this section to provide basic information about the community’s characteristic traits on the island. From these data-driven accounts, Part II of the chapter moves towards a theoretical look at indenture and Creolization. The section interlaces how these processes contribute to the story of belonging and unbelonging for Indo Guyanese migrants, acting as a bridge to the empirical chapters to follow. 20      CHAPTER 2 MIGRATION HISTORIES   This chapter focuses on migratory histories. Part I expands on the migratory history of Barbados, which is followed by a profile of the contemporary Guyanese community on the island. Through this demographic analysis, we gain insight into past migrations that have shaped national development, the depth of current regional migration to the island, and greater awareness of the Guyanese community that resides there and continues to shape its cultural fabric. From looking at the Guyanese community in Barbados, and addressing who they are and how they live, I shift focus to how people from the subcontinent first arrived in Guyana by exploring the historic Indo presence in the region.   Part II of the chapter looks at the migratory history of Indo Guyanese through their indentured past. The process of indenture has shaped Indo Guyanese in their understanding of belonging to the wider Caribbean. I use this section to compare Creole history with indentured history to unpack the ways Indo Guyanese relate to a sense of creole inclusion. I explore how Indian ethnicity complicates assumptions about creolization and belonging in the Caribbean. This section illustrates how past migration plays into contemporary migration, influencing notions of creole and Indo belonging, linking to the empirical chapters.                21      PART I BARBADOS MIGRATION HISTORY IN BRIEF   Map 2.1. Barbados with 11 administrative Parishes  Source: Drawing Office, Department of Geography, University College London (2021)  In 1627 Barbados was settled as a British colony, and until independence in 1966, remained under British dominion (DaCosta, 2007:3). Initially, indentured labourers were brought to work sugar plantations during the early days of settlement (Handler and Riley, 2017:32). There were two major waves of indentured migration in the region – one before the mass import of enslaved people to the region and the second after the emancipation of enslaved people. This first wave, in the early 1600s, brought Irish and Scottish indentured to the island. Indentured were transported to the Caribbean colonies tying them to plantations from seven to fifteen years (for re-indentured workers) in exchange for their boarding, medical care, return passage, and a daily wage (Roopnarine, 2018). While they were 22      voluntary indentured, this group, did not enjoy the benefits of upward socioeconomic mobility like their white planter-class counterparts (Handler and Riley, 2017).   Barbados was the first slave colony in the Caribbean solely under British authority (Higman, 1986). For roughly 200 years, starting in the early 1600s, the British imported enslaved people to the island. By the early 18th century, prior to the end of slavery, an overall estimate of 387,000 enslaved people from West Africa were brought to island (Higman, 1986); to put that into perspective, the current population on the island is estimated at roughly 287,700 (UNDP, 2022). The emancipation of enslaved people was declared in 1834 (DaCosta, 2007). Due to the allocation of the island’s agricultural land to the white planter class, formerly enslaved people were forced to stay near plantations to prevent homelessness (Toppin-Allahar, 2015). The minority whites owned 85% of the land, despite accounting for roughly 13% of the population (Toppin-Allahar, 2015). ‘Apprenticeship’ schemes were developed tying formerly enslaved to plantations for unremunerated labour. This allowed for production and trade of sugarcane to be maintained in Barbados, despite the rest of the British Caribbean relying on the indentured labour from the South Asia to replace the labour void (Lowenthal, 1957:453). Even with apprenticeship schemes, however, many Bajans did leave the island in search of improved job prospects and quality of life. It is unsurprising that formerly enslaved from Barbados moved to colonies with an abundance of land and greater potential to become landowners themselves (L. Roopnarine, 2013:20). From 1838 (the year apprenticeship was abolished) to 1930, British Guiana received over 50,000 new regional migrants, mainly from Barbados (L. Roopnarine, 2013:20). Due to this historical migration, it is unsurprising that many Guyanese have Bajan roots, and vice versa.  During this time, Barbadians regularly took advantage of movement and relocations within the region. During the construction of the Panama Canal (1904-1914), Barbadians accounted for almost half (roughly 20,000) of the total 45,000 contract workers. It is believed another 25,000 from Barbados travelled informally to work on the construction (Richardson, 1985:3). Remittances began playing an important role in Barbadian growth from the early 1900s and continued to do so until the end of the century. Until the 1990s, the island was the second highest remittance-receiving nation in all of Latin America and the Caribbean UNDP, 2022). However, from 1990-2019, it has only accounted for ~2.1%-3% of the country’s GDP (UNDP, 2022). 23      Outside of the region, Barbadian emigration was and continues to be concentrated towards the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. From 1955-1971, roughly 27,000 Barbadians travelled to the UK under the Windrush Generation to develop the London Transport sector and the National Health Service in post-war England (UNDP, 2022). By the early 1900s, Barbadians were the most populous group in the United States from the Anglophone Caribbean, initially taking advantage of work schemes and aided by family reunification legislation (UNDP, 2022). In Canada, over 11,000 emigrated from 1968-1987, filling the requests for carpenters, mechanics, teachers, nurses, and domestic workers (UNDP, 2022).   Barbados gained self-government smoothly in 1966 from the British. Leadership of the island adopted market-friendly and outward-looking policies, opening markets to international investment after independence. Through private foreign investment and a tourism-based economy, Barbados has been able to achieve a high standard of living. Under the United Nation’s Human Development Index, Barbados is the only CSME member state that qualifies with a top tier ranking; with a life expectancy of 77.6 years (one of the highest in the region), and a gross domestic product of 18,023 USD per capita (World Bank, 2020a:21).   Over the decades following independence, national development took place although the island’s wealth remained concentrated in the hands of the white minority elite. Lewis has noted that the white upper class have ceded government and political affairs to the black majority, with the caveat that black elites do not infringe on the white elite’s interests (2001). This has resulted in minority whites remaining in a privileged status while largely retaining ownership over the island’s land (Toppin-Allahar, 2015). This is in juxtaposition to a small cohort of whites that lie on the opposite end of the socioeconomic spectrum, referred to as ‘poor whites’ by Bajan participants. As noted previously, the first indentured to the island were of Irish and Scottish decent and arrived on the island before the mass import of enslaved people. Today, the descendants from those indentured remain concentrated in the interior and eastern coast of the island. While 2.7% of Barbados’ population identify as ‘white’ of European heritage (roughly 7,500 people), around 400 individuals from that group fall into this socioeconomic category (Barbados Population and Housing Census, 2010). According to Bajan participants, ‘poor whites’ are an insular community, known for their modest means and are believed to largely live on or below the poverty line.  24      A second wave of indentureship to the island occurred between 1838 -1917, in response to the labour gap created after the emancipation of formerly enslaved people. These indentured were primarily from the Indian subcontinent under the rule of the British Raj, although smaller numbers of Chinese were transported to the region under the same contracts, as well as Portuguese. In Barbados, a historic East Indian migration to the island existed alongside the indentureship scheme (Degia, 2018). This was achieved through a ‘free passenger’ (or ‘passenger Indians’) system. Free passenger Indians included merchants and traders, who, as citizens under the British Raj, paid for their voyage to British colonies during and after the time of the indentureship project, between the years 1838-1917 (Degia, 2018). Sindhi Hindus and Gujarati Muslims often comprised the free passengers to Barbados and would come to reflect ‘the two largest and culturally distinct ethnic groups’ of the wider Indian population that constructs the modern-day ‘Indo Bajan’ (Degia, 2018:157). The Sindhi community are Hindu, have a middle-class position, and tend to live in the residential suburbs outside of Bridgetown, while the Gujarati-Muslims are Hanafi Sunni, have a working-class position, and live in the urban centre of Bridgetown (Degia, 2018:158). The way Indo Bajans (as descendants of free passengers) interact with Indo Guyanese (as descendants of the indentured system) provides an interesting scope to further the discussion on creole belonging and inclusion and will be explored in the narratives of Aisha in chapter 6, and Kareem in chapter 7.   The Barbados 2020 census was delayed and rescheduled for August 2021 – Sept 30, 2022, and the most recent data (at the time of this writing) has yet to be released. Thus, the trends and statistics regarding demographics and the known Guyanese population are largely taken from the 2010 Barbados Census, unless otherwise noted. Barbados remains a predominantly Afro (or ‘Black’) and Christian nation, where ~92% of the population identify as African descended, and 95% of those practicing religion on the island identify as Christian (with only ~2.6% of the religiously active population classified as ‘non-Christian’) (Barbados Census, 2010). People of East Indian heritage comprise 1.3% of the overall population of the island. It is estimated that 0.7% of the overall population adheres to Islam, and roughly 0.5% of the population, or 1,055 people, practice Hinduism (Barbados Population and Housing Census, 2010). However, from this ethnography, according to Indo Guyanese Hindu religious leader, Pandit Thakoor, these numbers are grossly underestimated as Guyanese are hesitant to take-part in census collection, in fear that it would be used to reveal their immigration status. As a result, demographic data of these religious and ethnic differences are largely representative of the existing Indo Bajan 25      community, as well as modern-day migrants from India and the sub-continent, and would only account for Indo Guyanese with resident status. Data regarding the Hindu following in Barbados is sparse, exposing an area for further research.   BARBADOS MIGRATION UNDER THE CSME Since the inception of the CSME, Barbados has had the highest rate of temporary migration per capita in all of Latin America and the Caribbean (OAS, 2012:6-7). Despite the DLP’s efforts to curb regional movement since 2008, Barbados has seen an increase in its intake of regional migrants. As of 2015, the foreign-born population accounted for roughly 12.13% of the total population on the island, compared to 9% in 2006 (Barbados Immigration Statistics, 2015). CSME nationals account for over 60% of the migrants on the island. This group also represents 13.4% of the island’s labour force (IMF, 2019a). Due to this, Barbados is unique in the region as it has been able to fulfil its labour needs through this regional, and mostly temporary, labour force (OAS, 2012:7). As will be explored in the following section, Guyanese migrant labour has largely filled this role.  Overall, Barbados has received the highest number of Skilled Nationals (who have indefinite right to stay) under the CSME. From 2006-2016, roughly 2,166 Certificates were verified, accounting for 1% of the Bajan population (Francis, 2019:16-17). As shown on the following page in Figure 2.1., regional student permits (at the associate’s, undergraduate and post graduate level), however, far outnumber the total Skills Certificates issued in Barbados on a yearly basis; with 1,300 student permits issued in 2019, and 566 permits issued to skilled nationals, with 56 entrants seeking Rights of Establishment (UNDP, 2022). In 2019, Barbados, along with Belize and Trinidad & Tobago, were the only CARICOM states that verified more Skills Certificates than long-term work permits (which are valid for up to three years). In doing so, these states are moving towards the aim of eliminating the need for work permits (IOM, 2019). The Revised Treaty intended to remove the need for work permits by allowing skilled individuals free movement through their Certificates. The intention is that a national of a CSME state applies for a certificate which is used throughout the region, as opposed to continually applying for work permits in each host nation. This has yet to be realised across the other 12 member states, where long-term work permits still outnumber Certificates. Nonetheless, across all CSME countries, permits (both long and short-term) remain the most common access to 26      immediate work in another state. 1,165 Skills Certificates were issued throughout the CSME in 2017, while 2,468 long-term permits and 1,275 short-term permits were issued for the same year (IOM, 2019:34). In 2019, Barbados issued 35 long-term, and 104 short-term work permits (IOM, 2019).   Figure 2.1. Entry permits issued in Barbados for 2019  Source: Adapted from the United Nations Development Programme. Migration in Barbados: What do we know? (2022:7)   The facilitation of travel aspect of the Revised Treaty is the most widely used mode of movement for CSME nationals, which allows six-month visa-free entry across the member states. From the time of its inception to 2017, hassle-free entry accounted for 2,040,750 movements across CARICOM (IOM, 2019a:33). Barbados is the destination for 33% of all CSME movement under facilitation of travel and remains the primary avenue through which CSME members enter the island (UNDP, 2022). In this regard, Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago (with its oil-driven economy) continue to lead the ranks with the highest number of regional entrants per year. In 2017, Barbados received 147,072 CSME entrants under facilitation of travel to the island, with Trinidad & Tobago, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, and Guyana accounting for more than half of the entries (IOM, 2019a). To put that in perspective, Guyana received 50,000 hassle-free entrants from the entire region in 2017, while roughly 30,000 Guyanese travelled to Barbados for the same year (IOM, 2019a).   1,3005665635 105Student permits Skills Certificates Rights of EstablishmentLong-term work permits Short-term work permits27      According to the latest available census numbers and UNDP data, Guyana accounts for the largest origin country for migrant groups on the island, being the birthplace for ~47% of the migrant population (2022; IOM, 2017). At an estimated 20,000-30,000, the reality in Barbados is that in terms of numbers alone, Guyanese have a significant presence (UNDP, 2022). Population growth on the island (0.2%) is characterised by a declining rate of natural increase; comprised of both high emigration, and high immigration (UNICEF Barbados, 2013; OAS, 2012:78). With continuing trends, Barbados could experience a similar phenomenon to Belize, with the emigration of the local Barbadian population, and the influx of migrants from surrounding states, particularly neighbouring Guyana. This point was not lost on politicians of the DLP, who used the narrative that Guyanese immigrants would ‘overrun’ and ‘overtake’ the country, as central to their political campaign since 2007. Once elected in 2008, the DLP continued this rhetoric to push for restrictive migration policies and increased policing measures to pass in Parliament (Canterbury, 2012:193; Dietrich Jones, 2013; Cumberbatch, 2015). They were successful. Raids, detentions, repatriation upon arrival, and deportations became standard practice under the DLP, in an effort to manage irregular migration, with Guyanese and Jamaicans bearing the brunt of policing efforts (Dietrich Jones, 2013; Brathwaite, 2014; UNDP, 2022). The following section now takes a closer look at the Guyanese community in Barbados, and where information is available, provides insight into their motivations and drivers for migration, who they are, what they do, and how they live in Barbados.            28      GUYANESE IN BARBADOS Realistically, gathering information particular to the Indo Guyanese community is difficult. As mentioned earlier, this group remain suspicious of government intentions and evade disclosing personal and employment information which could be used to jeopardize their status on the island (i.e., revealing immigration/tax status). As a result, there is an absence of academic/governmental sources to account for the status of the Indo Guyanese population on the island. Migrant experience is a deficit noted in CARICOM data collection, overall, and the Indo Guyanese community in Barbados is no different (UNDP, 2022). However, in lieu of official socioeconomic and demographic data of the Indo Guyanese community on the island, direct accounts from participants in this research provide insight into characteristics of this community. While this information is extrapolated from the first-hand accounts of the twenty-eight participants, it is supported by secondary sources where available.   Looking at the numbers of Guyanese in Barbados, I take this section to first unpack the drivers and causes of emigration out of Guyana. Since Guyana’s independence, emigration has been used as a response to leave a politically and economically unstable state. Unlike Barbados, Guyana’s national development was encumbered by a tumultuous journey to independence (Premdas, 2011; Seecharan, 2008; Vezzoli, 2014). From the 1950 to the 1960s, the US government’s CIA worked covertly with the British government to undermine the colony’s foremost political party elected to come to power, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) (Hinds, 2010). The PPP was led by Cheddi Jagan, a pro-Marxist Indo Guyanese. As this was the Cold War era, both the US and British governments feared Jagan would align the newly independent country with communist nations (Premdas, 2011; Vezzoli, 2014). Within the decade, under British and American influence, British Guiana (as named under colonial rule) experienced an increased British military presence and schism within the PPP and its leadership. Jagan’s co-leader, Afro Guyanese Forbes Burnham, left the party and created his own, the People’s National Congress (PNC). With the country’s independence in 1966, Forbes Burnham became the first Prime Minister of the officially renamed ‘Co-operative Republic of Guyana’. Once in office, PM Burnham instituted his vision of government, moving Guyana towards a republic of ‘cooperative socialism’ (Premdas, 1978:133, 1991, 2011; Seecharan, 2008). With a clear Marxist-Leninist influence and anti-imperial/anti-colonial outlook, Prime Minister Burnham sought to push the nation towards self-reliance through a socialist reconstruction agenda (Premdas, 1978, 29      1991, 2011; Seecharan, 2008 Hinds, 2010). It was amid PM Burnham’s rule and commitment to ‘cooperative socialism’ that Guyana plunged into extreme poverty and government mismanagement, despite abundance of natural resources (Premdas, 1991; Seecharan, 2008). Guyana was among the first countries in the region to apply for International Monetary Fund loans, and subsequently agree to the World Bank’s Structural Adjustment Reform (Thomas, 1993). Nonetheless, the PNC remained in power from 1966-1992, using rigged elections in 1968, 1973, and 1980 (Vezzoli, 2014:19). By the mid-1980s, the reality in Guyana was characterised by ‘dismal conditions’, where crime, violence, unemployment, discrimination, and food shortages were commonplace (Vezzoli, 2015:104). Migration became the lifeline Guyanese used to escape the reality of an economically, politically and socially deteriorating state (Vezzoli, 2014).  At the time of the fieldwork, Barbados and Guyana represented polar extremes on the development strata. In 2019, GDP per capita was only $5,470 in Guyana, the UN Development Index ranked Guyana with the second-lowest placement of CARICOM states (Haiti ranks the lowest), and remittances accounted for 8.1% ($380million) of the country’s GDP (World Bank, 2020a:21). The economic reality in Guyana is rapidly changing, however. In May 2015, one month prior to the fieldwork, crude oil deposits were confirmed off the coast of Guyana, with a string of discoveries to follow. Extraction and production began in December 2019. As of October 2021, more than 10 billion barrels of oil are confirmed within the Guyana Basin (Reuters, 2021), placing Guyana in the top 20 largest oil and gas reserve holders in the world (ExxonMobil, 2020; World Bank, 2020b). Guyana’s economy grew by 52.8% in 2020, with oil projected to account for 40% of GDP by 2024 (IMF 2019b; IOM, 2020b). Nonetheless, at the time of this writing, the benefits of oil production in Guyana have yet to be realised across the country’s economy.   Over the decades, Guyana has contended with episodes of recurring political instability, social unrest and violence, and limited employment opportunities; major factors which drive emigration (CSIS, 2020). In the 1990s, there was a decrease in foreign investment, wage decline, and a time of negative economic growth. This prompted an exodus of highly skilled Guyanese (CSIS, 2020). Not long after, in the early 2000s, another wave of political and ethnic turmoil led to countrywide violence and protests, leading to another wave of emigration (CSIS, 2020).   30      Unsurprisingly, Guyanese are notably mobile in the region, as the country has one of the highest emigration rates in the world (CSIS, 2020). Guyana accounts for the largest number of intraregional emigrants within CARICOM (IOM, 2020a/b). Their numbers in the region are roughly 470,000 (58.2% the size of the country’s total population of ~804,500) (IOM, 2017, 2020a/b). Along with St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Jamaica, and Haiti, Guyana accounts for one of the few areas of origin for the entire migrant population in the region (IOM, 2017, 2020a/b). Guyanese take advantage of hassle-free entry, and along with Trinidad & Tobago, are the most frequent users of this channel to other CSME states (IOM, 2017). This method of entry means that Guyanese largely represent a group with temporary status (Vezzoli, 2014). This coupled with the fact that 47% of the Guyana population is under 25 years old, indicates a young populace of working age, suggesting an increased likelihood in rates of irregular stay in search for employment opportunities across the region (Vezzoli, 2014; CSIS, 2020).        As mentioned earlier, Guyana accounts for the no.1 place of origin out of all migrant groups on the island (Barbados Census, 2010:115; UNDP, 2022). Figure 2.2., on the following page, shows that Guyanese represent close to half of the entire migrant population with permanent and temporary status (‘temporary’ does not include hassle-free entry). They account for ~47% of the migrant population, while nine other nations combined comprise the remainder of international migrants on the island. For perspective, the number of migrants from Trinidad & Tobago pales in comparison to Guyanese, with only 9% of the population, despite being the second largest migrant group on the island (Barbados Census, 2010:115; UNDP, 2022).                  31      Figure 2.2. Top ten countries of origin of international migrants, permanent and temporary to Barbados in 2010   Source: Adapted from the United Nations Development Programme. Migration in Barbados: What do we know? (2022:6)   As discussed, Guyanese represent the largest CARICOM population with resident status on the island (Barbados Census, 2010:115; UNDP, 2022). As Table. 2.1. shows below, Guyanese account for roughly 42% of the entire CARICOM migrant community on the island with resident status. The total amount of Guyanese (6,277) more than doubles the amount of St. Vincent & the Grenadines, the nation with the second largest documented population (2,964) (OAS, 2012:7). With residency status, this group are allowed to live and work without immigration restrictions, and in theory, use institutions with equal access as Bajans (however, as participant narratives will show in Ch. 5, this is not always the case).    Table 2.1. Top CARICOM nationalities residing in Barbados from 1990-2010 Country 1990 2000 2010 %change 1990-2000 %change 2000-2010 Guyana 2,529 4,349 6,277 58 69 St. Vincent & the Grenadines 3,635 3,791 2,964 4 -27 St. Lucia 3,279 2,805 2,073 -16 -35 Trinidad & Tobago 1,829 1,730 1,419 -5 -21 Jamaica 615 844 947 27 21 Other CARICOM states   1,126   Total CARICOM residents in Barbados   14,806   Source: United Nations Development Programme. Migration in Barbados: What do we know? (2022:10) 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%BarbadosGuyana Trinidad & Tobago Saint VincentJamaica Great Britain USACanada St. Lucia China32      On average Guyanese, represent between a half and a third of all entrants (not for the purpose of tourism) and residents in Barbados, depending on their migration pathway, as shown below in Table 2.2. The total intake of permanent migrants to Barbados in 2010 was 336; Guyanese comprised 122 of that number, the largest of any one CSME nation (OAS, 2012:241). Guyanese accounted for over half of all entries to Barbados with temporary permits, at 3,314 out of 6,010. They also represent the highest number of nationalised residents in Barbados originating from CARICOM since 2000, with the highest per-year naturalisation rates (with the exception of 2003, with overtake from Trinidad & Tobago with 32 acquisitions, and Saint Vincent tied with Guyana at 20) (UNDP, 2022).    Table 2.2. Numbers of Guyanese in Barbados compared to other CARICOM states  Guyanese and their status in Barbados for 2010 Total CARICOM-born population and their status in Barbados 2010 Newly registered permanent residents for 2010 122 336 Migrants with temporary permits 3,314 6,010 Resident status 6,277 14,806 Source: Adapted from the Organization of American States. International Migration in the Americas: Second Report of the Continuous Reporting System on International Migration in the Americas (SICREMI). (2012)   Most Guyanese migrants to Barbados are women (Barbados Population and Housing Census, 2010). Previous decades (the 1990s and prior) show that female movement fell primarily under spousal/family reunification, and males dominated skilled/permit travel. From the 2000s onwards, there has been a shift towards professional female migration, as most permits, verification of university degrees, and Skills Certificates from Guyana to Barbados are from female applicants (UNDP, 2022). In this regard, regional skilled migrants are credited with replacing skilled Bajans who have left the Caribbean in female-dominated positions such as teaching and nursing (UNDP, 2022). As shown on the following page in Table 2.3., the working age population between 15-54 is the most mobile across both male and female groups. For some female participants, this has meant their migration has led to them to become wage earners and in some cases, breadwinners, for 33      the first time. This has not been without tension, as both male and female Guyanese migrants contend with the dynamics of changing gender roles, as will be discussed in ch.8.      Table 2.3 Age of Male and Female entries from Guyana to Barbados in 2010  Age Group  All Ages 0-14 15-34 35-54 55-69 70+ Male  2,945 215 1,261 1,174 214 81 Female 3,332 220 1,186 1,457 355 114 Total 6,277 435 2,447 2,631 569 195 Source: Adapted from the Barbados 2010 Population and Housing Census (2010)   Data shows that Guyanese are prevalent in the construction, hospitality, and care sectors (UNDP, 2022). Amongst research participants, males involved in construction fall under builders/carpenters, masons, painters, and general tradesmen. Female participants dominate the care sector, providing domestic services in private residences. In hospitality, both male and female participants work in rum shops, as barmaids/barmen, waiters and as cooks in various eateries. Although for these groups of workers, they may shift to different sectors depending on job opportunities. Participants with Skills Certificates include an orthopedic surgeon, an electrical engineer, a corporate lawyer, a Sportsman (a professional boxer) and a Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) holder in Housekeeping Services. Two university graduates, both females, participated in the research, one with a degree in International Relations, and the other with a post graduate degree in Hematology. Participants with these specialty certificates are less likely to shift employment sectors and are able to provide their needed skills throughout the region.   A sector unaccounted for in the data is the informal market. The informal sector on the island accounts for roughly 30-40% of Barbados’ economy (IDB, 2017). Given the estimated number of Guyanese on the island perceived to be without papers, paired with the testimony from participants, it is safe to assume that there is robust Guyanese engagement with the informal sector for employment opportunities. ‘Informal’ takes the form of any unregulated and untaxed income; informal employment in a formal business or employment in an informal business (IDB, 2017). In this research, that includes informally working outside of the Barbados legal parameters for CSME migrants (i.e., working while Certificates issued outside of Barbados are being verified by the Barbados 34      Accreditation Council, or working while under hassle-free entry). Research indicates that services reported to have high informality in Barbados, mimics the sectors where formal Guyanese employment is found in abundance (ILO, 2017). Construction, and service industries, i.e., hospitality, transportation, retail and wholesale trades have the highest reported rates of informality (ILO, 2017). For participants engaged with informal employment, it was often alongside formal employment. In some cases, participants were unaware that businesses they worked in were unregistered. These typically came in the form of small eateries such as roti shops, and small convenience shops. Additionally, participants were sometimes unaware that their employers had not registered their employment, rendering them informally employed. In these cases, despite unassumingly engaging in informal employment, participants are subject to fines and deportation, face criminal charges, and possible imprisonment.   Despite these challenges, the labour Guyanese have provided has been recognised as sustaining the Barbadian economy in tangible ways, ‘contributing significantly to national development’ of the island (UNDP, 2022:2). Guyanese labour is credited with allowing Barbados to host a successful 2007 Cricket World Cup Games, through building and upgrading stadiums, hotels, housing and supporting infrastructure (UNDP, 2022). However, the most notable contribution of Guyanese labour has been towards Barbados agriculture. According to the UN, Guyanese nationals have ‘provided critical support’ in this field, ‘contributing to local food security’ of the island (UNDP, 2022:13). Former PM to Barbados, Owen Arthur, has noted, ‘If it were not for Guyanese labourers in this country doing work that Barbadians no longer seem to want to do, agriculture would have collapsed’ (cited in Niles, 2006).   Guyanese, and in particular, Indo Guyanese, have a connection to agriculture related to their indentured past, which will be explored shortly in Part II. All Indo Guyanese respondents, regardless of gender, either directly participated in agricultural activity before moving to Barbados or had immediate family members that continued to participate in some form of agricultural activity in Guyana, as a primary or a supplemental source of income. Unsurprisingly, respondents have found a seamless move into the sector in Barbados (and the wider Caribbean), as most indicate working in agriculture some point, particularly: during their initial move to the island, as an alternative during times when in-between jobs, selling their personally farmed produce in markets, and maintaining subsistence plots. Cheapside Market, located in Bridgetown, is the largest fruit and 35      vegetable market on the island. Individual vendors sell produce to the public, with Saturdays and Sundays being the busiest times. When I first arrived in the island, Bajan participants identified Cheapside Market as a location for me to engage with the Guyanese community. I found that many of the vendors were Indo Guyanese, taking their generational practice of farming and making an income from their produce. Many of the vendors used Cheapside to supplement household income, where other members of the family were breadwinners. In some cases, families operate several stalls. These tend to be families who have been in Barbados for decades, sometimes generations, and have access to larger plots of land to plant and farm.       Through the ethnography, I found that understanding who is considered Guyanese has generational ties and goes beyond nationality. Enumeration is political. Officially and unofficially, the total Guyanese population on the island remains contested. As mentioned, estimates range anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 people. And while it is difficult to account for the total irregular and undocumented group, these estimates do take into consideration children born in Barbados of Guyanese parentage or heritage (IOM, 2017). Barbados claims Jus Soli citizenship, so children born in Barbados have automatic citizenship, and are Bajan. Yet, in this instance, according to participants, they are considered ‘Bajan-born Guyanese, where at least one parent is Guyanese. Amongst participants, ‘Bajan-born Guyanese’ are considered Guyanese by the Guyanese community and Guyanese by Bajan participants. This brings to light questions beyond citizenship and what it means to be Bajan, to be Guyanese, and to be considered both. The following section begins to address the question of what it means to be Indo in a region where perceptions of a creolized Caribbean reign.     Part II is based on secondary sources and uses the concepts of creolization and indenture to explore the long history of the Indian presence in the Caribbean. It pays particular attention to the legacies of the indentureship period (1838-1917). The argument is that the identity of the Indo Guyanese on Barbados today can only be fully understood in the context of two centuries of history covering both the colonial and postcolonial periods. The section is therefore more than mere background - it has an explanatory purpose. It acts as a bridge to the remaining thesis.     36      PART II  UNPACKING THE INDO GUYANESE EXPERIENCE  To understand the Indo Guyanese community in Barbados and their experiences of emotional (un)belonging and inclusion and exclusion, it is necessary to first understand Indo Guyanese. I use this section to unpack what it means to be Indo Guyanese by exploring their history into the region through indenture, and the legacy it imparted on this community’s sense of identity. This chapter unpacks the concept of creolization to understand how Indo Guyanese participants view themselves as simultaneously a part of the Caribbean and apart from the Caribbean. The concept of creolization is relevant but has limits in describing the Indo Guyanese experience. These limits will be revisited through participant narratives in the ethnographic chapters 6-8. There are debates about whether Indo Guyanese can be considered creole, and whether they desire to accept this label. The tension circles around ideas of mixture and purity; a belief that mixture leads to a loss of one’s culture while purity is viewed as retaining an unadulterated culture. Much of the way Indo Guyanese view themselves, and are viewed by Afro Bajans, is rooted in their indentured history which has defined ethnic, religious, and gendered differences between the groups.    Gilmartin argues that ‘The relationship between migration, identity and belonging stretches across place and time. The challenges, for geographers, is to interrogate the ways in which this relationship alters and changes across a variety of mutually constitutive scales’ (2008:1848). It is within this understanding of emotional experiences that I frame Indo Guyanese belonging. Floya Anthias has analysed how belonging has become framed as an exchange between “minority and majority ‘cultures’ ”, locating culture as a basis for identity (2001:619-620). How then, is the Indo Guyanese belonging imagined, if not through the lens of culture?   According to Anthias, ‘identity formation and re-formation involves the use of narratives of belongingness’ (2001:622). Anthias argues that belonging-ness is ‘more malleable’ than identity in discourses of inequality.  The framing of identity and belonging is defined based on boundaries of ‘difference’, or as Anthias says, ‘the differences that count, their normative and political evaluation, the boundaries of collectivities and social bonds, and 37      how they are struggled over’ (2016:173). While belonging is viewed as ‘always in relation to something outside the self’, identity relates more to a ‘possessive characteristic of the individual’ (2016:176). Belonging ‘to’ an entity implies belonging ‘with’ others who share belonging to that entity, asking ‘ “to what’ and ‘with whom’ you are a member, where and by whom you are accepted and you feel attached to, rather than who you are…’ (Anthias, 2016:178). This understanding of acceptance and attachment is underlined by the individual pursuit for intersubjective recognition (Koefoed and Simonsen, 2012). This section attempts to address Indo Guyanese recognition through the lens of creolization.   CREOLIZATION In its original application in the late 1500s, Creole referred, contradictorily, both to those of European parentage born in the New World, as well as blacks of African parentage born [into slavery] in the New World (Stewart, 2007; Hall, 2010:27-28). By the 19th century, creolization was understood as a process which generated ‘languages, peoples, and cultures’ (Cohen and Toninato, 2010:3). Going into the 20th century, the concept was bolstered by the literary and intellectual works of Édouard Glissant and Kamau Brathwaite’s respective analyses of French-Caribbean creole-thought and Anglo-Caribbean (particularly Jamaican) creole society. Glissant describes creolization as ‘the unceasing process of transformation’, a ‘process of becoming’ of ‘inexhaustible change’ (1989:142). In this process of becoming, mixing, is paramount (Glissant, 1989). While Glissant views the Caribbean region as an outstanding example of how this has flourished, he admits that ‘no people has been spared the cross-cultural process’ (1989:140). Stuart Hall’s view of Creolization is influenced by Glissant’s work. He agrees that ‘all cultures have absorbed and continue to absorb influences from other cultures’, and in this process, ‘can no longer exist in a “pure” state but have been permanently “translated” ’(Hall, 2010:29). Given the term was never ‘fully fixed racially’, Hall and Glissant argue that creolization has always described ‘cultural, social and linguistic mixing rather than racial purity’ (Hall, 2010:28; Glissant:1989).   Due to the element of translatability, creolization has been advocated increasingly by geographers as an important analytic and explanatory tool in the wider context of migration discourse (Cohen, 2007; 2009; 2013; 2015; Cohen and Toninato, 2010). Creolization is separate to ideas of hybridity and cultural syncretism, which have been critiqued for ‘static and selective’ borrowing, as a result of uneven power dynamics (Anthias, 2001:626). Robin 38      Cohen suggests that creolization provides a pathway in confronting how societies interact with and respond to cultural difference and the evolving trajectories of identities for migrants, diaspora communities, and host communities (Cohen, 2007:369; 2013; Cohen and Toninato, 2010). Creolization, according to Cohen, offers space to describe and explain the unbounded and fluid nature of culture as it shapes social identities (2013).   However, as Anthias stresses, ‘the stories we tell ourselves that we are all becoming global, hybrid and diasporic can only be told by those who occupy…a space of “new stability and self-assurance” ’(2001:619). Despite the agency of creolization as a tool of understanding outside of the Caribbean region, Khan (2007), Munasinghe (2001), Puri (2004), Tsuji (2009), Yoshiko (2002a; 2002b; 2008), cite the limited extent of creolization in its inability to ‘translate’ the East Indian experience in the Anglophone Caribbean. On the one hand, the concept of creolization ‘undermines primordial ideas of purity, race and ethnicity’, recognising the peoples of mixed heritage, ‘challenging territorial and language-based notions of nationalism’ (Cohen and Toninato 2016:16). However, when applied to the Indo Caribbean experience, creolization problematically becomes associated with ‘purity from impurity’ (Munasinghe, 2002:680), as understood by notions of a distinct creole culture or creole people as seen in Trinidad (Khan, 2007). Confusion of this is highlighted in Munasinghe’s research (2001), whereby Indo Trinidadians are excluded from the national political space due to their perceived lack of creolization. Rather, they are encouraged to creolize in order to align with ideas of the dominant ‘mixed’ cultural norm, or in this case, a true creole identity (Munasinghe, 2001). This is further confounded in the case of Guyana, where Indo Guyanese largely assert their claim to a pure unmixed Indianness (Hinds, 2010). However, as will be explored in this research, this claim itself is a myth.    In this discussion of a distinct creole culture in the region, where do Indo Caribbeans fit? Tsuji maintains cultural mixing does not fundamentally signify cultural production/ cultural change, and that ‘culture(s)’ are adaptable; contextualised along space, place, and time (2006, 2008, 2009). And ideas of any culture being distinct is ‘inherently problematic’ (Tsuji, 2009; Puri 2004). Tsuji and Puri assert that in creolization, binary interpretations of ‘purity’ and ‘mixing’ fundamentally essentialises ‘culture’ as pure posing ideas of an ‘original or originary culture’ to be mixed, or creolized (Tsuji, 2006, 2009:59-60; Puri, 2004:38).   39      The Caribbean represents a unique space for transformation; as Stuart Hall stresses, ‘there is something quite distinctive, throughout these [Caribbean] and other colonial settings, where different cultures were brought together and forced to coexist… which produced a specific cultural model: and the heart of that model is the process of creolization’ (2010:37), which includes the Indo Guyanese presence and experience. Munasinghe takes inspiration from Sidney Mintz, reminding us that creolization ‘stood for centuries of culture building rather than cultural mixing or cultural blending, by those who became Caribbean people’ (1998:119). Munasinghe maintains that Indo Caribbeans be included in creole discourse, as they have adapted and incorporated novel elements of being, making them ‘culture creators and culture bearers’ in the Caribbean narrative (1997:72-86; 2001; 2006). In the following section, I link Munasinghe’s above claim to the distinctive element of creolization that Hall describes, which displays the ‘creative practices and creative expression’ in the Caribbean (2010:37) to the Indo Guyanese experience. Indo Guyanese are indeed creolized as they have been shaped by a process enabling them to be ‘culture creators and culture bearers’ which in turn informs and (re)defines their Indianness. It is this notion of Indianness (as the ethnography has revealed), however, that separates Indo Guyanese from their belonging and affiliation to a sense of creole identity.     CREOLIZING THE INDO GUYANESE EXPERIENCE As Blunt reminds us, a ‘cultural analysis of both past and present migrations reveals a great deal about…the embodied politics of identity and difference’ (2007:686). Slavery ended across the British West Indies in 1838. The same year, indentureship servitude schemes began to import labour from South and East Asia (primarily from the subcontinent, although smaller numbers of Chinese were transported) as a direct replacement of previous plantation labour using enslaved people brought against their will from West Africa. The term ‘coolie’ historically denoted manual labourers in Southeast Asia, becoming synonymous with these labourers shipped to the Caribbean and elsewhere during the British Raj from 1838-1917 under the indentureship system (Carter and Torabully, 2002; Bahadur, 2013; Dabydeen and del Pilar Kaladeen, 2018).  Up until the early 19th century, maritime migration in the subcontinent was limited. It was believed that crossing the engulfing Kala Pani, the ‘black water’ that surrounded the Indian subcontinent (the Indian Ocean), symbolically severed the identity of those from the 40      subcontinent, detaching them from their religious homeland; undoing caste, spiritual, and ancestral affiliations (Carter and Torabully, 2002; Bass, 2013:30; Mehta, 2015). While this would be attractive to the ‘untouchable’/Dalit caste, for those belonging to the four main varnas – or caste groupings (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra), crossing the Kala Pani meant surrendering your inherited varna and becoming casteless – outcast or avarna (Bass, 2013:27). However, under the British Raj, over 2 million people from the subcontinent left their homeland under contracts of indentured servitude to three main regions: the Indian Ocean, Pacific, and Caribbean (Roopnarine, 2018). As Rodney notes, ‘drought, famine, and distress in British India provided the context in which emigration agents and recruiters lured members of the rural population to undertake the journey across the “black water” ’(1981:33-34).  Between 1838-1917, over 500,000 indentured were transported to the Caribbean. Over half of that number, 238,909 people, were taken to British Guiana alone. With contracts lasting a minimum of seven years, and given the option to re-indenture, more than three quarters of those brought to the region remained in the Caribbean upon completion of their contracts. For many indentured who were unaware of the duration of the contracts and distance of travel involved, their journey resulted in a loss of connection to spirituality and self, in what has been described as a rupturing of identities (Vertovec, 1997; Mehta, 2015; Dabydeen and del Pilar Kaladeen, 2018; Outar, 2018).   Crossing the Kala Pani marked the symbolic and literal break for many of these individuals from their homeland - these individuals left their families, communities, and social networks permanently behind (Roopnarine, 2014, 2015, 2018). Those who returned to India found themselves no longer welcomed considering their journey across the Kala Pani, with many occupying the slums along the docks of port areas (Bahadur, 2013). The indentured who stayed in the Caribbean became part of the Indo indentured diaspora. Given this group in their experience of dispossession, how would they remake themselves and their community, to belong in the Caribbean?   In this research, I assert Brinda Mehta’s (2004) and Adlai Murdock’s idea of the region and argue that Indo Guyanese are ‘both a diasporized and creolized society’ (Murdock, 2012); diasporized as Indo Guyanese continue to (re)shape and (re)form themselves as a part of both Indian and Caribbeanized cultures, in their continued regional movement. The sense 41      of belonging for Indo Guyanese ‘relates both to the homeland, and to the society of settlement and is reconfigured within a diasporic space…Such identities are never complete and are being continuously made and remade’ (Anthias, 2001:625). The indentured population hailed from multiple regions of the sub-continent. They brought their varying traditions and practices with them, which were ultimately shared and transfused as they were spread across and confined on plantations throughout the regional colonies. In the discourse of creolization and the debate surrounding mixed vs pure, what is expressed as Indian culture in the region today, is a transfusion of varying Indian traditions which began since their arrival to the region and continues to be shaped (Tsuji, 2006, 2009; Torabully, 2002). Nonetheless, the myth of a pure Guyanese Indianness persists, and is perpetuated by both Indo Guyanese and Afro Guyanese, as will be explored.  Unlike the enslaved people brought to the colony, indentured labourers were technically free, and not forced to adopt British traditions/ religion/ language (Vogt-William, 2014). Rodney notes, ‘there were the racial and cultural distinctions’ between the Afro and Indo population in Guyana, ‘which increasingly came to coincide with job specialization and residential separation’ as indentureship was phased out (1981:219). Land in the colony, or return passage to their home country, was offered to indentured labourers upon successful completion of their contracts. Roughly three quarters of the 239,000 indentured to Guyana took the option of land, which was parcelled-up outside of the city and away from more developed areas (Hinds, 2011; Roopnarine, 2018). Contrarily, former slaves pooled their savings, collectively purchasing former plantations and surrounding lands (Hinds, 2011). Roughly 25 villages were established, with Africans owning ~2,000 freehold properties (Hinds, 2011). While this option created villages for some former slaves, many other Afro Guyanese left estates altogether in pursuit of opportunity outside of plantation work2, and migrated to the capital city of Georgetown.   These distinct colonial governance practices constructed an ‘ethnic’ divide in spatial distribution between the two largest populations in Guyana, which endures today, enforcing notions of racialized spaces or ‘ethnic villages’ in the country. It is understood  2 Plantation owners cut wages of former enslaved, discontinued their allowances of food and medicines, prevented formerly enslaved from fishing in the canals, from killing animals, from chopping fruit trees, from irrigating the farmland on their cultivation plots. These methods were used by plantation owners to ensure slaves would remain working on the plantations. 42      ‘in rural-Guyana, there are several ethnic villages’ (Samuel and Wilson, 2008:11). From a demographic perspective, ethnicity is used in association with certain regions/spaces of the country, i.e. interior/Hinterland regions of the country reflects the Amerindian population, Georgetown maintains a majority Afro population (~50%) and the island of Leguan is primarily Indo (~80%) (Bureau of Statistics: Guyana, 2016).The Indo Guyanese population is generalised as primarily rural, as this inherited land largely remained under familial ownership and stewardship throughout the generations. In contrast the Afro Guyanese are perceived as urban. Post-independence, these divisions would come to reflect an ethnic divide in labour. This connection to the land and farming continues today, as Indo Guyanese currently dominate the agricultural /agrarian economy, primarily through the country’s sugar and rice production and Afro Guyanese dominate civil positions (Rodney, 1981; Hinds, 2011; Richard-Greaves, 2013). And as discussed in the previous section, this is reflected in their job specialisation as they migrate, as Guyanese find themselves in agricultural work in Barbados.   Vogt-William cites the irony that while indentured Indians were not forced to creolize, this ultimately worked against them by increasing their isolation from wider Afro Guyanese society, thus decreasing solidarity with the Afro Caribbean community, while perpetuating the myth of Indo Guyanese purity (2014). Khan (2001, 2004a, 2004b) Stewart (2007) and Roopnarine (2018) suggest that because Asian indentured were brought to the Caribbean after Africans had gained their freedom, moved away from plantations, formed their own villages, and developed a syncretic Christian-based Afro Guyanese ‘culture’, indentured Indians were not able to fully absorb into this established creole culture. Indentured labour was not only used to undercut wages of the formerly enslaved, but indentured were given land for their labour, which was refused to enslaved people upon their emancipation. Experiencing similar conditions, environments, and hardships, but not concurrently, meant that Indians and Africans were essentially segregated, leading to further social distancing from one another once indentureship ended in 1917. Despite the transformative process of indenture, Indo Guyanese have asserted a claim to an unadulterated pure (non-creolized) Indianness, based on their retention of religious customs and traditional practices (Hinds, 2010; Premdas, 2011). This has not only complicated their relationship with wider creole belonging in Guyana (Harewood, 2010), but as the ethnography has revealed (and will be expanded in ch.6), in Barbados as well.   43      By the end of indentureship in 1917, people of East Indian heritage comprised the largest ethnic group in British Guiana (at 42.7%), with the Afro population the second largest (at 39%) (Roberts, 1948:186), a trend which remains today. After indentureship ended, the British continued to peddle negative stereotypes of the ‘foreign Indian’ to the Afro Caribbean community, warning that ‘coolie’ traditions, religion, and language threatened to destabilise and upend the social order Afro Caribbeans worked to establish over the generations after gaining their freedom (Vogt-William 2014:33).   As touched-on in Part I of this chapter, during Guyana’s road to independence, the split between Jagan and Burnham reignited existing ethnic divides. This took the form of racialized politics; with the Indo population increasingly supporting the PPP under the leadership of Jagan, and the Afro population increasingly supporting the PNC under the leadership of Burnham (Seecharan, 2008; Hinds, 2011; Vezzoli, 2014:12). By the early 1960s ethnic violence was erupting through protests, strikes and demonstrations, with overwhelmingly Indo Guyanese victims and Afro Guyanese aggressors (Vezzoli, 2014). The PNC retained power until 1992 and in that time, several elections led to violence between PNC and PPP members over election fraud accusations (Vezzoli, 2014:19).  With a ‘creole nationalism’ emerging as the dominating force in the political and socioeconomic landscape since independence, Indo Guyanese increasingly viewed themselves as separate from the Afro population, and vice versa (Kamugisha, 2019:106). Despite being in Barbados, many Indo Guyanese participants understood most social relationships using this frame inherited by Guyanese history. Central to that framework, is the fraught relationship between Afro and Indo populations in Guyana, which they expect to carry-over into Barbados. Indo participants express their dismay, that despite their large population and eventual, but intermittent representation in Guyanese government and politics, they feel their presence continues to be challenged, and continually minimised, from the cultural fabric of the nation and the region.  In Guyanese participants’ understanding, politics and the political arena is the foremost way to support or undermine a group’s sense of belonging and inclusion. For participants, strict immigration laws and heavy-handed policing is viewed as just another way ruling parties legally curb the Indo Guyanese presence in Barbados. For Indo Guyanese research participants, they feel this is directly linked to their ethnic identity. As discussed earlier in 44      this section, the colonial histories of the Anglophone region have been premised on ideas of belonging and inclusion as tightly associated with ethnicity, leaving groups in contested spaces when falling outside the dominant Afro ethnic grouping (Tate and Law, 2015:88). This will come to focus in ch.6, as the testimonies of Bajan participants show how Indo Guyanese are perceived as different to their Afro Guyanese counterparts, which results in increased policing and increased scrutiny by the public.   This case complicates the wider academic discourse on the character of creolized belongings by analysing the competition between different versions of ‘being creole’ emerging from the same place. These different ideas of whose creolization is more authentically Guyanese not only has material impacts in terms of how Guyanese encounter each other but is also demonstrably relational in a classical sense of defining the self through its difference from the other. When Afro Guyanese describe Indo Guyanese, they articulate more about their perception of their idea of their own creole self, rather than about their knowledge of the creole other. The reverse is also true. Yet they can only articulate that self and difference because of the presence of the other, thus there is an inter-dependence which rests on its own denial, or rather the assertion of difference.  For Indo and Afro Guyanese, the longevity and resilience of Indo Guyanese traditions and customs, places this group as separate from (and in opposition to) the Afro Guyanese and Afro Bajan imaginary. This will come to focus in ch.7, as Hindu religious customs and rites become viewed as separate and foreign to Bajan orthodoxy. In the minds of Afro Guyanese and Afro Bajan participants, the Indo Guyanese community have been viewed as retaining their Indianness, excluding them from creole belonging (which is the focus of ch.6). Simultaneously, Indo Guyanese have taken ownership of this differentiating marker from the wider Guyanese population, viewing their Indianness as resistant to integration, hybridization or cosmopolitanism (Harewood, 2010; Kamugisha, 2019). They have used Indianness as a form of self-assertion in their reconstruction of identity in the Caribbean (Harewood, 2010). As Hall asserts,  ‘Guyanese talk about ‘Indians or Creoles,’ and by Creoles they mean ‘blacks’ (whatever their actual skin color), descendants of Africans born in Guyana, whereas ‘Indians’ refers to the indentured population from Asia. These examples suggest that ‘Creole’ remains a powerfully charged but also an exceedingly slippery signifier.’ (2010:14-15)  45      In Guyana, there is the association of Afro Guyanese as creole embodiments; simultaneously associating Indo Guyanese as coolie, rooted in the Indo Guyanese community’s claims to Indian purity, and their apparent disassociation as creole. For Indo Guyanese participants, though their citizenship is incontestable, their socioeconomic and political marginalisation remains revealing of their belonging to the wider region. Commonality of shared histories unites Afro Guyanese along ethnic groupings to a wider creole Caribbean community, including the Afro Bajan community. This is used to determine and ascribe unbelonging and exclusion for groups, like Indo Guyanese, who fall outside the dominant elite group – an exclusion that includes alienation from the claim to be creole. Yet, Indo Guyanese can be victims to and perpetuate this system simultaneously. Within this idea of an Indo Caribbean solidarity, Dougla identities (those who identify as having mixed Indo and Afro heritage) and Indo Bajan perceptions of ‘authentic Indians’ disrupt the notion that a pure Indianness exists in the region.    DOUGLA IDENTITY Dougla is a term primarily used in Guyana, Trinidad, and Suriname to denote someone of mixed Indo and Afro heritage. It has roots in North India, meaning bastard, and originally referred to children of inter-caste/religious (inter-varna) unions (Munasinghe, 2001:85). In the Caribbean setting, various academics have argued that the contention surrounding Indo identities lies within the Indo Caribbean community’s unwillingness to recognise ethnic mixture across the Indo Caribbean population, starkly contrasting with the spirit of creolization (see Sampath, 1993; Reddock, 1998, 2010, 2014b; and Puri, 2004). And despite its negative roots, the term ‘Dougla’ itself recognises the actualization of an ethnically mixed Indianness in the region (Munasinghe, 2001). This counters notions of Indian purity through the disavowal of mixtures altogether, as seen with lack of colloquial terms for children of Indian and other ethnic parentage (Munasinghe, 2001:85).   Puri argues that the Dougla experience bridges the gap between creolization and the Indo Caribbean experience by recognising how the ethnically mixed Caribbean both challenges and supports social inequality within the region, through what she terms ‘the triple discourse of illegitimacy’ for Indo Caribbeans (2004:220). Indo Caribbean children were first deemed illegitimate by the colonial state, as Hindu/Islamic unions were not recognised by the Church of England. This was compounded by the ‘rejection’ of Indo Caribbeans as 46      part of the Indian state, rendering them the ‘illegitimate children of India’3 (Puri, 2004:220; Niranjana, 2006). Puri notes the counterintuitive nature of Indo Caribbeans having endured these experiences of illegitimacy, now enacting their own ‘disciplining practices that demonizes the mixed descendants of Indo and Afro Caribbean as illegitimate’ within their own community (2004:220). While the ‘ethnic boundary-making’ (Wimmer, 2013; Midtbøen, 2016:345) of Indo identity is established through the conscious omission of mixed Indo bodies, the ethnic boundary-making of creole identity is adaptable. Indo boundary-making and exclusion of mixed Indo bodies delegitimises belonging within the Indo community. This means that Dougla children are usually absorbed into creole society yet are often excluded by members of Indo society (Reddock, 2014b).   Insofar as the Caribbean is recognised as a space of mixture – a melting pot of peoples, cultures and traditions – notions of ‘mixedness’ are often socially demarcated along lines of racial difference (Samuel and Wilson, 2008; Premdas, 2011; Tate and Law, 2015). Despite the normalcy and regularity of interracial unions, ideas of racialization run in parallel to ideas of ‘mixedness’ (Tate and Law, 2015:1). As Premdas expands, in Guyanese popular imagination,   ‘Even though objectively there is a wide array of racial mixtures, a person is soon stereotyped into one of the existing social categories to which both “blood” and “culture” are assigned a defining role. In a “we-they” positioning, each person accepts his/her assignment to a communal category which in turn separates and establishes individual and collective identity from other similar groupings’.   (1999:370)   This will be explored in ch.6 through the narratives of Brian and Sean. Their stories will show that self-identifying and being seen as Dougla expresses the uneasy joint experience of being creole and being coolie. Their experience of growing-up Dougla in Guyana is contrasted with their experience of being Dougla migrants in Barbados. According to Brian and Sean, due to their migratory experience in Barbados, some Indo Guyanese have changed the way they view those who identify as Dougla. Previously they excluded and scrutinised Dougla bodies, now they have (re)incorporated these previously ‘illegitimate’ ‘impure’ Douglas; ultimately (re)forming and (re)shaping ideas of a pure Guyanese Indianness to account for mixture. Their narratives will show how Dougla identity  3 To read more on the subaltern Indo Caribbean identity see Niranjana, T. (2006) ‘The Indian in Me’: Studying the Subaltern. In Mobilizing India. Duke University Press.ch. 1:1-17.  47      challenges static notions of belonging, as Indo Guyanese migrants in Barbados now incorporate those previously excluded.   THE AUTHENTIC INDIAN As discussed in the previous section, Indians first came to Barbados as free passengers, who paid their fare and were not involved in the indenture scheme. Degia argues there is a sense of Indian ‘authenticity’ amongst Indo Bajans regarding their free passenger past, as compared to Indo Caribbean descendants of indentured past (2018). This view amongst the Indo Bajan community, supports their claim that Indian migrants to the Caribbean post-indenture, or not involved in the indenture system, have a closer identification and affiliation to Indians from the subcontinent, as opposed to those in the Caribbean with Indian heritage from the indenture period. This has led to ideas and attitudes of who can claim Indianness/who can identify as a real Indian, or as Degia phrases, an ‘authentic Indian’ (2018:157). Degia argues that Indo Bajans view themselves as ‘authentic’ Indians, while Indo Guyanese are viewed ‘inauthentic’ Indians due to perceived acts of creolization: loss of language, religious alteration/adulteration, and inter-ethnoreligious unions (2018:517-158). This illustrates the problematics of deciphering creolization in the region.   Despite the local assumption that creolization involves ‘genetic mixture’ (Stewart 2007:4), descendants of passenger Indians view themselves as separate ‘authentic Indians’ in comparison to ‘inauthentic’ indentured-heritage Indians, regardless of inter-marriage. The belief of authenticity is based in notions of East Indian purity (Degia, 2018), whereby ‘East Indian modernity, borne through the experience of indentureship, was seen as degenerated, degraded, inauthentic and impure’ (Niranjana, 2006; Hosein and Outar 2012:17). Indo Bajans view themselves as closer to, or similar, to people from India, in comparison to those from Indian indentured heritage, like Indo Guyanese. This imagined ‘hierarchy of belonging’ (Clarke, A. 2019) in the Indo Bajan case, dictates that descendants of Indo Caribbeans involved in indenture, be placed at the bottom of the sociocultural pyramid treating Indo Guyanese as ‘inauthentic Indians’ (Degia, 2018). This judgement exemplifies the contradictory nature of creolization and the Indo Caribbean experience: not wholly a part of the larger community while simultaneously not wholly part of the minority community with ethnocultural similarities. The argument of ‘authenticity’ 48      complicates how Indo Guyanese from indentured heritage have been understood as creolized and deemed inauthentic by Indo Bajans with free passenger past.    Just as ‘purity’ and ‘impurity’ are used by Indo Bajans to distinguish themselves from the wider Indo Caribbean population who are descendant of former indentured, so do Afro Bajan participants use identity markers to set the Indo Bajan population apart from the wider (Afro) Bajan population. Afro Bajan participants comment on attributes which separate them from Indo Bajans, citing the Indo Bajan’s relatively insular and voluntarily private community and differences in ‘traditional expectations’ governing behaviours and lifestyle, i.e., regarding education, work, adherence to religion, and gendered expectations. ‘To the extent that majority members see ethnicity as an essentialist element of national identity…the one who deviates from that standard may be considered to be outside the acceptable limits’ (Verkuyten et al., 2019:400). Furthermore, this distinction of a ‘true national’ (Verkuyten et al., 2019:400) blurs what it means for belonging and acceptance for those outside of these ethnic markers. Afro Bajan participants felt that the ethnic purity of Indo Bajans conflicted with notions of ‘Bajanness’. The ‘authenticity’ that Indo Bajans claim is perceived by Afro Bajan participants as ‘homogeneity’, reinforcing notions that Indo Bajans are a divergent social ethnoreligious group on the island (Degia, 2018). Yet this runs counter to Indo Bajans’ strong national pride and sense of being Bajan (Degia, 2018).    Nonetheless, this places Indo Guyanese as a cultural outlier; with Indo Guyanese perceived as culturally closer to Indo Bajans, in the minds of Afro Bajans, yet perceived as creolized and hence similar to the Afro Caribbean population, in the minds of Indo Bajans (Degia, 2018:156-158). These issues will come to light in the narratives of Aisha in ch.6 and Kareem in ch.7, in their experiences with the Indo Bajan community. Aisha and Kareem’s stories will show how this comparative perception allows Indo Bajans to perceive their own ‘purity’/ ‘authenticity’ as a measure to effectively other Indo Guyanese migrants and label them as ‘inauthentic’ Indians. This highlights the problematic interpretation of pure and mixed as existing in binary opposition in the application of creolization in the Caribbean, a critique raised in the research of Puri (2004) and Tsuji (2006, 2009, 2013).     49      CONCLUSION I used this chapter to explore migration histories. Part I covered the migration history of Barbados, and Part II covered the migration history of the Indian presence in the region. In doing so, I laid the foundation for addressing the empirical research in the following chapters. Part I provided context to the legal and governmental framework in which CARICOM free movement operates. The chapter introduced background into the political environment in Barbados in the early 2000s regarding migration and subsequent policies which have complicated the realities of free movement. The history of migration in Barbados was covered, adding to background on the Guyanese community on the island including their present situation. Guyanese are estimated to be the largest CSME migrant group on the island, although official data is absent. While information is sparse, the broad profile of the Guyanese community shows that they are of working age and majority female. Whereas in the past females were moving to join spouses, now most females are skilled or certified, being wage earners themselves. Many Guyanese migrants are involved in the agricultural, construction, care, hospitality and service sectors, which are also the sectors that have high rates of informal employment. The political and socioeconomic reality in Guyana is credited as a source of emigration. Despite this broad overview, lifestyles and general characteristics of the Guyanese community in Barbados, particularly Indo Guyanese, are widely absent from island-wide data collection.  In the same way creole has come to reference a distinct ethnic group in the Caribbean, so too coolie, is understood by participants as an ethnic marker for the Indo Caribbean population descended from indentured workers. In Guyana, coolie remains a racialized term, implying someone of East Indian heritage with low socio-economic standing (Carter and Torabully, 2002; Hinds, 2010; Roopnarine, L. 2005, 2018). Although the term was used amongst Guyanese participants, I found it was seldom used by Bajan participants, particularly with younger Bajans aged mid-30s and below. This group have voiced their objection to using the term with an overtly offensive and derogatory history, and Indian has become the preferred term. In older Bajan participants’ vernacular, Indian has retained the same racialized meaning as coolie. It reverts to the idea that descendants of indenture have retained an ‘Indian purity’ and a disassociation from the Caribbean. It assumes an unwillingness of descendants of indenture to become part of the Caribbean fabric which they have occupied for over 180 years.   50      Indo Guyanese have a complex relationship with ideas of racial and ethnic purity versus mixture. It is estimated that ~80-85% of total indentured population was Hindu, with 5-10% being Muslim (Younger, 2010:76; Chickrie and Khanam, 2017). Throughout the generations many Indians felt compelled to convert to Christianity (Bramadat, 2011:315), and as a strategic move to increase social mobility prospects afforded to Christianised members of society (Kanhai, 2011). Contemporary trends of traditionally Hindu regions of Guyana report a decrease in Hinduism and an increase in Christianity, particularly Pentecostalism (Bureau of Statistics: Guyana, 2016). Nonetheless, as Indo Guyanese continue to be racialized today, they are viewed not just Hindu but are associated with a host of negative connotations the term has come imply over the generations (uneducated/ unwesternised/ ‘backward’/ rural/ poor), as will be explored in ch.6-8. These assumptions by the Bajan community work to promote an image of undesirable traits inherent in the Indo Guyanese community, dismissing their sense of belonging to the wider society. And in instances where Indian purity is questioned, Indo creole belonging becomes malleable. Views of this supposed purity will come into focus in ch.6 with the discussion of belonging for migrants who identify as Dougla (someone of Indo and Afro heritage), and for Muslim Indo Guyanese participants in their interactions with Muslim Indo Bajans.   This final section on creolizing the Indo Guyanese experience provides the basis through which participants understand their place among Afro creole members of the region. Participants view themselves as a part of the Caribbean alongside viewing themselves as apart from the Caribbean. This complements the empirical foundation of this research, and connects the material revealed from the ethnography to overarching themes of emotional (un)belonging, inclusion and exclusion. It is these experiences of movement which mould the emotional geographies of participants, relating to national undesirability, creole identities, religion, and gender; each theme following the empirical evidence set out in chapters 5-8. The next chapter provides the literature review, which frames the analysis of the empirical chapters to follow.         51      CHAPTER 3 EXISTING RESEARCH ON BELONGING AND EMOTION IN MIGRATION STUDIES  This chapter addresses existing research that explores the utility of framing migrant (un)belonging, inclusion and exclusion through an emotional lens. These discussions are then linked to the case study, in order to analyse how the emotive experience of Indo Guyanese participants in Barbados shapes their migratory realities.     EMOTIONAL GEOGRAPHIES ‘Emotions are part and parcel of everyday life, in all its aspects; as such, emotions have been increasingly debated across the social sciences…despite the plethora of qualitative analyses on the topic, however, the emotional side of the migrant condition seems still relatively understudied.’  Boccagni and Baldassar (2015:73)  The subjective experience of emotions is a result of our contact with others and the world around us (Bondi, 2005; Bondi et.al., 2007). In the 1970s ‘humanistic geographers’ sought to interrogate how people feel when they encounter places and spaces, focusing on ‘questions of human meaning, perceptions and values’ as a means to bridge the objective (external) and subjective (internal) worlds (Bondi, 2005:4). This analysis took footing in feminist geography (Bondi, 2005). It sought to critique ‘traditionally feminized issues like emotions’, disrupting associations of femininity linked to ‘emotionality, body and subjectivity’, questioning binary categorizations of male and female (Bondi, 2005).   In 2007, Svašek and Skrbiš noted the emergence of emotion studies in the social sciences yet observed its absence in the field of migration studies. Through their analysis of globalization, Svašek and Skrbiš charted the varied emotional processes attached to globalization, which influence the movement of ‘people, objects, images, ideas and practices, and vice versa’ (2007:368). They contend that emotions remained overlooked in migration research due to two main challenges. The first is the assumption that emotions are considered an inherent part of the migration experience and therefore do not need to be brought to the forefront of analysis. Outside of migration discourse, Anderson and Smith have considered that emotional geographical inquiry has been overlooked due to a stance that views emotions as ‘something apart from the economic and /or as something 52      that is essentially private’ which effectively ‘clouds vision and impairs judgement’ of both researcher and participant (2002:7). In other words, the fact that they are self-evidently part of migration stories means that in reality, they disappear from the stories altogether. The second challenge is that emotions have been traditionally treated as ‘something that is a reaction to social realities, rather than being constitutive of all human interaction with these realities’ (Svašek and Skrbiš, 2007:372). Nonetheless, by the early 2000s, emotional processes were praised for ‘blurring the boundary between individuality and sociality’ (Svašek and Skrbiš, 2007:370). And as Thien asserts of emotional geography, it thereby seeks to understand ‘how the world is mediated by feeling’ (Thien, 2005:450-451).  Thrift states that emotions ‘form a rich moral array through which and with which the world is thought and which can sense different things even though they cannot always be named’ (2004:60). While it may be possible to analyse emotions dispassionately to some extent, the work they do is often strongly normative because of the association with morality. Thrift’s reference to the world also speaks to the way in which emotions are often embedded in people’s relationship to a particular place. Davidson and Milligan assert that ‘the articulation of emotion is…spatially mediated in a manner that is not simply metaphorical…Our emotional relations and interactions weave through and help form the fabric of our unique personal geographies’(2004:523).   This relationship between space, morality and emotion can be translated from geography to migration studies. As argued by Boccagni and Baldassar (2015), I view this understanding of emotions as embedded not just in place, but also in migrancy - migration indelibly transforms emotional life. According to Berger, migration is ‘a quintessential experience of being human’, as the desire for migrants’ establishment of self, identity and well-being is ‘a universal human quest’ (1984:55; see also Grønseth, 2013:4). Grønseth argues that migrants live in ‘overlapping life worlds’, existing in ‘bodily, existentially, emotionally and cognitively’ grey areas, which are both known yet foreign (2013). These life-worlds are informed from past experiences, creating our individual sense of identity and meaning, yet are fundamentally intersubjective; ‘shaped in the intersection of individual historicity and social environment structures’ (Grønseth, 2013:2). Grønseth echoes Svašek, who contends that emotions are ‘dynamic processes through which individuals experience and interpret a changing world, position themselves vis-à-vis others, and shape their 53      subjectivities’ (2010:868). The migrant-human experience is transformative and built on these interconnected emotionally felt life-worlds. As Grønseth states,   ‘hopes and dreams for the future, together with memories of the past, are literally at the heart of migrants’ everyday lives and as such constitute their sense of self and well-being, as well as their fear of losing both.’ (2013:13)      Boccagni and Baldassar make a similar point about the continuities and discontinuities emerging in the life course of migrants’ emotional experiences (2015). They note the ways in which migrants’ emotions are socially and culturally (re)constructed, asserting that ‘the migration process is characterized by important transformations along the migrants’ life course involving the transmission, reproduction and evolution of emotions in relation to belonging, identity and “home” ’ (2015:74). As McClinchey argues, ‘Emotional experiences rarely surface as critical components of migration…yet often such aspects are implicit in the range of challenges faced by individuals and families who travel to familiar places’ (2016:3).   In this thesis, I assert that it is crucial to bring participant emotions to the forefront of migrant research in order to fully understand how migrants (re)negotiate, (re)shape, and make sense of their lived experiences of being and self. Grønseth reminds us that emotional experiences are framed by social relations which determine an individual’s sense of self (2010, 2013). I contend that an individual’s sense of self is shaped by a culmination of experiences over time, place(s) and surrounding(s) in which they have these experiences, and their intersubjective relationships with others during those experiences (McClinchey 2016; Svašek and Skrbiš, 2007). An individual’s subjective position is based on these past events and relationships, informing future experiences. In a basic sense, an individual’s understanding of themselves and others reforms over time with more experience. I support the argument of Svašek (2006, 2010) and Boccagni and Baldassar (2015), whereby the self as a process (becoming yourself) can be enriched through the ‘exploration of emotional discourses, practices, and embodied experiences’ (Svašek and Skrbiš, 2007:371). Key concepts from migration studies, such as belonging, that have often been viewed through ideas like citizenship or phenomenon like xenophobia, can be reconsidered through this emotional lens.   54      BELONGING ‘As tellers of tales, our stories, our narratives, are rarely just of our making: they come into being in dialogue with those around us and response to lived experiences. We are ever conscious of the footprints of those who went before us, who gave us our ‘story’ such that by collapsing linear time itself, we then form a shared collective ‘present’. It is often the anchored understandings of the limits and boundaries of this that then informs the possibility of a shared future in community…connecting ourselves in this way to the fabric of our surrounding is to see ourselves as integral part of a system or community (and the rootedness and support offered therein) as somehow “belonging” ’. Healy (2020:120-121)  There are different ways to belong. In her research on education, Healy addresses what she argues as two dimensions of migrant students’ belonging in the classroom, membership belonging and sense of belonging, the former relating to citizenship and the latter which is distinguished by a ‘personal, intimate, private sentiment of place attachment’ (Healy, 2020:121). This line echoes the work of Brubaker, who argues belonging is reflective of different analytical positionings; belonging in the nation-state as opposed to belonging to the nation-state (2010b:64). For some marginal populations, while there is no debate regarding their formal state membership, ‘there is often doubt or contestation about their substantive membership’ (Brubaker, 2010b:64). Yuval-Davis describes these differences in belonging by stressing that ‘people can “belong” in many different ways’ (2011:5). While belonging is naturalised, it involves formal and informal dimensions (Yuval-Davis, 2006:197; Katartzi, 2017:454), and as a politicised project it is concurrently multidimensional and layered (Yuval-Davis, 2006; Healy, 2020:121).   Thinking about different ways of belonging also opens a more subtle sense of its politics. In many cases, ‘the politics of belonging is [generated] by various forms of social closure, discrimination, or marginalization’ (Brubaker, 2010b:64-65). The formal membership of belonging connects to state politics via the mechanics of citizenship. The informal sense of belonging provides a space for the more pernicious social politics that might question a citizen’s authenticity as a community member. As Amy Clarke reminds, ‘being recognised as belonging goes beyond individual well-being, having historically translated into real differences in power, opportunity, and resources (2019:96). Drawing parallels from the work of Page et.al., this politicization of belonging is used to determine ‘who belongs where, who has the right to call a particular place their homeland, and who gets to write the most widely accepted story of particular events’ (2010:354). 55       Belonging is closely related to attachment. It is about feeling ‘at home’ and being in a ‘safe space’ (Yuval-Davis et al., 2018:230). While the emotional connection of feeling ‘at home’ and ‘secure’ remain signature attributes of belonging ‘it is equally about being recognised and understood’ (Wood and Waite, 2011:201; Askins, 2015:475). As Healy expands on this notion, she insists that ‘reciprocal relationships, of everyday events and practices, of accepting and being accepted’, of membership and a sense of belonging, work to reinforce one’s feeling of ‘at home’ and ‘secure’ (2020:126). In other words, feeling at home, feeling secure, feeling recognition and understanding, and belonging are interdependent and mutually inclusive. These dynamic emotional connections join people to ‘the material and social worlds that they inhabit and experience’ (Wood and Waite, 2011:201), equating belonging to emotional attachment (Anthias, 2016:178). While belonging often presents as an attachment to place, it is, however, as much about attachments to people.   Belonging is an affective act (Probyn, 1996); humans are driven to seek belonging. Although ‘affect’ has no absolute definition (Thrift, 2004:59), it has often been described as ‘a state of becoming’, an ‘experiential and material force outside consciousness that forms our emotional responses to physical experiences’ (Dewsbury, 2009:21). Referencing the research from psychoanalysis (where research on affect has flourished), human geographers have used ‘affect’ in the analysis of emotions (see Probyn, 1996; Thrift, 2004; Thien, 2005; Dewsbury, 2009; Pile, 2010; Kingsbury and Pile, 2014). Belonging, for these geographers, becomes an affective act: belonging is not simply be-ing, it is ‘longing to be’ and ‘yearning to be’ (Wood and Waite, 2011:202). Fenster (2005), for example, has discussed how belonging cannot be separated from comfort and commitment in private/public space. As Fenster’s research highlights, the right to belong in a place intersects along one’s many ‘identities’ (2005:229). As such, the interest in affect often segues into more classical analytical categories used for thinking about identity (gender, nationality, ethnicity…). Defining one’s identity through belonging is, however, an innately risky emotional venture. Who am I if my belonging is brought into question? Belonging for Probyn, like Healy (2020) and Askins (2015), remains ‘both public and private, personal and common… designating a profoundly affective manner of being’ (1996:12-13). After all, if a person finds they don’t belong it can generate long-lasting, if not permanent, emotional reverberations. As Probyn has suggested, ‘the desire that individuals have to belong, a 56      tenacious and fragile desire, that is…increasingly performed in the knowledge of the impossibility of ever really and truly belonging, along with the fear that the stability of belonging and the sanctity of belonging are forever past’ (1996:8). As belonging is denaturalised, it becomes less reliable as a source of security. As Wood and Waite assert, ‘everyone belongs…however, some people belong to particular groups or places with more intensity than others, and there is often less choice than we might imagine as to whom and where we belong (or do not belong)’ (2011:201).   Healy asserts that although there is a widespread understanding that the human condition necessitates ‘belonging together’, the fragility of belonging is less well understood. This fragility is particularly stark, she suggests, as a consequence of increased mobility in today’s world (2020:119). This sense necessitates taking the varying interests of differing groups and realising a ‘commonly held sense of legitimately belonging together’ and working ‘towards some form of common future’ (2020:120). However, when this communal belonging is not realised, the resultant failure to belong, Healy argues, should be considered along a spectrum of not-belonging and un-belonging. In these cases, not-belonging results in a lost sense of belonging, while un-belonging suggests an undoing of belonging, whereby membership belonging has been revoked, removed or challenged in some way, usually by the state and without the consent of the subject (Healy, 2020:126). Unbelonging is experienced when ‘processes of social bonding and membership are disrupted and undone’ (Mas Giralt, 2020:29). Healy’s analysis shows how political and social factors can work to create conditions to create varied forms of a lack of belonging.   In terms of developing the analytical framework used in this thesis, past research has provided a series of claims. (1) Belonging does not occur naturally. Keep in mind that ‘people do not simply or ontologically “belong” to particular places or social groups’ (Wood and Waite, 2011:2). (2) (Un)belonging is not a singular or static state of being. Rather it is necessary to think of different kinds of belonging and different ways of belonging. Thinking of (un)belonging as something along a spectrum, rather than a binary is a useful provocation. (3) Though experienced as an attachment to place, belonging is as much about the attachment to other people. But in this sense, it is often easily politicised and becomes mired in questions of power and identity in particular contexts. (4) Belonging is a universal desire that emerges from the deep force of affect, which then shapes our emotional reactions to our everyday experiences. It is associated with being at home, 57      secure, comfortable, knowing who you are – as such it relates closely to identity. (5) Investing in this deep desire to belong however, is risky, because when unbelonging is experienced, its effects can be profound and long-lasting. This discussion of emotions and (un)belonging raises fundamental questions to take into the analysis of the ethnography in this thesis: Who belongs? Why do they belong? And what are the ways they belong? Much of this debate about belonging is universal across social science research – the discussion now turns to specific work on belonging and migration.     EMOTION AND (UN)BELONGING IN MIGRATION RESEARCH ‘…migration generates cultural geographies of political possibilities that raise new questions about belonging, border, the nation, and “the people” across spaces and scales… Migration and its related process transform the subjectivities, identities, and senses of self and others for migrants...’  Silvey (2013:419-420)  Crocker contends that emotion is ‘a critical means by which the context of immigrant life gets transferred to the bodies of individual immigrants’, arguing that the structural vulnerabilities experienced in the everyday life of migrants generates emotional suffering (2015:1-2). Crocker’s 2015 research has shown that socioeconomic inequalities experienced by migrants results in their continued experience of emotional hardship and emotional stress. Crocker has linked these inequalities to the emotions of trauma, fear, depression, loneliness, sadness, and stress (2015:2). She asserts that due to the ‘embodiment’ of emotions, ‘migration may be experienced by migrants as a fundamental ungluing, a disembedding, and reembedding of the body into unfamiliar and often hostile spatial and social worlds’ (2015:2). This ‘fundamental ungluing’ links the interest of emotions to the interest of belonging in migration research.  Also in 2015, Mas Giralt asserted that although academics have amply addressed place-belongingness and politics of belonging, they have nonetheless ‘paid less attention to the specific and varied emotions which may constitute sentiments of belonging or to the emotional processes which may lead to the development of these sentiments’ (2015:3). This results in the omission of the ‘micro-expressions of individual attachment and emotional compromises’ migrants navigate in their everyday lives to find and form 58      meaningful bonds (Mas Giralt, 2015; 2020). Without this angle, researchers remain restricted in their understanding of how one’s individual sense of belonging intersects with social worlds in assisting or limiting migrants’ ‘possibilities to belong’ (Mas Giralt, 2015:3; 2020; Antonsich, 2010). Focusing on emotions in migrant life is a human thing to do in ethnographic work and it can be a way of gaining insights into participants’ subjective point of view, identifications, and ‘ways of belonging’. It provides a more empathetic entry into conversation with migrants than the abstract etic themes that are often used to organise ‘structural accounts about them’ (Boccagni and Baldassar, 2015:79). An interest in migrants’ emotions not only provides a lens that brings a deeper understanding of migrant belonging into focus, but it also provides an agenda for talking and interviews that starts from a position of shared humanity.      Existing research suggests that migration is a catalyst which not only accelerates emotional transformations but also transforms understandings of self and being. Gilmartin has argued that while migration is characterised by discontinuity and movement, it is equally characterised by desires for mooring and grounding (2008:1848). Boccagni and Baldassar argue that ‘the issues of belonging and identity…are central to migration and both are quintessentially affective and emotional notions’ (2015:74). For example, inclusion and exclusion are emotive elements of (un)belonging. Migrants determine and negotiate these states based on an ‘active emotional engagement with [their] past, present, and future environments’ (Svašek and Skrbiš, 2007:373). Drawing on such arguments, I position this research as axiomatic that emotion and (un)belonging are inextricably linked in migrant consciousness. Belonging is an innately emotional endeavor for migrants, shaping and shaped by the intersections of their experiences and identities (Gilmartin, 2008). It is not just the case that reflecting on emotions is a way to analyse migration, rather the reverse is also true: migration has a profound effect on the formation of subjects and so enriches the analysis of emotions.   Belonging not only involves ‘acts of identification…but also stems from how someone feels in relation to the social world they inhabit and their experiences of inclusion and exclusion’ (Mas Giralt, 2015:4). Belonging, therefore, can be viewed as a ‘longing to be’ (Probyn 1996), as well as an effort to be recognised. Koefoed and Simonsen (2012) reference Honneth’s 1995 anthropological analysis and argue that intersubjective relationships are a prerequisite for identity formation - fueled by a need to be recognised. 59      Identity formation, or subjectivity, according to Honneth, is borne from ‘assistance and confirmation from other human beings’, or a ‘struggle for recognition’ (Honneth, 1995). Honneth argues that the desire to be mutually recognised operates through three spheres: the private sphere, the legal sphere, and the sphere of achievement (1995). The private sphere is founded on mutual emotional support, affection and concern within an individual’s close personal network. The legal sphere is marked by cognitive respect or ‘equal treatment for citizens under the law in which rights are mutually granted’ (Askins 2016:518). The sphere of achievement ‘can be cultural, political or work communities…and the recognition renders participants able to understand themselves as subjects whose abilities and ways of life are valuable for the common ethical goals of the community’ (Koefoed and Simonsen 2012:627). In their research on citizens in Copenhagen of Pakistani origin, Koefoed and Simonsen illustrate these complex negotiations between denial and recognition in migrant realities, showcasing the divergence when migrants’ felt belonging in their host nation is not recognised by the wider host community (2012). They use this information to argue that migrant identity and affiliation is drawn from a ‘quest for recognition’ in host nations, through actualization of these three spheres. This idea of one’s ‘quest for recognition’ (an intersubjective relationship fulfilled through a mutual acknowledgment of an individual’s private, legal, and achievement needs), is a productive way to think about how migrants act and the choices they make in their drive to belong.                60      CONCLUSION: CONNECTING THE EXISTING LITERATURE TO THE RESEARCH How, then, can we draw on existing research to develop an analytical framework through which to explore everyday life in the Indo Guyanese community in order to continue to fill the gap in migration studies around incorporating emotion into the field? Two decades ago, Anderson and Smith reflected that ‘the human world is constructed and lived through emotions’ and discounting the influence and role emotions play in the social sciences ‘leaves a gaping void in how to both know, and intervene in, the world’ (2002:7). Since then, scholars have started to fill that void. The analysis used in this thesis starts from the assumption that the ‘migrant experience’ is fundamentally emotional. It is through an emotional lens that I unpack how migrants assign meaning and value to their individual and collective experiences. As migrants routinely ‘negotiate between inclusion and exclusion, marginalization and belonging, and adaptation and co-construction’ (Tsui-yan Li, 2019:18), so these concepts are felt through experiences and lived realities. These experiences shape the migrants’ sense of self and identity; the first level of analysis in this thesis divides the empirical material into chapters that present different aspects of identity: nationality, ethnicity, religion, and gender. As Davidson and Milligan remind us, ‘Our sense of who and what we are is continually (re)shaped by how we feel’ (2004:524). It is through their emotive understandings of these varied and negotiated life-worlds that migrants define their sense of attached belongings and un-belongings.   Emotion is presented ‘as a form of connective tissue that links experiential geographies of the human psyche and physique with(in) broader social geographies of place’ (Davidson and Milligan 2004:524). It is claimed that this ‘connective tissue’ adds depth to the study of migration, as ‘migrancy is seen to include the geographical, sensuous, emotional and cognitive movements of migrants’ (Grønseth, 2013:4). This thesis aims to expand the literature on emotional geographies of migration. As expressed by McClinchey, ‘An emotional geography attempts to understand emotion- experientially and conceptually – in terms of its socio-spatial mediation and articulation rather than as an entirely interiorized mental status’ (2016:3; see also Bondi, 2005).  The emotional geography of this case study links the participants to both Barbados and Guyana. Migrants are in continual emotional engagement with their host and origin countries, managing conflicting emotions throughout the migration process (Herrero-Arias et.al., 2020:2). This not only shapes their experiences, but also how they make 61      meaning of these experiences (Herrero-Arias et.al., 2020:2). The migration stories of Indo Guyanese participants in Barbados are based on the convergence of these different emotional experiences. The self-reported testimonies of participants unearthed emotional hardship and emotional suffering (consistent with literature on the emotional toll of migration, such as Croker’s 2015 research with Mexican migrants in Arizona). These were repeatedly expressed through discussions of fear, anxiety, stress, loneliness, sadness, disappointment, duty, responsibility, and failure. Nonetheless, the ethnographic findings uncovered that these exist alongside emotional resolve and perseverance, whereby feelings of joy, happiness, hope, excitement, relief and satisfaction are experienced in participants’ account of their migration journeys.   Based on the existing literature, I define the concept of migrant belonging as an amalgamation of our lived experiences and interactions with others, enmeshed with our past to create our sense of a shared community, and our place within or outside of that constructed community. This research develops the claims of Boccagni and Baldassar (2015) that analysing such emotions can generate new insights about the sense of (un)belonging, inclusion and exclusion for Indo Guyanese migrants in Barbados. This thesis focuses on the felt (un)belongings of Indo Guyanese migrants which are constructed along notions of legal/social undesirability, ethnic and religious difference, and gendered notions of care, love and responsibility.   I demonstrate throughout this thesis how the contemporary political environment (both regional and national) intertwines with migrants’ histories and their social worlds to shape their emotional realities and the politics of belonging. As Bloch and McKay argue, ‘however the state of “illegality” is produced or constructed, it is nevertheless acutely felt and experienced in almost every facet of life’ (2016:27). Referencing the work of Yuval-Davis (2006, 2011) which shows how political and social entities construct formal and informal belonging, chapter 5 analyses how the Bajan government has established Guyanese undesirability. Using the CCJ legal framing which legitimately denies entry of undesirable nationals to other CARICOM states, chapter 5 explores how the Barbados government has framed the regional free movement policy as an issue of border/national security (Brathwaite, 2014). This chapter explores how the justification of undesirability is rooted in migrants’ perceived illegality, criminality, and socioeconomic status.   62      Border Spectacles will emerge as a productive concept in both chapters 5 and 6. The research of Anthias (2016) and Healy (2020) suggests that political actions and social environments often complement one another to create varied senses of not-belonging and unbelonging for migrants. According to Nicholas De Genova, unbelonging may be reinforced and ‘performed’ through the creation and enactment of ‘scenes of exclusion’ where migrant illegality is made publicly visible, and their illegality reiterated as truth (2013). While De Genova does not focus explicitly on emotional geographies, he argues that the ‘social ignominy’ experienced by migrants is a necessary part of the ‘sociopolitical production of migrant “illegality” ’ (2013:1181). This public and visible display of humiliation ‘upholds and enhances the iconicity of particular fetishized figures of “illegal migration” ’, where illegality is a ‘taken-for-granted fact’ (De Genova, 2013:1181).  Unlike De Genova’s research, which focuses on the precarity of refugees seeking asylum, in this thesis I emphasise how these scenes of exclusion are replicated in a variety of ways with regional migrants. In this case, their ‘illegality’ is not certain, yet is presumed despite the fact their movement is allowed under regional CARICOM agreements. De Genova’s concept of border spectacles is a necessary component in enforcing the sense of unbelonging for Guyanese migrants. By refusing to recognise their legitimate crossing of the border onto the island, such accounts reinforce the myth of Guyanese illegality in the imagination of Barbados nationals.   De Genova argues that ‘inclusion’ for migrants with undetermined legal status is premised on their continued sociopolitical encounters with exclusion, which accentuates their subjugated position in society (2013). Chauvin and Garcés-Mascareñas describe this as ‘subordinate inclusion’ (2014), which is another concept used in this research. When host governments seek to restrict regularization of irregular migrants, they frame migrant belonging through frames of ‘deservingness’ and ‘good citizenship’ (2014:422). However, when irregular migrants demonstrate that they are deserving and have been good citizens the state erects increasingly difficult hurdles to cross. Thus, ‘subordinate inclusion’ of migrants with indeterminate status results in their participation in a tiered system of privilege, which dictates their everyday living (from higher rent prices for inferior housing, to non-negotiable work schedules, for example). These challenges exploit the legal and economic vulnerabilities of migrants enacted through exclusionary political institutions. In turn, migrants may engage in illicit activity (for example, fraud, or informal employment) in an effort to establish and sustain themselves (Chauvin and Garcés-Mascareñas, 2014). 63      In chapters 5 and 6, I show how this (un)deservingness framework impacts on the everyday lives of migrants in their efforts to not only legally remain in Barbados, but to [socio-economically] belong in Barbados. The analysis draws on evidence of the distress felt and the moral dilemmas faced by Guyanese migrants in their efforts to root themselves on the island - open bank accounts, regularise their status, seek medical care, etc. It shows the various ways immigration/police officers (as well as members of the Bajan public, acting as extensions of law enforcement, to uphold the law) orchestrate spectacles of exclusion, emphasizing and making migrant illegality visible. Chauvin and Garcés-Mascareñas make the point that in this exchange between migrants’ navigation of their undocumented status, and the political and legal structures put in place to restrict their inclusion, migrants engage in systems which incorporate them as ‘more illegal’ or ‘less illegal’ (2014). This deepens hierarchy between those constructed as deserving migrants and those constructed as undeserving, making the ethical range in desirability ‘partially a product of repression itself’ (Chauvin and Garcés-Mascareñas, 2014:428).   As chapter 5 of this thesis explains how the undesirability of Guyanese migrants in Barbados is constructed along lines of nationality, chapter 6 describes how this undesirability is underlined particularly for those who identify as Indo Guyanese. As becomes apparent in this chapter, race and ethnicity are used interchangeably in participant narratives. Brown has made note of this in their 2010 research, ‘we tend to separate people into ethnic categories, but we often use racial terms to identify these categories. Thus, one talks about ‘black’ culture or ‘white’ culture as if the colour of one’s skin is somehow connected to one’s behaviour’ (2010:74). In this research, the same holds true and is explored in chs.6-8. For most participants, ethnic identities and one’s heritage is typically described along racial lines, i.e., someone of African/creole heritage is ‘black’, while someone of European heritage is ‘white’. In this research, I follow Omi and Winant’s definition of ‘race’ (2015). Race is interpreted as ‘a concept, a representation or signification of identity that refers to different types of human bodies, to the perceived phenotypic markers of difference and the meanings and social practices ascribed to these differences’ (Omi and Winant, 2015:111). Because race is seen as the attributes which accompany physical bodies, it is viewed as unchangeable, while ethnicity is ‘the learned aspects of groups’ having common ancestry, language, beliefs, customs, including memories of migration (Ang et.al., 2022:586). Racialization occurs by conflating race and ethnicity. Racialization, according to Miles, then becomes ‘the process where meaning is attributed 64      to particular biological features of human beings, whereby individuals are assigned to a general category of people which reproduces itself biologically’ (1989:76). These categorizations are used to justify a fixed difference of ‘the Other’ (Yuval-Davis, 1997).   For participants, their Indianness is bounded by difference which defines them as the  foreign other on the island of Barbados. Chapter 6 continues the discussion on belonging and creolization as it relates to the Indo Guyanese experience that was introduced in the previous chapter. It addresses how Indo Guyanese participants view themselves outside of notions of creole belonging. This follows the work of Khan (2001; 2004a; 2004b; 2007), Munasinghe (2001, 2006), and Puri (1999; 2004), which disputes the narrative of ‘creole openness’ and inclusion in the Caribbean region. Chapter 6 ends by considering the potential of Dougla (someone of mixed African and Indian heritage) identity to challenge boundaries of both creole belonging and Indian purity.   Turning to chapter 7, the discussion turns to how the religious practices of participants are shaped by their emotions, which are in turn influenced and impacted by their migrations. In the chapter I demonstrate how the feelings of inclusion and exclusion are felt and subsequently negotiated in places of worship (the mandir for Hindus and the masjid for Muslims) and how these feelings are translated across social settings when religion is racialized.  In chapters 7 and 8, I draw on the ideas of care and emotional work. Hochschild introduced the concept of ‘emotional work’ to describe the varying efforts and ‘rules’ used to manage and reframe social situations and ‘establish and maintain relationships’ (Herrero-Arias et.al, 2020:3). ‘Framing rules’ (how we ascribe definitions or meaning to situations) and ‘feeling rules’ (how people ought to feel in a situation), create the criteria for ‘how appropriate it is to feel certain emotions in a given situation’ (Hochschild, 1979:566). People will engage in ‘emotional work’, it was argued, as a way of managing tensions when there is a disconnect between feeling rules and lived realities. More recently, Herrero-Arias et.al. (2020), Svašek (2010), Baldassar (2007), and McKay (2007) to name a few, have explored how emotional work impacts migrant lives. These studies have focused broadly on how transnational migrants employ emotional work to maintain essential closeness and emotional intimacy with kin. It is this continual negotiation of emotional lives and emotional work that dictates how migrants feel connected and maintain that connection to their loved ones, and sense of intimacy.  65      Emotional work is exhibited through care, as participant narratives demonstrate how this is a form of caring for loved ones and self-care. In Chapter 7, a participant demonstrates that he works hard to ensure the financial care of his family back in Guyana, in lieu of not completing religious rituals after the loss of a loved one. Another participant describes how he seeks assistance from a spiritual advisor to evade hinderances in travelling (immigration or otherwise), to ensure continued mobility in order to work and provide for his elderly mother. Chapter 8 takes an emotive outlook on care by focusing on how Indo Guyanese male migrants do care. Referencing the work of Locke (2017), this explores the gendered way Indo Guyanese male are ‘expected’ to care for loved ones and the way migration fulfills this perceived responsibility and duty. This final empirical chapter considers the wider emotional impacts of migration realities on male participants.   Through these acts of care, they are able to ground and manage their emotional realities as migrants. For male participants, these expressions of care are expressed through the act of remitting. The research of Lindley (2011) explores the social texture and complexity of remitting, focusing on why Somalians in the diaspora sent money back to Somalia, and the effect it has on their lives. On the one hand, she shows that remitting preserves a means to ‘maintain affectionate relationships’, ‘a sense of familial harmony and wellbeing’, and can be ‘an important source of cultural reaffirmation’ (2011:52/53). Yet, remitting can serve as a source of tension and stress for those who remit (2011). She asserts that ‘we have to not only explore how people act, but also the meaning that they attach to these actions’ when remitting (2011:46). Remitting for male Indo Guyanese participants is viewed as a means to fulfill the obligation to provide for family and avoid bringing shame on themselves. Yet remitting is only part of their acts of care and love. Their stories revealed that migration often exacts an emotional toll. Testimonies from participants illustrate how they struggle with the expectation to provide as males while managing their social and emotional realities as migrants. In their attempt to provide for others, males find themselves experiencing loneliness and anxiety. Their emotional work is tied to their act of sending money back home at a great emotional cost.   In order to gather information for this analysis, I now move on to how information was gathered during the ethnography. The following chapter explains the methodological basis of the research. I cover how the methods were framed, which methods were employed and why. The second half of the chapter provides my insight from the fieldwork, addressing self-reflection and ethical positioning during my time in Barbados.    66      CHAPTER 4 METHODOLOGY & METHODS  METHODOLOGICAL FRAME Reflecting on assumptions about ontology and epistemology is a necessary, but often an awkward part of the research to explain and reflect upon. In summary, I adopted an integrated research paradigm, based primarily on interpretivist and critical realist foundations. I found this aligned with my beliefs regarding truth and reality. I view a purist positivist stance unsuitable to guide the frame of this research, as it stresses distancing between researcher and those participating in the research, emphasises ‘the whole’, is resultantly removed from the individual experience, and has a deep foundational reliance on numerical data. Despite elements of the postpositivist belief of a closer connection between researcher and the participants, and acceptance of quantitative and qualitative methods in application to the social setting, I fundamentally disagree with the ontological stance of positivism; I do not believe there is an absolute truth or reality to be discovered or revealed from this research, nor should the research be used to generalise across alternate groups.   While trying to understand and make sense of these ideological stances, as a researcher, I recognise the contention in moving towards an objective interpretation of a subjective experience (Schwandt, 1998:223). Schools of interpretivism differ in managing objectivity in the subjective human experience (see Denzin and Lincoln, 1998), from formulating a scientific base of meaning (see Dilthey, 1954, and his term Besserverstehen to describe how an observer can know a participant’s strongly felt/vivid experience more than the subject themselves), to employing rigorous methods (see LeCompte et al., 1993). Anderson and Smith have noted the paradox of ‘thinking emotionally’ which is ‘implicitly cast as a source of subjectivity which clouds vision and impairs judgement, while good scholarship depends on keeping one’s own emotions under control and others’ under wraps’ (2002:7). I deny that there is an underlying conflict between subjectivity and objectivity. Referencing the work of Charles Taylor (1983) and Carl Ratner (2002), I view interpretation as a condition of human inquiry, not limited to methodology of the social world. Both Taylor (1983) and Ratner (2002) argue that while subjectivity and objectivity are often regarded as at odds with one another, understanding subjective processes can improve objective study. Subjectivity is a natural phenomenon that does not conform to natural science analysis; 67      rather objective social phenomenon exists as part of subjective orientations and interpretations (Sawyer, 2005:209).  My ontological standpoint is therefore most congruent with critical realism. While I am attracted to aspects of interpretivism, I reject the notion of a completely socially constructed world. I am focused on the individual perspective, and ‘investigating interaction among individuals.’ I follow the pragmatist/critical realist thinking; while reality needs to be understood, it is constantly being renegotiated, debated, and interpreted (Fletcher, 2017). Indeed, I found the notion of differing domains of reality expressed in critical realism (observable, non-observable, and influencing factors) and the interconnectedness and interplay between these realms to be more useful in understanding the material gathered during the ethnography.  I do, however, lean on an interpretivist epistemological understanding. I agree that the most effective way to achieve an ‘objective interpretation of subjective experience’, is through the adoption and application of Verstehen in Erlebnis (Schwandt, 1998:223). The philosophical concept of Verstehen was put forth by Droysen and furthered in the social sciences by Dilthey and Weber in the late 1800s (Dilthey, 1954; Weber, 1978; Ratner, 2002). Verstehen pushes for the empathetic understanding of individual action, as social actors and social interaction are key (Weber, 1978). The ontological position is based on the belief that there is no single reality or truth, or objective reality. Instead, reality is shaped by individual experience and thereby varies from person to person (Moses & Knutsen, 2012; Scotland, 2012). The researcher is to employ ‘sophisticated subjectivity to objectively comprehend subjective experience (Erlebnis) in life expressions’ (Ratner, 2002:3). In this way, Verstehen, or empathetic understanding, becomes the valid interpretation of Erlebnis (Ratner, 2002:3).  My epistemological foundation took root in interpretivist methodology and guided the subsequent ethnography. I employed a predominantly exploratory design during the fieldwork for its ability to clarify ambiguity and uncover multiple realities (Fusch et al., 2018). To rigorously interpret a phenomenon, interpretivists encourage a varied, mixed-methods approach to research. Consistent with these beliefs, I implemented a blended design (Fusch et al., 2018), which combined varied qualitative methods (in-depth, semi structured, and group interviews, oral history narratives, participant observation, archive and document review) in the form of an integrative ethnographic case study.  68      ETHNOGRAPHY & THE ETHNOGRAPHER Current ethnography, or the study of people and cultures, has foundations in the discipline of anthropology (Geertz, 1973; Ellen, 1984). The contributions of Franz Boas (1920,1938), Margaret Mead (1928), Bronislaw Malinowski (1914), and Claude Levi-Strauss (1955) have been fundamental in shaping the way the practice is conceived today (Wildling, 2007). While the anthropological approach, generally, has been focused by these thinkers, their influence is most prolific in the locations of their affiliated institutions (Ellen, 1984; Wilding, 2007). Therefore, Boas is credited with forming American anthropological models, furthered by the work of his students (i.e., Mead), while Malinowski, and Levi-Strauss are attributed with influencing the European representations of the practice (Ellen, 1984; Wilding, 2007). Through these contributions, notions on practice, ethics, description, and engagement with the local community were expanded.  While ethnography remains a cornerstone of anthropology, its diffusion into geography has been less prolific (Herbert, 2000; Lees, 2003; Megoran, 2006). Steve Herbert has argued for the increased application of ethnography in geography, since the turn of the millennium, stating, ‘this neglect is especially injurious to the discipline because ethnography provides unreplicable insight into the process and meaning that sustain and motivate social groups’ (2000:550). In the ethnographic process, the connection between meaning and context is inseparably linked to the [human] geographer. I preferred ethnography as favourable method to use for this reason, as it eclipses traditional positivist-framing (Herbert, 2000; Lees, 2003; Megoran, 2006; Crang and Cook, 2007). I support the assertion that ethnography trades sole devotion to numerical and reported data, for ‘deep and sophisticated cultural knowledge…that cannot be unearthed without abiding familiarity with the group’ (Herbert, 2000:557).   Ethnographers must retain flexibility throughout the process (hence the exploratory design of this research). Interpretivist ethnographers must understand their environment is ever-changing, as is their involvement and interaction within that setting, unlike positivists in the controlled experimental environment (Hegelund, 2005). Agar expands on the attributes of the ethnographer, he stresses they ‘require an intensive personal involvement, and abandonment of traditional scientific control, and improvisational style to meet situations not of the researcher’s making (1986:12). Agar speaks of the crucial ‘personal involvement’ necessary to carry out ethnography, along with being open to unexpected circumstances (1986). Madden highlights the burden on the ethnographer to build and curate these 69      ‘human relationships’, as ‘intimate contact with participants raises issues of obligation, reciprocity, trust and the formations of friendships’ (2017:16). Ethnography encapsulates interpretivist ideals by these accounts, with the ethnographer representing the antithesis of the positivist researcher.   The value of ethnography is that it can legitimise a marginalised group by opposing ethnocentric views. This method of engagement endeavours to accept the human condition, through the understanding of and learning from other people (Rorty, 1989:195-6). Ethnographic research attempts to understand the process and meanings behind social life (Herbert, 2000), making this approach appropriate in uncovering the actual situation of the Indo Guyanese community in Barbados - how they live and have adapted to life on the island, and how they interpret and experience their surroundings. Madden describes ethnography as a ‘practice that seeks to understand human groups by having the researcher in the same social space as the participants in the study’ (2017:16), in an attempt ‘to appreciate what it means to be human in particular social and cultural contexts’ (2017:17). I understand this as an innate emotional exchange between researcher and participant and view appreciation and understanding as emotional endeavors.   METHODS TO CAPTURE AND UNEARTH EMOTIONS I argue leaning into participants’ emotions is crucial to unearthing their realities. I assert that giving credence to participant emotions and feelings should be built-into research methods. According to McClinchey, ‘Small-scale, exploratory and inductive research that examines individuals’ feelings and emotions is best captured through a variety of data collection techniques’ (2016:4). Pile favours ethnographic methods, as it privileges ‘proximity and intimacy’ of participant accounts (2010:5). I use methods based on their suitability to ‘bring us closer to understanding others’ emotions, feelings and attitudes [and to] provide us with a more complex and intimate understanding of cultural and social forms’ (Farrelly and Nabobo-Baba, 2012:6). References in this approach can be made to Verstehen in interpretivist principles and critical realist thought. I focus on participant narratives, believing that narratives both convey meaning and values, while helping migrants ‘deal with psychological challenges, life’s changes and uncertainties’ (McClinchey, 2016:4).  70      To enhance the ethnography through varied qualitative methods, I employed in-depth, semi structured, and group interviews, oral history narratives, participant observation, archive and document review. The archive and document review remained an ongoing analysis, including grey literature, such as news articles and blog posts, despite being primarily grounded and contextualised in the time of the fieldwork. The textual analysis allowed me to gain insight into the historical migration of those in the region, and insight to the varying attitudes surrounding the current wave of movement, from the perspective of the Bajan people, Guyanese people, the Bajan state, the Guyanese state, and to a lesser degree, regional states. These perspectives reinforced the placement of participant narratives in this research.     DESCRIPTION OF RESEARCH PROCEDURES CASE STUDY LOCATION In addition to Barbados, Guyanese migratory patterns show significant movement to Trinidad and Suriname. These are the two locations in CARICOM with the greatest number of historical indentured Indian populations outside of Guyana. Suriname and Trinidad could provide interesting points of research for further study of Indo Caribbean traditions and experience across the Caribbean. However, to understand the unique challenges of the Indo Guyanese migrants, I sought a location unaccustomed to an Indo Caribbean presence in large numbers. Barbados fits these requirements and piqued further interest based on its controversial perception of public and governmental resistance to regional migrants. The nation of Barbados is more sensitive to population increases compared to Suriname and Trinidad. Barbados has the smallest population of the three nations (~285k in Barbados, compared with ~558k in Suriname, and ~1.3 million in Trinidad), and is a heavily populated island (Barbados is the 13th most densely populated country in the world) (UNICEF Barbados, 2013). I considered that the small population of Barbados along with ethnic homogeneity was regarded as a strength, assuming it would be easier to locate and identify Indo Guyanese. Indeed, this reflects my own bias, to assume ease in identifying Indo Guyanese based on physical difference from the dominant Afro population.      71      PROCESS & METHODS I conducted the fieldwork in Barbados over a nine-month period, from June 2015 to March 2016. There is debate as to how long an ethnographer needs to be present in the location of study (see Madden, 2017:17). Nonetheless, financial constraints meant that I was unable to spend longer on-site. A 12-month stay would have been ideal, to observe all national (Bajan and Guyanese) and religious (Christian, Hindu, Muslim) holidays/festivals. My interest was to explore narratives of migrant experience. Initially, I anticipated both Afro and Indo participants, as my focus was on the wider Guyanese community prior to the fieldwork. I was inclined to believe the Indo Guyanese experience was separate from the Afro Guyanese experience through secondary data analysis. Grey literature indicated difference in Bajan public sentiment towards the two groups, but there was not enough information to substantiate this claim before the fieldwork. Indeed, there was a lack of validated sources to draw a definitive conclusion on the varied migrant realities. Once I arrived in the field and through my observations, it became apparent that despite similarities in migration stories of the wider Guyanese migrant group, there were peculiarities making the Indo Guyanese community distinct from their Afro Guyanese counterparts.  Twenty-eight Guyanese participants with varying statuses were involved in this ethnography. Twenty-five self-identified as Indo Guyanese (including participants of mixed-ethnic backgrounds, that self-identified as primarily ‘Indian’), and three self-identifying Dougla. The time participants spent in Barbados varied across individuals, from three months, to over forty years. These participants followed Hinduism, Islam, and Christian faiths. Fifteen participants were male, and thirteen female. Fifteen Bajans took part in the research, providing insight into to the point of view of host country nationals. Included in the host country respondents, a Barbados immigration officer and the moderator of the blog media outlet, Barbados Underground.  As part of the interview process, I collected oral histories of the participants. I selected the oral history technique based on its ability to illuminate representations of the past, allowing both researcher and participants to understand meaningful changes over space and time (George and Stratford, 2010:141). The exercise allowed participants to reflect on their challenges and what they deemed as success in their migration narratives. Challenges included the continued fear of revival of Thompson-like policies, fear of being targeted in public spaces, administrative barriers to regularization, etc., while successes included being 72      able to ‘set-up’ a fellow migrant with room/board and a job, building bridges and networks with Bajan nationals, getting ‘papers’ and being legally legitimised which carries over to their outward display of social legitimacy, etc. As part of the oral history exercise, I encouraged participants to reflect on whichever aspect of their migration narrative they deemed the most important. Their stories fell into four temporal categories: pre-migration, the move itself/relocation, initial experiences in Barbados/ ‘settling in’, and post-migration/ ‘day to day’. I was able to conduct memory work exercises with 5 female participants, in which they were asked to reflect on a memento they saved from back home (see Jerrybandan and her 2015 work with diaspora/transnational Indo Caribbean female narratives). Through these exercises, they were able to retrieve ‘forgotten traces, abandoned intentions, and lost desires’ (Haug et al., 1987:47).   I used semi-structured interviewing to reflect the Bajan experience of Guyanese migration and complement the oral history exercise of Guyanese participants. Out of necessity, this was the only form of information collection for participants that I had one-time/limited contact with (seven participants in total, across Bajan and Guyanese respondents). Undocumented and less-skilled respondents were suspicious of interactions that resembled an interview, so semi-structured interviews were abandoned for these individuals and semi-structured conversation took its place. However, this proved an attractive method when unearthing the Bajan experience. Bajan respondents responded positively to this strategy as questions did not follow a prescribed rigid format, and respondents were able to focus on areas important to them.  To complement the case study I analysed archival materials, and monitored local and regional media outlets (newspapers, radio, televised, and web-based). I was able to affiliate myself with the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) at the University of the West Indies (UWI) as a visiting research student. This allowed me access to the department library, which included archived transcripts of HoG speeches, seminal CARICOM publications, Secretariat meetings, regional journals, book publications, and UWI conference proceedings. Through the Barbados National Library, I accessed past transcripts of ministerial speeches, parliamentary meetings, policy and government records. I volunteered my time at the Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC). This organisation oversaw an evaluation regarding the ease of access and attainment of CSME permits to domestic workers and tradesmen, as well as a 2004 report on the perception of regional migrants in Barbados (see Wickham et al., 2004). I was able 73      to gain access to these reports and other supporting materials. Fresh Milk Studios, an artist space founded by Annalee Davis, homes a comprehensive reference library open to the public regarding a range of regional historic, cultural, social, artistic, and political subjects. Davis allowed me access to the Studio. It provided thorough archived media (a range of regional and local newspaper clippings, radio transcripts, transcripts of government speeches) and government information from the early 2000s-2015, encompassing pre-& post-Thompson leadership, until the end of the fieldwork. This captured the growing anti-immigrant and anti-regional sentiments, the subsequent policy changes of amnesty laws, and what would be considered the ‘height’ of anti-CARICOM attitudes towards migrants.  Participants, with a few exceptions, were active on social media. In many cases, after meeting with a participant, they would contact me on one of these platforms to expand, clarify, or reflect on what was discussed earlier. In this way, social media played an important, previously unrecognised, tool to the research. This style of communication was prompted by participants, as in there is no imposed sense of obligation or added commitment to conduct a self-interview. The digital media space allowed an outlet for a form of participant reflection (Reich, 2015), which was more convenient for their schedules.   Barbados has readily available internet access across the island, which encouraged widespread usage of smartphones with data plans. At the time of the fieldwork, although united through CARICOM, there were no cellular providers that provided regional phone plans. The two providers in Barbados, Lime/Flow and Digicel, carried separate international charges for their calls and messages to Guyana. Pre-paid or pay-as-you-go and calling-card services were the preferred methods used by the semi-literate, older participants that used basic cellular/smart phones to maintain contact with loved ones back home. Nonetheless, most participants were active on social media/networking platforms (Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp), which facilitated their contact with friends and family in Guyana. Due to internet availability and popularity of social networking services, I have sustained contact with several participants beyond the duration of the fieldwork. This continued communication has allowed for insights into the changing socio-economic-and political atmospheres in Barbados and Guyana and the implications for the Indo Guyanese participant-base.  74      RECRUITMENT  Activist and artist Annalee Davis offered contacts she had made through the making of her 2007 documentary, On The Map (which focuses on the lives and experience of undocumented CARICOM migrants living in Barbados). However, I aimed to interview migrants who had not previously taken part in similar research in order to offer fresh/new perspectives and to avoid a reiteration of narratives. The primary criteria I used in considering participants, is that they self-identified as Indo/Indian, and met a minimal age requirement of 18 years old. Understandably, there was no official method of confirming participant age. I resolved the issue by excluding potential participants who visibly looked in or around the minimum age. I made pre-field contacts via email to the president of the Guyanese Association in Barbados, Inc. (GABI), Samuel Legay, Esq., and Professor Wendy Grenade of UWI Cave Hill. Other than these, I had no existing connections in Barbados. For the duration of the fieldwork, I lived in a homestay, with a retired Bajan national, in the parish of St. James. I was located near the UWI Cave Hill campus, a mere 2-minute ZR drive (ZR are white vans which are used as a form of public transportation throughout the island).   The first two months consisted of establishing myself in the community. This time was used to gain familiarity with the surroundings, as well as have the local community gain familiarity with my presence. Initial contact with Guyanese was made through everyday activity. In predominantly Bajan spaces (mainly public areas: bus stops, locations for everyday shopping), I took a less proactive approach, and found that Guyanese approached me, inquiring about my Guyanese heritage. This act alone suggests a desire for camaraderie and need for network building amongst migrants. However, this does not reflect in their willingness to participate in the research – quite the contrary, once introducing myself and explaining the research, there was a noticeable withdrawal from individuals. I frequented areas with known high concentrations of Guyanese/migrants (Cheapside market, Tudor Street, Nursery Drive, various roti shops), and approached individuals and groups regarding the research. The serving pandit (Hindu religious leader/scholar) of the Barbados Hindu Society allowed me to address devotees during services to acquaint them with the purpose of the research and to recruit participants. I attended events and meetings organised by GABI, specifically Guyana 50th year Independence Celebration, semi-annual meetings, and informative sessions on money transfer options (remitting) and banking for Guyanese nationals. As mentioned previously, I was able to affiliate myself as a visiting research student at SALISES Cave Hill and I volunteered with the CPDC. Through these 75      networks, I was able to make initial contacts with a wide range of stakeholders: migrants, government officials, academics, and civil society members.   Other interviews were conducted with stakeholders: members of the CSME Unit Barbados, the regional CARICOM Secretariat, regional academics, NGO directors of CPDC and Barbados Association of Nongovernmental Organisations (BANGO), and the Guyana Consulate in Barbados. These one-time, semi-structured interviews provide supplementary information on the wider topic of Caribbean regionalism and deepening integration. However, the NGO and Consulate interviews provided rich insight into the varied understanding of integration challenges, specific to Guyanese migrants.    REFLECTIONS FROM THE FIELD POSITIONALITY AS ‘INBETWEENER’    As an ethnographer, my conscious selection of methods and analysis, is subconsciously driven, or influenced by ‘subjective intrusion’, as Hegelund calls it (2005:659). It is vital to the ethnographic process to reflect upon this occurrence, which echoes my positionality in the research. During the 1970s, my family, like many other Indo Guyanese, felt people of East Indian heritage in Guyana were facing political and social discrimination; targets of state-sanctioned violence under the Forbes Burnham government. I was raised with an understanding that my (mixed heritage, but predominantly) Indo family ‘fled’ the country during a time of civil and ethnic unrest. My family migrated to New York in the early 1980s, along with a wave of Indo Guyanese that held the same beliefs of persecution due to their identification as Indian. I was born and raised in Queens; first in the neighbourhood of Jamaica, a West Indian stronghold (I use the term ‘West Indian’ as a colloquial moniker for those from the Anglophone Caribbean). Followed by the neighbourhood of Richmond Hill in my high school years. Richmond Hill is often referred to as Little Guyana but is also home to many groups of Indo Caribbeans, i.e., Indo Trinidadians, Indo Jamaicans, Indo St. Lucians, and Surinamese Hindoestanen (Cavanaugh, 2014). In my opinion, I was immersed in Guyanese/Caribbean culture. And while coming from a working-class background, I come from a position of economic privilege in comparison to participants. Indeed, my USA passport allows me eased mobility and access to most countries, in stark contrast to participants. I also acknowledge that as a cisgender heterosexual female, my placement as a researcher is far less controversial and inherently more accepted in the 76      Caribbean context4. You could say that my interest in the Guyanese migrant community is a natural progression, a product of my upbringing, to better understand the complex and varied narratives that surround the Guyanese diaspora, to which I belong.   The themes that arise in my statement of positionality align with those of someone that identifies as bi-cultural (Benet-Martinez & Haritatos, 2005; Schwartz & Unger, 2010; Yamaguchi et al., 2016). Taking into account the feeling of familiarity, yet not truly belonging in the field, I have decided to use the term ‘inbetweener’ to describe my positionality. Lizzi Milligan (2016) put forth the notion of the inbetweener researcher, as an alternative to the insider/outsider dichotomy (see Corbin Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). She argues that more interactive methods with community members can enable the outside researcher to gain an insider perspective and role, shifting them from total outsider to partial insider, a positionality she terms inbetweener (2016:237). I prefer to consider myself an inbetweener, understanding that positionality is not static nor solely ascribed by the researcher. It is reflective of change over time, dependent on an interactive relationship with the community (Milligan, 2016:237-239).   Being an ethnographer of inbetweener status provided both negatives and positives to the research process. It was apparent there were community members who regarded me as a complete outsider, or as they referred to me, ‘foreign gyal’ [foreign girl]. I was informed by participants, some locals questioned my Guyanese ancestry altogether, and believed I was using the storyline as a tactic to gain insider status in the community for more nefarious reasons; to act as an informant. Some Guyanese believed I was recruited and hired by the DLP and ‘brought to’ Barbados in order to use my background (or fictional back-story, as believed by a few) as a means of connection, in order to ‘infiltrate’ the Guyanese migrant community; and covertly gain ‘confessions’ from undocumented. Despite labelling me as an outsider, some in the community nevertheless embraced my presence.  The barrier of my acceptance into the community was softened by gatekeepers. These individuals proved invaluable to information collection. They volunteered their time to assist in: garnering participants, organizing in-person meetings, sharing personal and familial contact information, informing participants about the research, securing  4 This is because attitudes in the Anglophone Caribbean largely continues to take a strong stance against homosexual and transgender rights. Classified as sexual deviants, these groups are marginalised and live under the constant threat of physical and sexual violence and abuse.   77      permission and access, and most importantly, vouching for my status as a researcher in the community. As my relationship with gatekeepers deepened, and my time spent with them increased, community members softened their stance of resistance, and loosened their position of hesitance. Gatekeepers were essential in gaining a path of entry to a majority of the unskilled, undocumented participants. Despite my cultural identification, my nationality, socioeconomic and educational background put me at a great distance of relatability to this particular demographic. Gatekeepers acted as intermediaries and built bridges of engagement and approachability between myself and this group.    GAFFING5  & LIMING IN THE ANGLOPHONE CARIBBEAN ‘Gaff’ is a ‘term used throughout Guyana to describe friendly, informal and extended conversation, as opposed to argument and other disruptive talk’ (Semple-McBean, 2017:359). It is described as both ‘the most widespread speech event in Guyana’ (Edwards, 1979a:82), and as De Kruijf has noted of his ethnography in Guyana, ‘one of the prime social activities in Guyana’ (2006:38). While gaffing is done in an unrestricted and relaxed environment, and refers to a light-hearted, and playful interaction between participants, subject-matter can be serious and stimulating (Edwards, 1979a; Semple-McBean, 2017; Semple-Mc Bean & Rodrigues, 2017). The Guyanese tradition of gaff is a way to apply a Caribbean lens to qualitative ethnographic research, moving towards research that is more ‘culturally centered’ (Simonds and Christopher, 2013:2190). This builds the intersubjective relationship between researcher and participant, while recognising and asserting validity to Guyanese migrant participants. Linguist Walter Edwards interprets gaff as a cultural-linguistic phenomenon, characterised as a creole-oriented (or relaxed speech) exchange. He argues the main purpose of gaffing is ‘to re-enforce social solidarity, to effect social communion…’ (1979a:82). This social solidarity is a vital instrument to the ethnographic process in the Guyana/ese context.   Gaffing is instrumental in ethnographic research with Guyanese participants. Ethnographic researchers in Guyana have noted their regular engagement with this common conversational and social practice in the country, during their fieldwork (see De Kruijf, 2006; Grund, 2017; Stafford-Walter, 2018).  I assert gaff be used as a technique by  5 Also spelled ‘gyaff’, see Bahadur, G. (2013). I use ‘gaff’ as expressed in the 1970s work of Guyanese Walter Edwards, the earliest published accounts defining the practice.  78      the researcher to bridge the outsider-insider divide, to become an inbetweener, and subsequently formulate ‘authentic participative knowledge (co-) construction and construction of meaningful relationships in the field’, which Milligan promotes (2016:235).  Lime/liming is a term which originated in Trinidad & Tobago, but the concept is practiced and regularised across the Anglophone Caribbean (Eriksen, 1990; Clarke and Charles, 2012; McClish, 2016). Simply put, it refers to a cultural norm which centres on an informal leisure activity. It is argued that liming improves social relations, can build social cohesion (Clarke and Charles, 2012; McClish, 2016), and enhance social capital (Clarke and Charles, 2012). To a greater degree, it is attributed to ‘creating a social identity and social fabric of society’ (Clarke and Charles, 2012:302). Liming is an activity done in-person, assuming a relaxed timeframe. Gaffing is a speech event, and akin to English styles of banter, can happen over the phone, in-passing, etc. I found impromptu moments for liming and gaffing (the result of a participant calling me and suggesting we ‘go tek a walk’ or ‘talk story’), were vital to building the relationship between participants and myself. Participants positively interpreted my willingness to gaff and lime, and were more likely to reengage with offers, without my initiation.   During the fieldwork, the exchange of gaff was most often favoured as a form of communication by participants, particularly the non-professionals. Non-professionals were less accustomed to the interview set-up, and resultantly shared more information during a spontaneous lime and gaff, as opposed to setting a date and time to have an interview, having the researcher ultimately dictate when and how information should be shared, reinforcing the socioeconomic, educational, and relatability divide that existed between this group and myself. I was aware that using interviews (in the traditional sense) and taking fieldnotes during conversation (without approval from participants) made me appear to mimic behaviour of immigration officials, and ultimately gave credence to the narrative that my presence in the community was disingenuous.  Engagement with gaffing is a practical and meaningful method in ethnographic research with Guyanese participants. It is an exchange of personal stories, interests, knowledge, and experiences between those involved in the activity. Gaff is an embodied expression of relationship-building through verbal exchange in Guyanese culture. I maintain it is a valuable tool to the ethnographic researcher in the Anglophone Caribbean context. It alleviates the participant of pressure to conform and adhere to the more rigid structure and 79      formal nature (in some cases even foreign nature) of default ‘Western’ information gathering techniques (i.e., interviews) and puts the strain of what is deemed ‘correct’ and intentional usage on the ethnographer. To assume that participants are familiar and comfortable with methods like interviewing, in itself is a bias on the researcher’s part, perpetuating the notion (through practice) of blanket adherence to a prescribed set of perceived universal orthodox methods. Used in conjunction with other forms of methodological techniques, gaffing is a legitimate and essential part of ethnographic research with a Guyanese participant-base, which not only enriches the research process but is a vital component to establishing meaningful relationships between researcher and participants.   GAFFING DURING A LIME AT OISTINS FISH-FRY: Veronica and I sit down across from one another at the communal benches set up in the openair seating near the fish markets. It is a busy Friday night in Oistins at the weekly Fish Fry. The music is loud, as we lean into one another to speak. We are about to start eating our macaroni pie, salad and flying fish dinner, when Veronica starts:  Veronica: I miss Guyanese fish bad… TR: Guyanese fish? Veronica: Yeah girl, Guyana get nice fish. TR: And they don’t have it here? Veronica: No girl, they only get Bajan fish. TR: Like you mean in the markets? Right? Veronica: They only sell ocean fish, right. But I talking about fresh-water fish. TR: Did you ever try that rum shop on Hastings Road?  Veronica: Rum shop, eh? How you know dem thing? We start laughing  TR: No, really, the one past the Garrison… Veronica: Yes, yes, I know the one. The one with the big Guyana flag, yes, girl…You don’t feel strange in dem place?  TR: Ahh, not really. I never feel like anybody really cares I’m there, honestly. But they have gilbaka and bangamary. Veronica: Eh? But already cook, right? Not fresh. TR: Right, right. It’s fried. I don’t know if they have it every day, but you can try.   Veronica: Eh, watch this American girl tell me where to find Guyanese things - in Guyanese rum shop, of all place!  We both laugh Veronica: Alright, I gon’ send Alvin to check them out. 26 February 2016  80      Through this excerpt of a gaff with a female participant, typical Indo Guyanese gendered behaviors are revealed. This conversation will be revisited in ch.8 regarding gender norms and liming in a rum shop. Through this gaff, Veronica reveals her surprise that I openly visit rum shops, not that I know where to find Guyanese fish on Barbados. She flips the questioning to me, inquiring if I feel uncomfortable, or ‘strange’, as these are not typical places Indo Guyanese females frequent. She goes on to resolve her surprise by rationalising that my ease in rum shops is due to my nationality as American, in effect, overlooking my Indo Guyanese heritage. The gaff concludes with her stating that she will send her Bajan husband, Alvin, to the shop to inquire about the fish. This gaff provides insight into the dynamics of researcher and participant relations. Despite my belief that I have inbetweener status, in this instance, the participant views me as an American, whose privilege allows me as a female to frequent rum shops with ease. In this way, casual gaffs do reveal meaningful insights into the ethnography.    ETHICS I agree with Binaya Subedi’s assertion that a researcher’s ‘ “in-between” status requires that they be more accountable to how they have researched and written about the people with whom they affiliate’ (2010:574). The conscience of the researcher is ultimately tied to ethical considerations throughout the research, including responsibility for the representation of participants (Abu-Lughod, 1991; Webster, 2014; Datta, 2017). This recognition reflects a moral understanding that spans the entirety of project affecting the way the project is conceived, implemented, and interpreted. Webster et al. refer to this growth in ethical practice as the development of an ‘ethical conscience’ (2014:107). From this interpretation, I adopt a situational or principled relativist perspective (Webster et al., 2014), which suggests the notions of right and wrong are contextualised in individual circumstances. Ethical judgements within the research process are made by the reflexive researcher, and dependent on the distinctiveness of each situation (Webster et al., 2014:79). My ethical conscience was thereby moulded by an awareness of moral guidance, constant reflection on my own practice, communicative and responsive to the needs of the participants, and considerate of multiple and alternative options of engagement (Webster et al., 2014:107-108).  Prior to the fieldwork, a comprehensive review was taken by the UCL Research Ethics Committee. Under the guidance of the committee, the legal status of participants proved 81      to be the main area of contention. It became established that the purpose of the research was not to identify undocumented persons; rather that would be an inherent consequence given the subject/focus. Resultantly, participants were not encouraged or prompted to share their legal status. Nonetheless, with the exception of four reserved participants (where status was relayed via gatekeeper), participants openly disclosed and discussed their status, throughout the fieldwork As discussed, I sought an affiliation with SALISES as a visiting research student. Since I was not tied to the department in an official capacity or conducting research on behalf of UWI/SALISES6, I was not obliged to fulfil ethics requirements under the UWI charter.  Dietrich Jones has noted in her research of undocumented migrants in Barbados that ‘the Barbadian government had used pejorative terminology – “illegal”- in order to lend credibility to the labelling of the undocumented as an out-group in rhetoric regarding the need for immigration reform’ (2013:170). This supports De Genova’s claim that ‘illegality’ is the product of immigration laws (2002:439). In the context of this research, I focus on how irregular migrants are created through state law. This becomes important in the DLP’s construction of Guyanese undesirability, whereby supposed illegality is used to criminalise irregular migrants, as explored in ch.5 (Brathwaite, 2014).    I call attention to the debate surrounding the perceived criminality and the influence of terminology used to express the legal standing of migrants that exist outside of the formal channels in a host country. Sciortino has argued that the term ‘illegal migration’ should be avoided by researchers as it associates the migrant with criminal and illicit behaviour (2004:17). However, some anthropologists advocate the use of the term illegal, to understand the social reality of migrants, and to adequately describe how migrants embody illegality (Coutin, 2005). Düvell, et al. (2010:233) remind us that human rights groups staunchly oppose the notion of the ‘illegal migrant’ as ‘no human being is illegal’ (Hernández, 2008:23), and along with Lahman et al. (2011), emphasise that this group remain highly vulnerable to exploitation and are in need of heightened particular ethical considerations when researching (i.e., legal repercussions if confidentiality is breached).    6 I was required to present an original paper for the SALISES Developmental Talk Series; ‘Exploring the Free Movement of Persons: Policy and Regional Integration in CARICOM,’ presented 20 January 2016.  82      Taking into account these ethical considerations, I refrain from using the term ‘illegal’ when referring to the migration status of participants throughout the research, as I feel this criminalises, objectifies, ineffectively represents and misidentifies members of the Indo Guyanese migrant community. Nonetheless, the term does arise in this paper as quoted in participant narratives and when referencing DLP policy (particularly throughout ch.5 of this thesis). Maintaining this transparency and accountability is important in conveying the role of the state in perpetuating (il)legality through policy and law. In this thesis, I interchange across irregular and undocumented. I do, however, recognise the contention surrounding terminology constructed by governments, which categorizes migrants as legal and lawful vs illegal and unlawful through the use of terms such as undocumented and irregular (Düvell et al., 2010; Vasta, 2011; De Genova, 2013; Bloch and McKay, 2016).   I also lean on expressions commonly used by participants, i.e., ‘have/don’t have papers’. This phrase (and several variants, all of which include the word papers) as voiced by participants, holds value and meaning to them, as well as to the member nationals. These are the terms which can validate their presence in the host nation or can delegitimise them not only legally (both locally and regionally), but across social circles. These terms therefore carry not only emotional, but social weight, and implications of inclusion and exclusion in the local context. The use of the terms further endeavours to connect the analysis to the participants, bridging the divide between research and participant. Mainstreaming their use of language in the thesis, and not dismissing it as mere colloquialism, attempts to further validate their narratives.   The work of Gutiérrez Garza focuses on the temporal nature of (il)legality, as she tracks how Latin American migrants in London ‘embody new ways of being in the world’ based on their fluctuating (il)legal statuses (2018:86). She analyses the emotional and social effects of her participants as they embody and negotiate the process of ‘becoming’ and ‘being illegal’ (2018:87). Gutiérrez Garza notes her participants had the awareness of becoming undocumented through the overstay of their visas before entering the UK (2018:89). In my research, the ethnography revealed that (il)legality is not a permanent state for participants without Skills Certificates and residency status. The status of many participants proved to be fluid, oscillating between regularity and irregularity during my time in the field. Participants indicated the purpose of their initial entry to Barbados was to locate an employer who would subsequently ‘sponsor’ their work, as opposed to intending to 83      overstay their initial entry period. However, the reality for many results in variable periods of (in)formal work arrangements, permit sponsorships, and short-term stays in Barbados followed by visits to Guyana and returns to Barbados. For many participants, this variability leads to a continued state of fear and anxiousness regarding times cycling through irregular status.   Taking a more general application of ethics, my responsibility to participants was focused on issues of privacy, informed consent, and providing benefit not harm. A major aspect was to be clear with participants and manage expectations, regarding my role as a researcher. Prior to obtaining consent, I addressed expectations; participation was voluntary, withdrawal was acceptable, at any time, without reason, I could not provide financial or legal assistance regarding participant’s immigration status, or otherwise. I did, however, provide in-kind assistance, in the form of filling-out immigration/passport forms, sending remittances on behalf of participants (which were not able to do so because of work commitments), and liaising with family members in Guyana (as I had a laptop and WIFI service in my residence). Adler and Adler (2002) explain that ethnographic studies can never obtain total informed consent, as the nature of the research is exploratory. To circumvent this concern, I made it a point to discuss emergent themes, and areas of focus with participants, as they arose throughout the development of the project, keeping in line with my ethical conscience.    TRUST, AUTHORITY, & TRUTH To establish trust and rapport, I found engaging in participatory observation eased and (I believe) quickened the process. The participatory observation approach is fundamental to ethnography and bridges the divide between researcher and subject (Råheim et.al., 2016; Madden, 2017). Through participant observation, ‘The ethnographer gains unreplicable insight through an analysis of everyday activities and symbolic constructions’ (Herbert, 2000:551). ‘Participation’ took varying forms, from cleaning the mandir after services to handling the register in roti shops. While observation allowed extended time with individual participants during their workday, it wasn’t always practical depending on the job of the participant, i.e., tradesmen and domestics. These participants offered time outside of their work schedule, inviting me to their homes, or other locations to gaff and lime, share meals, socialise, and conduct the interviews. In these instances, my inbetweener status assisted in building rapport. For example, participants found it reassuring that I 84      could cook Indo/Guyanese meals (this in a way proved my connection to my culture) and were intrigued as to how it differed/stayed the same based on ‘American’ tastes.  Pseudonyms were used to preserve confidentiality to the wider audience, in-line with common ethical practice in qualitative research (see Creswell 2014; Allen and Wiles, 2016). Allen and Wiles make the distinction between confidentiality and anonymity (2016). Information was not gathered anonymously, rather as the researcher, I have taken deliberate steps to ‘preserve confidentiality to the wider audience’ (Allen and Wiles, 2016:151). I asked participants if they were comfortable with the names chosen for them, maintaining the ethos of making the research inclusive, and applying my ethical conscience. I found that most participants preferred to choose their names, as opposed to being allocated one. Despite wanting to remain anonymous (this was not the case for all participants), the stories were deeply personal, and by choosing their pseudonyms, they retained a sense of ownership over their narratives, and a measure of authority in the research process.  Dialogue 1 TR: What name are you going to pick? Trevor: Trevor TR: Trevor? Trevor: Yeah, he meh best childhood buddy back home.   Dialogue 2 TR: You think about the name you want for the research? Taij: Yeah, Taij. That’s my sister dat come before me, dat die when she a baby.   The dialogues highlight the deep personal meaning and connection chosen names held to respondents. In the case of Indo Guyanese, it is widespread practice to be known publicly by a different name to your legal birth-name. This is known locally as a ‘call name’, or a name that you are ‘called’ or referred to in everyday interaction. This is contrast to your ‘right name’ or your legal name, which in many times, may not be known even amongst friends, and only used when dealing with government/legal affairs. This practice originated during the time of indenture when European boat registrars, unfamiliar with Indian names, would document names incorrectly (Roopnarine, 2018). Europeans were unaccustomed to pronouncing and spelling Indian names and would often allocate more familiar sounding names to Indians, i.e., Ramdas may become Ronald, Seema may become Sarah. Post-indenture, employment in the civil sector unofficially prescribed employees to be known 85      by a Christian name (Kanhai, 2011). As a result, it became routine in many Indian families to adopt Europeanized/Christian call names and traditional right names for children. More recently, the trend has been to legally assign one name as a first name, and the alternative as a middle-name. For the Hindu participants, there is what is referred to as the ‘book name’ of individuals. In Vedic tradition, this is the name, or initials, assigned to a Hindu baby determined by astrological placement during their date and time of birth, as prescribed by the pandit. For some Indo Caribbeans, parents assign the book name to children as their right name, while others refer to the name when seeking religious advice, or for when performing religious duties. Unlike a book name or a right name, a call name can be any noun, not necessarily a proper noun, or conventional name; for instance, two participant call names were Bird and Bones.   There is a gendered aspect in the naming process. Most female nicknames were closely related to their right names (i.e., Amanda became Mandy), although I met a few young girls with unconventional call names (i.e., Chunks). By the time a young female reaches adolescence and becomes a teenager, their unconventional call name begins to transition. By their late teens, their call name becomes a designated nickname associated to their right name; the English-ed version of their name, or is dropped altogether, and they are referred to only by their right name. This contrasted with young boys who tended to have more creative call names (i.e., Oink, Blacky), as the practice would continue from childhood, adolescence, and carry into adulthood. When dealing with male participants, in particular, I oftentimes had to juggle references to their call names, right names, and (if in the temple, or at religious events) book names. Effectively, at any given time, some participants could be using up to three names in a social setting. Many participants chose one of their existing names as their pseudonyms. Despite the nature and sensitivity of the research, participants felt confident that the use of one call/right/book name would shield their anonymity from the general audience, and asserted their authority, by insisting these names be used to represent their narratives.   Informed consent to participate in the research, as well as the pictures shown in the thesis received verbal confirmation; mindful that participants were wary of security issues surrounding their signature and image. To participants this added step aided in ensuring their confidentiality and provided a cloak of anonymity to their contributions. This was particularly for semi-literate and irregular participants, who were concerned their signatures 86      could be used to implicate their status or used to assume their identity. It proved impractical to record all conversations with participants, considering frequency of contact, and as indicated by participants, recording of any kind proved an unattractive tool. I was conscious that a voice recorder could be viewed as a tool of the ‘foreign gyal’, again alienating the migrant community with the use of technology unaccustomed and unaffordable to many participants, accentuating my privilege and emphasizing our socioeconomic and educational divide. More practically, while the presence of a voice recorder further reinforced the researcher-participant dichotomy, it justified a protective and reserved stance of the participants (adding to suspicions that I was recruited by the Bajan government to gain confessions of illegality by migrants), which worked contrary to building rapport, and obtaining candid and unfiltered narratives. As a result, voice recorders were used sparingly, as many participants and interviewees refused consent to its use, including interviews with some peripheral stakeholders.   The following is an account from my fieldnotes when I felt the presence of a voice recorder would provide ‘alternate truths’, and decided against its use:   I was with Kareem discussing his unease of heightened visibility in public spaces, and the frustration of being referred to as ‘Indian’ by Bajans. As I took the voice recorder out of my bag and placed it on the table, he laughed and said he was ‘only mekin’ joke’ [only making a joke], and quickly began speaking of the positives/benefits of living in Barbados, i.e., earning and being able to remit, and the scenic beauty of the island.  6 November 2015   This interaction emphasises that appropriate modes of capturing information are highly dependent on the research context (Rutakumwa et al., 2020). What are widely accepted as appropriate field tools (in this case, the voice recorder) to the ethnographer, can be an impediment to gaining the ‘truth’, as it is interpreted as serving a different purpose by participants. There is the acknowledgement that different forms of capturing information will produce different ‘truths’ (Rutakumwa et al., 2020). It is the role of the ethnographer to negotiate between alternate and adaptable methods to uncover the layered perspectives of ‘truth’, as experienced through migrant and host narratives.      87      CONCLUSION The chapter has described my foundational knowledge and interpretation for the methodological framing of the research. My ontological standpoint is most congruent with critical realism. I also use elements of interpretivism for my epistemological understanding in this research. I argue that the most effective way to achieve an accurate interpretation and complete portrayal of a community’s experiences is through the adoption and application of Verstehen in Erlebnis. I have outlined my rationale for applying a blended design, combining qualitative methods in the form of an integrative ethnographic case study. The research questions were developed based on both deductive and inductive reasoning at different moments in the research process. I have discussed the complexities of the ethnographer’s subjective intrusion in collecting information, which has drawn me to address my inbetweener positionality and my place in the field.  Liming, and particularly gaffing, are culturally appropriate forms of engagement with Guyanese participants. As an inbetweener, I am bound by ethical considerations that guide my representation of the community I have researched, which supported the build of my ethical conscience. Emotional reflexivity is intertwined with the ethical conscience of the researcher and needs to be maintained throughout the project. The continued interplay between the ethnographer, and their ethical and emotional reflexivity influences the relationship of trust between researcher and participants, mediates authority, and allows for the truth to be transmitted between both parties.  The fieldwork took place in Barbados, over a nine-month period, from June 2015-March 2016. Twenty-eight participants (twenty-five self-identifying Indo Guyanese, and three self-identifying Dougla) contributed to this research. These participants were fifteen males, thirteen females, with varying legal statuses and religious followings. An additional fifteen Bajans provided interviews from the host community standpoint. The case study comprised: in-depth, semi-structured, and group interviews, oral history narratives, memory work, participant observation, and archive and document review.   Chapters 5 through 8 unpack the empirical information captured during the ethnography, focusing on the research questions. In particular, the following chapter addresses how the Bajan government has established Guyanese undesirability. The research gathered during the fieldwork exposes how this image of the Guyanese community is rooted in representations of their perceived illegality, criminality, and socioeconomic status. This view shapes their everyday realities, dictating interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships.    88      CHAPTER 5 GUYANESE UNDESIRABILITY  This chapter addresses the research question: how has the Government of Barbados promoted the trope of Guyanese undesirability? In this chapter, I focus on how irregular migrants are created through state law, and the policy which frames their ‘illegality’ (see Bloch and McKay, 2016). Bloch and McKay describe how ‘creating illegal migrants’ is a highly political and politicized effort (2016). Dietrich Jones has noted in her research of undocumented migrants in Barbados, ‘The Barbadian government had used pejorative terminology – “illegal”- in order to lend credibility to the labelling of the undocumented as an out-group in rhetoric regarding the need for immigration reform’ (2013:170). This discussion forms the basis of this chapter, asserting De Genova’s claim that ‘ “illegality” is the product of immigration laws’ (2002:439). As Bloch and McKay assert the various ways migrant illegality is created across the UK and EU (2016), I use this to parallel the case of Barbados, and the DLP’s efforts to construct what I term ‘Guyanese Undesirability’.   As previously noted in the 2013 Myrie v Barbados ruling, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) outlined the parameters for denying entry and removal of a CARICOM national in another member state. The court ruled that to be deemed undesirable, ‘the visiting national must present a genuine, present, and sufficiently serious threat to state security, public morals, public security and health, or pose a strain on public funds’ (CARICOM Secretariat, 2017:12). In the first section of this chapter, I demonstrate how the Bajan government constructs undesirability. In order to do so, the DLP has extracted the legitimate parameters outlined in the CCJ ruling and applied it to national policy. In these instances, the government of Barbados can legally deny entry for, or legally remove, other CARICOM nationals by classifying them as undesirable (CARICOM Secretariat, 2017:12).  I unpack how the Bajan government applies an opposing policy of restrictive free movement, while promoting a national narrative shaping the undesirable CARICOM migrant (Dietrich Jones, 2013; Brathwaite, 2014; Cumberbatch, 2015). Through ethnographic accounts, I illustrate how this justification of undesirability is rooted in migrants’ perceived illegality, criminality and socioeconomic status. This section focuses on how undesirability is tied to notions of deservingness, and ultimately (un)belonging. Guyanese have been imagined as undesirable based on their socioeconomic standing as well as their markers of ethnoreligious difference. This section highlights how this message 89      has influenced Bajan sentiments towards Guyanese migrants, promoting a sense of Guyanese undesirability.   The second half of the chapter, referencing De Genova (2013), describes how immigration enforcement generate various ‘scenes of exclusion’ to continually reinforce difference between Guyanese migrants and Bajan nationals throughout the island. The subsequent section explores the ways the Barbados government works to challenge migrant status and limit belonging by dictating which migrant deserves legal status while ‘contradictorily restricting their ability to deserve’ (Chauvin and Garcés-Mascareñas, 2014). This section demonstrates how this promotes the participation of the Bajan public to act as arbitrators of legality in their surveillance of non-nationals, further scrutinizing Guyanese migrants. The last section of the chapter showcases variations of migrant (in)visibilities, exploring the political and social ways Guyanese migrants negotiate (in)visibility in Barbados. Continuing the themes of (un)belonging and inclusion/exclusion, this section addresses the research questions by illuminating how the marker of (il)legality and Guyanese undesirability influences the emotional experience of Indo Guyanese in Barbados, and how this generates particular tensions and solidarities within and across migrant and host groups.   CONSTRUCTING GUYANESE UNDESIRABILITY In June 2008 a DLP Cabinet sub-committee was established to craft a new immigration policy (Brathwaite, 2014:164). In June 2009, Barbados amnesty laws were revised with respect to undocumented CARICOM member nationals. The previous law of 1995 granted applications for amnesty after five years of residence on the island (Brathwaite, 2014:164). The revised 2009 law, however, increased that time substantially. Undocumented migrants who arrived to the island before 31 December 2005, were given a six-month grace period to register for regularization with the Barbados Immigration Department by 1 December 2009. This option was only viable if they were able to provide proof of residence in Barbados for eight years or more prior to 31 December 2005, proof of employment and evidence of a clean criminal record (Brathwaite, 2014). Those who arrived less than five years before 31 December 2005, could apply to stay in the country under an extended work permit, provided they contribute to the Barbadian economy and were not involved in illicit activities (OAS, 2012:76-77). The DLP promoted the new policy 90      as an attempt to regularise migrants, considering the six-month period for applications and the option of an ‘extended work permit’. In reality, the revised policy considerably increased the time it would take for irregular CARICOM member nationals to qualify for amnesty. Chauvin and Garcés-Mascareñas (2014) argue that governments seeking to restrict immigration often create migration policies built on a concept of ‘deservingness’. According to this system, governments are able to simultaneously ‘emphasize deservingness frames while limiting migrants’ opportunities to deserve’ (2014:422). In December 2009, the grace period for registration ended, and deportations of CARICOM member nationals began.   As Boccagni and Baldassar remind, ‘some of the most emotive issues of our times concern not so much the migrant condition as the politics of the migrant phenomenon’, which are ‘both deeply emotive and deeply political’ (2015:74). Former President Jagdeo of Guyana (serving from 1999-2011) remained vocal of migration restrictions, deportations, and accusations of discrimination and mistreatment of Guyanese nationals by Bajan officials under the DLP (see Stabroek News 2009a; 2009b). Even though deportations have been condemned by several HoG and have led to tensions between Guyanese and Bajan administrations, the majority of Bajan participants during the fieldwork vehemently defended the government’s actions. Their views echo the attitudes of a survey taken seven years earlier. In 2009, CADRES, the Caribbean Development Research Services (a socio-political research firm based in the region) conducted a poll which indicated that 70% of Barbadians supported the DLP’s stance on undocumented CARICOM nationals (Brathwaite, 2014:188-189). These members of the public view policy as a means to uphold state security (Brathwaite, 2014) and maintain cultural individuality (King, 2015), while acting in accordance with CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) jurisprudence (Dietrich Jones, 2013; Brathwaite, 2014). Bajan participant, Kenneth, explains his view in support of deportations of irregular CARICOM nationals:   ‘There really can’t be condemnation from other [CARICOM] Governments over Thompson’s approach, because he gave them [migrants] time to do things the right way. Governments didn’t agree to let everyone move wherever they like… If illegals choose to stay-on afterwards, that is their choice, but you have to deal with the consequence… Barbados needs to protect its borders and its people, and it has every right to do so. We can’t allow people who are breaking the law – criminals – to find a home here. Let them go back.’  22 November 2015 91      In his discussion, Kenneth stresses that the agreement between CARICOM leaders is intended to manage regional movement, as opposed to allowing un-checked, free movement. He views the criticism from other CARICOM leaders towards the DLP as unwarranted. In the same conversation he goes on to say that Barbados is a ‘peaceful country, we ain’t get much problem – we can’t have illegals bringing their crime here’. For Kenneth, this includes namely drug trafficking, prostitution and the perceived violence and moral degradation of Barbados associated with those. Kenneth is in his mid-30s and works as a security guard in the Hastings/St. Lawrence Gap area - the most touristed regions of the island, particularly for nightlife. He is confronted, daily, with the reality of drugs and prostitution in Barbados. And while he does not associate all regional migrants with drugs and sex work, he does believe that Guyanese and Jamaicans are disproportionately involved in these activities. Kenneth does not make a distinction between immigration law and criminal law. This means that irregular migrants are often associated as criminals who are likely to be involved in these more serious, illicit activities..   In her research on Guyanese migration in the Caribbean region, Vezzoli notes the regularity of discrimination that Guyanese experience at CARICOM borders due to their alleged involvement in various forms of unlawful activity:  ‘Over the years, deportations of Guyanese for irregular migration activities (e.g., unregistered entry, false documents and smuggling) were reported from the entire Caribbean region and Guyanese have earned a negative reputation, leading to Guyanese travelers regularly experiencing discrimination at the hands of border officers.’   (2015:118)  While Guyanese have regionally gained a notorious reputation for ‘irregular migration activities’ as described by Vezzoli, Brathwaite argues that the DLP has used this justification to stereotype Guyanese passport holders and shift migration discourse from integration to criminality and protecting Barbados’ national security (2014). The research of Dietrich Jones (2013, 2020) and Brathwaite (2014) explores the way the DLP politicised immigration, in order to garner public support for their policies. In our conversation (October 22, 2015, at her studio Fresh Milk in St. George Parish), Bajan artist and activist Annalee Davis, highlights the 2009 DLP Green Paper as formative in this process. The legislative document, A Comprehensive Review of Immigration Policy and Proposals for Legislative Reform in the Barbados House of Assembly, is commonly referred to as the 2009 Green Paper. 92      This document was instructive in guiding public views. The Green Paper promoted imagery of undesirable regional migrants as a threat to national security, framing the irregularity of CARICOM migrants as the cornerstone of the DLP’s argument (Brathwaite, 2014). Among other recommendations, the Green Paper calls for penalties for ‘harbouring illegals’ (liable to a fine of $5,000BBD and/or imprisonment for 12 months) (2009:66). It recommends a Constitutional amendment to end Jus soli citizenship for children born of non-national parents (2009:59). It suggests marriage between Bajan citizen and undocumented migrants should not be recognised by the State (2009:58-59). It revises definite six-month entry to three months, recommends the removal of Skilled regional nationals who are not employed within six months (2009:19-20), and promotes a register of non-national students with proof of address submitted every three months to The Ministry of Labour & Immigration Department (2009:89).    Securitizing the border goes beyond the DLP’s messaging of curbing crime, drugs, and other illicit activity, however. The DLP positioned irregular CARICOM migrants as criminals, in-breach of Bajan law, amplifying a national narrative around the criminality of undocumented member nationals, focusing the public’s view on migrants. In this way, irregular migrants are categorised as undesirable (Davis 2007, 2015; Harewood, 2010; Dietrich Jones 2013, 2020; Brathwaite, 2014). However, irregularity becomes just one avenue in which Guyanese migrants are considered undesirable. There is the legal stance of undesirability used to deny entry or remove a CARICOM national in another member state, which is saturated in bias surrounding social undesirability. In the case of Guyanese, social undesirability is a precursor to assumed legal undesirability.  (Un)desirability becomes the litmus test member nationals must pass to gain entry and remain in Barbados, with undesirability attributed to particular CARICOM nationalities, including Guyanese (Davis 2007, 2015; Harewood, 2010; Dietrich Jones 2013, 2020; Brathwaite, 2014). For Guyanese participants, this is translated in the way they are assumed to be undesirable from the time they arrive in Barbados. The narratives to follow will describe how participants are routinely assumed to be involved in criminality: through having forged papers, trafficking drugs, working in prostitution, violating their immigration status, and seeking medical care without adequate funds, to name a few. While framed as a matter of national security, immigration policy becomes tied to socio-cultural elements, and border protection is conflated with protection of Bajan culture, values, and national identity (Harewood, 2010; Brathwaite, 2014).  93      Rao and Sedlaczek (2012) categorise Barbados as a collectivist nation. They note that this was borne out of Afro Bajans’ experience of slavery (Rao and Sedlaczek 2012:321). Historically, enslaved people were both stripped of the freedom to practice their customs, and largely the ability to practice the customs of their enslavers. In Barbados (and much of the Anglophone Caribbean) collectivist practices became crucial to ensure their survival as a people (Rao and Sedlaczek 2012). Their new way of life centered on the community and relied on a strong social network grounded in ‘companionship and group solidarity’ (Rao and Sedlaczek 2012:321). In their efforts ‘to create a new culture’, they established a system of ‘emotional care, economic support and community care of their young’ (Rao and Sedlaczek 2012:321). In Barbados today, on a national level, this means supporting those in the community (Bajans). Those who are viewed as outside of the community (non-Bajans) are not welcome to those benefits and are considered ‘out-group’ (Rao and Sedlaczek, 2012). Research shows that collectivist attitudes remain strong on the island, as seen in the way Bajans view people from neighboring islands as ‘foreigners’, ‘outcasts’ and ‘pariahs’ (Rao and Sedlaczek, 2012:322)   Brathwaite places Bajan immigration policy as reflecting xenocentric attributes, whereby ‘Barbadian culture in contradistinction to a foreign Guyanese culture, is viewed as superior to all others inclusive of other cultural expression in CARICOM member states’ (2014:120-121). He relates this to a national ethnocentric leaning which supports a ‘strong sense of ethnic group self-importance and self-centeredness, characterized by intergroup expressions’ (2014:120-121). In this understanding, the ‘ingroup assumes they are more important than other groups, and intragroup expressions…assume the ingroup is more important than individual ingroup members’ (Brathwaite 2014:121-122).   This is particularly felt in the way differentiation is made to distinguish regional nationals, who share similar ethno-linguistic and historical pasts. Rao and Sedlaczek  make particular note of Barbadian sentiments towards Jamaicans in this context (2012). Hence, Brathwaite argues, ‘CARICOM nationals, choosing to enter Barbados for work, leisure, or other reason [sic], are frequently seen in exclusionary terms. CARICOM citizenship, without having Barbados citizenship, may still be viewed as foreign to local Barbadian membership’ (2014:130). These notions are largely accepted by regional migrants, as Kairi Consultants have found in their research, that even though ‘nationalistic sentiment [in Barbados] is strong and can translate into overt xenophobia in certain instances’, CARICOM nationals, ‘tolerate most circumstances of discrimination as part of the deal of being a foreigner’ (2013:49).  94      Media, as Robinson argues, plays a definitive role in shaping views surrounding regionalism, inter-regional migration, and identities in CARICOM member states (2020). This is apparent in the influential web-based blog, Barbados Underground (BU). On the site’s webpage opinion pieces can be anonymously posted, and primarily are, by members of the Bajan public. The most established and popular newspapers in both countries have a tradition of regularly hosting opinion content (i.e., Barbados’ Barbados Today and Guyana’s Stabroek News). Unsurprisingly, Guyanese newspapers publish articles sympathetic to the Guyanese community on the island while Bajan newspapers have taken an approach less critical of the Bajan government. This can be seen in their contrasting reports of the same event;  for example, ‘Guyanese are being raided in Barbados’ posted 17 June 2009, by Stabroek News, and ‘PM Thompson Refutes Indiscriminate Deportation Charges’ posted 29 June 2009, by The Barbados Gazette.    The format of BU can be compared to following a similar style to that of opinion pieces found in the island’s newspapers. Through our email interview (February 16, 2016), David King, the creator and moderator, expressed that he and his team ‘were motivated in 2007 because of what [we] saw as inadequate traditional media coverage’. He sees BU as beyond a blog, calling it a ‘project’, adding ‘we are a news source AND freely share opinions.’ BU was described by Bajan respondents as conservative and nationalistic, expressing extreme points of view. According to King, however, ‘All countries have a national identity which defines them, it must be protected. Without an identity to underpin intrinsic hopes and fears we become robots.’ King insists he and his team are not involved in politics, rather driven by ‘a deep love for country’ stating, ‘We are not xenophobic or jingoistic, we are Barbadians first and foremost.’   Even though official confirmation is absent, news sources place Guyanese deportation from Barbados, from 2009-2013, at 610, and 404 for Jamaicans for the same time period, with smaller numbers of deportations from St. Lucia, Trinidad, and St. Vincent (RJR News, 2013). BU was divisive by aggressively promoting the administration’s stance during this time. Remember, however, BU was not alone in promoting a pro-Thompson stance. Mainstream Bajan outlets (while not as opinionated and extreme as BU posts) were less sympathetic to migrant stories while being less critical of the DLP’s policies and actions, in comparison to CARICOM news outlets (as mentioned earlier).  BU openly opposed Guyanese migration citing safety concerns (see BU blogpost ‘Can Barbados avoid escalating crime & violence in neighbouring Trinidad & Guyana?’ posted 95      January 26, 2008) and expressed concern for a loss of Bajan culture that would result with the influx of an Indo Guyanese foreign population. Articles published on the blog spoke of incompatibility of Hinduism with a Christian state and cited civil unrest in Guyana as proof that ethnic plurality in Barbados would lead to increased violence and tension on the island (see BU blogpost ‘Can Indians and Black co-exist in Barbados?’ posted January 29, 2008, and ‘Hindus in Barbados show insensitivity’ posted March 9, 2010). When asked if the blog has spread racist and xenophobic rhetoric, Mr. King replied, ‘Our willingness to post the opinions of ALL is how we allow for a melting pot of views to contend. Sensible readers are able to draw conclusions for themselves’. Nonetheless, the site maintains, ‘we strongly believe that the impact of multi-ethnic groups on a Black host population should be studied as part of a managed immigration policy’ (and reiterated in our email correspondence). King argues that his supporters and contributors to the site believe that ‘we [the Barbados Government] need to maintain a “register’’ of regional migrants’.   BU was known to all Bajan participants, and most of the Guyanese participants. While Bajan participants largely dismissed the blog as the ‘extreme views by some/a few Bajans’, King has assured that ‘readership continues to climb’, indeed the site has a following of over 1.5k on social media platform, Twitter. King’s views support the positions Brathwaite (2014) and Rao and Sedlaczek (2012) have expressed surrounding Bajan nationalism. Popular outlets like Barbados Underground become forums and spaces for Bajans to reinforce notions of CARICOM nationals as divergent foreigners, threatening not only Bajan security but also Bajan culture.  One morning at a bus stop I was talking to a Trinidadian graduate student attending UWI Cave Hill about this research. She expressed that ‘It’s not just Guyanese, it’s everyone non-Bajan…like they [Bajans] make it a point not to like you, because you’re not from here.’ Upon hearing our discussion regarding state policy and national attitudes and the varied experiences of Guyanese and Trinidadian migrants, a Bajan bystander at the same bus stop interjected: ‘You see, It’s hard for Bajans to speak how we feel, because all the time you hear in [regional] news about “Bajan is racist” “Bajan is xenophobic”… It’s like everyone in the Caribbean waiting to hear Bajan say something bad about immigrants. I hear Trinidadians don’t welcome Guyanese, either. Yet, I hear you discussing how badly Bajans treat Guyanese and Trinidadians.’ 7 September 2015  96      While this was a one-off comment, the woman at the bus stop and the student raise an interesting point regarding a sense of regional belonging and acceptance, and how that compares with national identities. The woman’s remark about Guyanese in Trinidad is not an unfounded claim. In 2017 Trinidad accounted for 81% of CSME ‘denials of entry’ for member nationals, 41.3% of those denials were of Guyanese nationals and 29.3% were Jamaican nationals (IOM, 2019a:33). In defense of national attitudes towards migrants, Bajan participant Marissa explains, ‘you would be hard-up to find a [Caribbean] state that just accepts regional migrants, neighbouring or not’ (5 October 2015). Marissa is speaking about the reality that no CSME state accepts unregulated free movement at the moment (except within the Organisation of the Eastern Caribbean States). As an NGO researcher who works closely with regional CARICOM grassroots organisations, Marissa is attuned to realities facing migrants with temporary work placements, or those hoping to find work that will sponsor a permit, which more than often, results in a period of irregular status. She travels regularly (several times per month) to regional states. In this instance, Marissa is not only speaking about the (il)legality of regional migrants, but the attitude of acceptance by the host island towards others from the region. By her own admission, she expresses not feeling overly welcome in other CSME nations when she travels, ‘I never feel like people friendly, or interested [in me]. It’s like people can’t be bothered’.   The Trinidadian student expresses her feeling that Bajans ‘don’t like’ her because she’s not from Barbados. However, the Bajan bystander interjects to add that it is unfair that Barbados is painted as a xenophobic island while Trinidad itself is known in the region for their unwelcoming attitude towards Guyanese. Many Bajan participants felt the need to defend the wider Bajan community in regards to the topic of immigration, as King expressed earlier in our exchange. During interviews, Bajan interviewees would regularly assert that the Barbados government, and by default the Bajan population, has gained a negative reputation in the region as being intolerant towards regional migrants; ‘everyone [in the region] say we xenophobic’, ‘when we send-back [deport], they [non-Bajans] call we a xenophobic island’, ‘I always hear people [non-Bajan] say “Barbados full of racist” ’. Marissa’s comment ties these sentiments together. In describing how other CARICOM nationals remain distant towards her when travelling to other islands, she makes the point that unpleasant attitudes towards other Caribbean nationalities is not unique to Barbados. These views remind us that belonging and inclusion are relative and subjective. It also points to the reality that a sense of national identity in some CARICOM states is stronger than a sense of regional belonging.  97       As Robinson argues, ‘respective governments have been influential in dictating integration and identity discourse in the Caribbean’ (2020:44). This sentiment was repeated across most Bajan participants, who referenced Caribbeans’ strong leanings towards national identities, rather than an affiliation towards regional identity. Within this reinforcement of a national Bajan identity, there has been a parallel narrative of the undesirable regional migrant which threatens Bajan identity. Indo Guyanese are viewed as the physical embodiment of this undermining presence, due to their largely low-skilled migration, and perceived ethnoreligious difference (Harewood, 2010). Thus, the term Guyanese undesirability describes the national, but also underlining nuanced ethnoreligious and socioeconomic implications associated with Guyanese migrants when referring to Barbados regional migration discourse.     CREATING ‘SCENES OF EXCLUSION’  THE GUYANA BENCH  ‘The Border Spectacle…sets the scene- a scene of ostensible exclusion, in which the purported naturalness and putative necessity of exclusion may be demonstrated and verified, validated and legitimates, redundantly. The scene (where border enforcement performatively activates the reification of migrant “illegality” in an emphatic and grandiose gesture of exclusion)…’ De Genova (2013:1181)   In an ‘uneven geographical landscape of belonging’, belonging is geographically dependent on local interpretation of wider policy (Mavroudi and Nagel, 2016:196). In the case of Barbados, despite their signatory status to the CARICOM regional free movement policy, national implementation of the policy has established an uneven, hierarchical sense of belonging at the first arrival to the island. Even though the Revised Treaty stipulates visa-free entry for six months to a member nation, immigration officers in Barbados have the authority to allot visas for a discretionary duration within that period. As a result, the ethnography revealed Guyanese who were allowed durations far shorter than the standard six months, with their return-ticket to Guyana determining their allotted time (I met Guyanese who were allowed 4 months, 3 months, 6 weeks, and as little as 2 weeks entry), despite the ruling of the CCJ in the Shanique Myrie case.  Brathwaite sees immigration policy in Barbados as reflective of institutional discrimination, perpetuating the notion of the CARICOM ‘foreigner’, distinct from Barbadians (2014). As Brathwaite stresses, ‘when viewed through the lenses of political membership and community, profiles and discrimination, the cost of entering Barbados as a CARICOM 98      national, but not as a citizen of Barbados, can become a traumatic experience for the individual and for collectives such as Guyanese’ (2014:119). The Bajan government anticipates and works to curb moments of ‘premeditated’ illegality from the moment of entry into the country. The primary means of entry to the island is through air travel, via the Grantley Adams Airport. After disembarking, arrivals to Barbados are directed inside to the immigration clearance counters. As stated earlier, CARICOM passports and use of the same immigration lines for CARICOM nationals across ports of entry became implemented to allow for hassle-free travel (Anderson, 2013; Robinson, 2020). The unifying intention of CARICOM passports is aimed to create ‘awareness that CARICOM Nationals are Nationals of the Community’ acting both ‘as a defining symbol of regionalism and visible proof of a common identity’ (as stated in the Grand Anse Declaration). Participants find this is not the case, however. Their Guyana passports are used to differentiate them from other CARICOM nationalities, rather than create a sense of shared identity. The experiences of participants Wendy and Stacy will show how they are probed and face false accusations by immigration officials when entering the island. This emphasises that they are separate and apart from, rather than a part of a common regional identity.   Participants, both Guyanese and Bajan, speak of a specific bench located immediately behind the immigration clearance that has become informally known as the ‘Guyana bench’. Although this is not officially named or identified as the Guyana bench, it has earned its name through the frequency of numerous Guyanese nationals seated on (or standing near, when there are too many people to fit on the bench), flagged as suspicious in their attempt to enter the country. As Bajan participant Harold explains in jest:  ‘Immigration get an entire section dedicated to Guyanese at Grantley Adams [airport]!...Whenever a flight lands from Guyana, that bench is put to work. Whenever immigration see a Guyanese passport, that bench is put to work… If you gone to collect someone with a Guyanese passport, you already know to come the next day.’  11 January 2016  Even though Harold exaggerates the long wait-time for verification of Guyanese nationals to be deemed legitimate to enter the country, Guyanese participants who have experienced the Guyana bench recall an average wait time of two- three hours, with one participant waiting up to six hours until his release. However, if verification is not straightforward, immigration officials move individuals into the closed back room for further vetting. In 99      September 2016 (post fieldwork), Guyanese Annecia Ariel was denied entry at Grantley Adams Airport because immigration officers believed she intended to work without a permit. Despite being five months pregnant, she ‘was made to sit on a bench for some 12 hours while awaiting a return flight to Guyana’ (Kaieteur News, 2016).  As expressed by De Genova (2013), immigration enforcement generates ‘scenes of exclusion’, which render ‘migrant illegality visible’. The Guyana bench acts as the catalyst for this scene, whereby suspected illegitimate entrants are singled-out for public display, as subjects of the spectacle. The bench is situated behind the immigration counters, so those made to sit/stand in this area are directly facing the queue of entrants to the island who are going through their immigration checks. Those who successfully pass the immigration counters, must pass directly in front of those relegated to the Guyana bench, facing one another. This is particularly telling of Barbados border security, as CARICOM travellers are guaranteed six-month visa-free entry, so at this point, their ‘illegality’ would have to be established through possession of fake/doctored documents, trafficking goods, and proof of travelling under false intentions (to gain employment, seek medical care, etc.). This is the first instance for migrants, where their undesirability in Barbados becomes visible and palpable, through their refusal to be recognised as lawful entrants to the island by Bajan immigration officials.   According to Guyanese participant, Wendy, being called to the Guyana bench is a strategy used specifically by immigration officials to establish a sense of difference and unbelonging, meant to belittle and demean the Guyanese travellers, by physically separating and differentiating them from fellow CARICOM travellers. Through her experiences of re-entering Barbados at Grantley Adams Airport for roughly twelve years, Wendy explains:   ‘It’s like them want yuh to know yuh not one ah dem…It’s like them waiting to see yuh passport, just fuh mek yuh sit and wait…They accuse me of false papers. Tell me I tek someone else passport and using it. How? They get all meh Bajan papers in deh hand, and still say I lie.’ 5 February 2016   Wendy says that immigration officials examine her documents thoroughly, despite the fact that she has residency on the island and a Barbados-issued identification card. Even for Guyanese like Wendy who have been able to achieve residency status, immigration officials ‘tek every opportunity to remind you that you not one ah dem’.    Similar sentiments are expressed by participant Sandy, who recalls, ‘They harass yuh from the time yuh reach - from the time the [air]plane land. So as to mek yuh feel foreign, like 100      yuh nah get business being hea. Like you below dem’ (1 March 2016). ‘Suspicious’ entrants are made to sit and wait while their passports, IDs, work permits, CVQs, baggage, contact information and the address of their stay on the island, are examined by immigration officials. Any of these could be used to refuse right of entry. In the Shanique Myrie case, Barbados claimed that Myrie was rightly refused entry because she was untruthful about the identity of her Barbadian host ([CCJ 3 (OJ)] 2013).  This is explained in the instance of participant Stacy. Stacy travels back and forth between Guyana and Barbados several times a year. She has never over-stayed her six-month entry period, yet, in her words, is treated like a criminal whenever she re-enters the island:  ‘Every time I come back, most times, immigration hold me. They check my papers, my family dem…money. Then they start with this prostitution thing... Because I not married, yuh know, and I young. Either dat, or I carrying drugs. No matter what, they find excuse to talk to me like a criminal. I never pass-through with ease… These Bajan… let me tell you, never seen people so bare-face, hollering “prostitute” just so…everyone [to] watch the whore stand-up there.’   2 August 2015  Stacy recounts what she describes as her typical reentry experience to Barbados. She is routinely either taken to the back room and interrogated (detained) or debased in public at the immigration desk. She must wait while her documentation is examined, her familial contacts in Barbados are vetted for not having criminal records themselves, her finances are questioned to make sure she has enough to cover her stay in Barbados (so she will not be a burden on the public purse, giving officials a valid reason to deny her entry according to Bajan law), while she is made to justify the source of her funds. Stacy’s brother lives and works in Canada, remitting his earnings to his family in Guyana. Yet, Stacy claims there is an assumption that her finances are either covered by prostitution or trafficking drugs. Both of which immigration officers use to justify her frequent travel across states. Stacy stresses that she travels so frequently precisely to avoid over-staying the six-month entry and committing an immigration violation. Stacy feels she ‘can’t win’ as she adheres to the law, yet nonetheless endures ‘insults’ of being called a prostitute or drug smuggler. She feels that despite her efforts at legal entry, she must be associated as someone with ‘low moral character’ by immigration officers. Her legitimacy and desirability are conditional to the immigration officer’s ability to publicly disgrace her and make her ‘feel like I is nothing.’ By pressing Stacy on her involvement in prostitution, immigration officers can make the argument that she is undesirable because she not only engages in criminal activity (commercial sex work and solicitation is a criminal offence on the island), but also  poses a threat to public morals. 101      Once seated on the Guyana bench, you wait until your entry to Barbados is deemed either illegitimate or legitimate. If deemed legitimate, you are free to leave the airport (in many cases conditionally, without your original documents which are retained pending validation). If deemed illegitimate, or undesirable, you may be officially charged with an immigration offence, fined for your violation, detained and sent on the next available return flight to Guyana, unless you are ordered to face sentencing. Nonetheless, even if your entry is deemed legitimate, the public shaming associated with the process endures and a sense of separation and difference is imprinted in migrants’ experience, as seen with Stacy.    From the time of landing in Barbados, participants describe the anxiety and nervousness they experience in their conversation with immigration officers who may or may not direct them to the bench. The Guyana bench not only creates a scene of exclusion but acts as a material marker of strained migration relations between the two countries, instilling fear and perpetuating difference amongst particularly Guyanese nationals in Barbados. For respondents, it reinforces attitudes that the Bajan government and by extension, the Bajan public, remains more cautious and sceptical of the Guyanese community, compared to other CARICOM nationals on the island. As Table 5.1. shows below, between 2007 and 2012, Barbados immigration officers disproportionately refused Guyanese and Jamaican nationals entry, in comparison to other member states (The Gleaner, 2013). The government of Barbados does not make public their refusal of entry data (UNDP, 2022). This information was the exception as it was presented as evidence in the Shanique Myrie case and reported in The Gleaner (‘Jamaicans, Guyanese Top List of CARICOM Nationals Denied Entry to Barbados’, published 8 March 2013).     Table 5.1. Comparative entry and denial numbers for CARICOM nationals  to Barbados from 2007-2013 Origin of CARICOM national Entries 2012 Denials 2012 Denials between  2007-2013 Trinidad & Tobago 42,295 28 134 St. Vincent & the Grenadines 29,781 41 372 Guyana 21,358 163 2,128 Jamaica 12,888 204 1,485 Source: The Gleaner, ‘Jamaicans, Guyanese Top List of CARICOM Nationals Denied Entry to Barbados’ (2013)   102      RAIDS Immigration scenes of exclusion go beyond the bounds of the border, and beyond the bounds of the public sphere in Barbados. In 2009 one of the most contested government actions enacted under the Thompson government was the public search and 'rounding up' of undocumented migrants. Migrants suspected of irregularity were held accountable to police officers, who required documented proof of legal stay in Barbados. Sanctioned by the government, police officers would detain individuals until documentation was validated. There is a marked difference in interpretation between national and non-national participants regarding the perception of government action. While migrants refer to these as 'raids', Bajans participants refer to the action informally, using the terms: 'looking for illegals', 'catching criminals', or simply, 'checks'. Indeed, as tensions between CARICOM leaders ensued, Prime Minister Thompson confirmed them as ‘visits…occurring between 3am and 6am’ (see article ‘Fifty-three Guyanese deported from Barbados’ published in Stabroek News, 2009b). 'Checks' imply a casual action, however the former phrases place automatic blame on the undocumented and justify the government action. Illegality is emphasized, suggesting all migrants are criminals, until proven otherwise (procuring their visas and passports for official validation). The difference between Bajan and Guyanese perceptions of this occurrence points to the depth in which policing irregularity is equated and justified with policing criminality, emphasizing the undesirability of Guyanese migrants in the view of some Bajans.   VIGNETTE: SONYA  Sonya takes the ironing board from inside the house and opens it on the balcony. She plugs the iron into the outlet on the other side of the house door. She has a small pile of clothes that she has taken down from the clothesline that runs along the top of the balcony. She separates which will be ironed and which will be folded. I help fold the clothes and set them aside, while Sonya explains, ‘When it get hot like this, we does sleep with all them door and window open.  That’s how the police come through.’ Her home is on the upper level of a house that has been converted into two separate dwellings. Four years prior, Sonya’s home was raided by police officers who were looking for undocumented residents. Sometime after midnight and before dawn, Sonya insists the officers scaled the building, since the doorway at the bottom of the stairwell has a metal grill that either she or her uncle, aunt, or cousin (who lived with her at the time) would lock at night. ‘They [officers] get in [the house], and nothing but sheer screaming and hollering and shouting…with gun and flashlight pointing at yuh...and they whole face cover...they haulin’ we outta the house…we think we gettin’ thief.’ Sonya describes how everyone from both dwellings were ordered outside and made to stand in a line on the street, while authorities commanded each person one-by-one to return to the house and retrieve their personal documents (passports, birth certificates, employment papers, rental agreements, etc.). After each person was questioned on the spot and made to 103      confirm their name, date and place of birth, employer on the island, etc., two individuals living below (in a separate household of seven) were suspected as having either forged or expired documents or lying about their employment. According to Sonya, those neighbours were given a few minutes to pack one suitcase each and placed in a van. ‘We in night clothes, some in their drawers (underwear), just bare-foot in the middle of the street, and they carry them in the van.’ She informs me two were deported to Guyana the following day. When asked what she thought about it, Sonya retorted, ‘How you would feel? Shame [Ashamed], vexed, frighten[ed], but lucky…I only save because I just get back from Guyana.’ When the raid happened, Sonya had recently returned from Guyana and was well within the six-month entry period. She considers herself fortunate that the raid happened soon after her return. She believes if it were closer to the end of six months, the authorities would have taken her away in the van, using it as justification to send her back to Guyana.   Sonya reflects on her own experience of her home being raided, ‘What you gonna do, girl? We gotta abide by dem rules. Just keep quiet and mind yuh self.’ Her two young daughters (who were living in Guyana with their grandparents at the time of the raid) are playing with their dolls, pushing for space on a hammock on the back side of the balcony. The girls will soon be told to go inside, bathe, prepare their school uniforms for tomorrow and get ready for bed  29 August 2015       Sonya emphasises how grateful she is that her young daughters have not experienced raids while living with her on the island, but she remains apprehensive that it may happen. For participants, recalling the raids conjure memories of perpetual fear; where there were no safe spaces, public or private. People were targeted not only on the streets while out in public, but while they slept in their homes. Common threads run through the stories of participants: being awoken in the middle of the night by police officers banging on the doors, surrounding the dwelling, armed with guns, entering through porches and open windows; delays on public transport with armed police officers boarding vehicles, and demanding identification and permits, checked while socialising and enjoying a meal or drink in a recreation area; stopped while walking on the road and demanded to produce papers. Despite participants referring to this constant harassment, they accept it as a condition of everyday living in Barbados.  Due to the nature of undocumented labour, most labourers rely on public transportation to move between jobs, and to carry out everyday activities around the island. Public transportation in Barbados is divided between the national bus, minibus, and ZR services. Minibuses and ZR are privately owned and operate to complement the public bus system, offering additional routes and greater availability. At the height of immigration raids (2009-2014, according to participants), it was common practice for police officers to board these 104      modes of transport and demand the papers of migrants. Ram is an agricultural worker in his 50s, with no vehicle of his own. Public transport is essential to his livelihood. It is while on his way home from work that he was met with an immigration check by police officers:  ‘I gun tell you what ‘em [police officers] a’ do. Them block Fairchild Street. Them block Broad Street. Yuh know what I do? I end-up jump in a graveyard and sleep whole night, yuh know? I was under working permit with this passport [takes his passport and slaps it against the table]. Because if them a’ hold me this Friday, I ga in der lock-up Friday, Saturday, Sunday, ‘til Monday. Until they run the computer thing and release me. I say “not me”…I lay down between two high tomb…5:30 [the next morning] I hear “too-too-too” [mimics the sound of the horn drivers of ZR vans make when passing through streets to pick-up passengers]. Me tek the first one there and jump-in and come home. Me nah pun dat, lock-up whole weekend [I’m not going to be locked-up for the entire weekend].’ 3 November 2015  Fairchild Street and Broad Street form the Eastern perimeter of downtown Bridgetown. This area serves as major public transport terminals for ZR, minibus, and government bus transfer links for island-wide travel. Police use this essential transportation vein as a space to make migrants’ perceived illegal status, visible. Ram knows the verification protocol well; over the years, he has been held ‘near a dozen times’ to authenticate his papers. Each time he was held to confirm the validity of his documentation, he was detained for several hours, missing days of work and putting him at odds with employers. In this conversation Ram recalls that although he was legally employed at the time of the immigration check, he did not want to go through what he terms ‘harassment’ from police officers. Sonya and Ram accept the regularity of the occurrence as contingent on their move to Barbados, as do many Guyanese in the research. Participants (including Sonya and Ram) discuss leaving a pre-packed suitcase with their valuables near the front door to take with them, in the event of a raid and subsequent deportation. The widespread practice of ‘holding’ and ‘collecting’ migrants to verify (il)legality, or determine (un)desirability, means that Guyanese in Barbados, at any time, in any space, are subject to immigration policing. As expressed in both narratives, even in cases where legality is certain, scenes of exclusion pervade all aspects of the everyday environment, contesting legality of Guyanese, and the right for them to occupy Bajan space.   The nefarious practice of receiving a bounty for reporting irregular regional migrants has been mentioned by participants, although I have not been able to verify these claims. Bajan and Guyanese participants equally spoke of the practice, although there has been no official documentation on bounty reporting. According to participant accounts, immigration and 105      police officers unofficially offer 100BBD (50USD; the Barbados dollar is pegged to the US dollar at a rate of 2:1) to those who correctly inform on locations of irregular Caribbean migrants. In our conversation, Annalee Davis has referenced these strategies as particularly damaging and insensitive to Caribbean CARICOM integration, as it reproduces historical strategies employed by plantation- masters during colonial rule against ‘fugitive’ enslaved people, or as Davis refers to them, ‘fellow Caribbeans’. She additionally references the use of language of the 2009 Green Paper, which calls for punishment for ‘harbouring illegals.’  Whether or not the 100BBD bounty exists, the belief in the bounty is widespread. The bounty has established power and authority on its own. Guyanese participants regularly reference their reluctance to ‘cross-people’ (a warning to not upset others), or expand personal social networks, fearful of disingenuous friendships established for ‘bounty money’. Belief and fear in the bounty has deepened social isolation by creating interpersonal scenes of exclusion, while creating long-lasting emotional fissures impacting interpersonal relationships and emotional well-being of participants. In this chapter, the experience of participant, Darmendra, shows how one’s rumored involvement with receiving bounties impacts his relationship with the Guyanese migrant community.    As mentioned in the Methods chapter, some Guyanese migrants believed I was using the storyline of my Guyanese heritage as a tactic to gain insider status in the migrant community, to act as an informant for the DLP. When discussing the project to members of the community, I was often asked by these Guyanese if I was hired by the DLP to conduct this research, and more directly, if I was a ‘spy for the Bajans, to report Guyanese without papers’. For Guyanese, this was a natural progression of government tactics to curb Indo Guyanese migration. My presence, to some in the community, was viewed as the newest form of Bajan immigration control; to send a relatable ‘spy’ into locations frequented by Indo Guyanese, with the intention to befriend them, identify immigration offenders, and report them to the Bajan authorities. In the view of Guyanese participants, there are no boundaries to ‘scenes of exclusion’. These ‘scenes’ are expected to permeate all aspects of everyday living; from the time of arrival in Barbados, as with Stacy’s experience at the Guyana bench, while sleeping at home in the middle of the night, as with Sonya’s experience of a raid, to enveloping interpersonal relationships, as Darmendra’s narrative will show, through his rumored involvement with receiving bounties.   106      LIMITING MIGRANTS’ ABILITY TO DESERVE This section displays how Guyanese migrant understanding of their own (il)legality is further complicated by national parameters ‘limiting irregular migrants’ opportunities to deserve’ (Chauvin and Garcés-Mascareñas, 2014:422). Robertson argues that migrant classification rarely captures the complexity of migrant ‘status’ (2019:220). According to Robertson, these categories are often used as legal tools and largely ignore shifts in (il)legality, their relation to other classified ‘legal’ migrants, and socioeconomic/ gendered difference (2019:220). As the ethnography revealed, these categories create confusion in participant understanding of their own migrant status. Migrants in Barbados operate within this ‘confine of legality’, whereby ‘ “deportation policies delimit the symbolic precinct of illegality”, and migrants that function outside these boundaries are rendered illegal as “deportable subjects” ’(Yeoh and Leng Chee, 2015:186-187). This is complicated by classification of their migration status and underscored by Guyanese undesirability. For 31-year-old Guyanese participant, Ayana, the perceived and actual barriers to CARICOM free movement is confounded by socioeconomic privilege.    ‘It’s called the Free Movement of Persons, but it’s anything but [free movement]. For those who can access and navigate the system, it’s free movement. If you have a university degree, are a professional - or come from a well-off family, because frankly, those things are usually connected. But for everyone else? It’s restrictive. It’s restricted movement. Especially if you’re not aware of the CSME policies.’              13 August 2016  Ayana speaks of her own background as a university-educated professional, who experiences what she describes as ‘few hassles’ when traveling regionally, in comparison to the general population. By her personal account, Ayana is cognizant of the realities for the average Guyanese traveler to Barbados, which she openly refers to as restrictive. Ayana and previous respondent, Marissa, are coworkers at the same NGO, although the two often manage different projects. Over the last three years, Ayana’s primary work has been directed towards supporting CARICOM nationals to attain CVQs. She understands that her experience of regional movement, everyday movement, and visibility on the island is one of privilege and in stark contrast to other Guyanese who do not benefit from legal status, a Skills Certificate/university degree, secure economic standing, and/or knowledge of CSME/Bajan immigration policies. Participants who choose not to get certified (they cannot devote time to sessions, afford the cost of the certification process, etc.), and those who move for interests outside of working (family reunification), largely recognise that this alters their reality on the island and increases their chances of being policed and probed by 107      immigration officials. When asked about her perceptions of the difference in experiences of Indo Guyanese and Afro Guyanese, Ayana explains:   ‘I think it’s more of a status issue. Not necessarily about being Indian or Black…it’s about having money and education…That said, Guyanese Indians, I think, have to put-up with a lot. Because at the end of the day, it is easier to pull an Indian out of a crowed street and guarantee, they’ll be Guyanese.’   Ayana’s account of her own experience focuses on dealing with immigration officials at the border, and being able to navigate official systems (banks, hospitals, etc.) without hinderance. She expresses her ease and confidence when in these spaces, believing her socioeconomic status shields her from the realities of ‘everyone else’, despite being Guyanese. Ayana has not experienced the frustrations, fears, distresses, annoyances, and anxieties faced by other participants. Her experiences are reflected from her privileged position as a highly educated, wealthy, Afro Guyanese migrant. From her perspective, she regards socioeconomic status as a greater determinant of treatment for migrants, as opposed to ethnicity. However, as will be explored in the following chapter, highly skilled Indo Guyanese migrants remain subject to instances of exclusion and unbelonging. Their socioeconomic and legal standing undoubtedly makes their everyday lives easier, and while they may be exempt from the Guyana bench or may not be denied entry to a hospital, it does not render them immune to societal bias.     In 2014, CARICOM expanded their definition of ‘skilled national’ to include artisans (including: carpentry, electrical, metal and machinery workers, etc.) and trained domestics workers. Following a series of training and assessment courses, recognition of this skill comes with the Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ). However, this is not always a straight-forward process. Ronnie Griffith, a chief research officer with the Prime Minister’s Office, and his colleagues at the CSME Unit Barbados, acknowledge the inconsistencies across member states in issuing CVQs (during our interview on 3 March 2016). Mr. Griffith and his colleagues note that resource capacities differ greatly across the Caribbean, making the ability to distribute CVQs greatly varied across member states. This confusion comes to a head at the Barbados immigration port-of-entry, where CVQs issued in Guyana are subject to additional authentication. As expressed by participant Jenny, upon completion of her Housekeeping CVQ in 2015 in Guyana, her documents were retained by immigration officials in Barbados for verification, on suspicion of being a forgery.   108      ‘It make me wonder why I go through all that trouble [to get the CVQ]? It tek long, long, cost money for dem courses and for the certificate. All a’ dat trouble, and them [Bajan immigration] still tek meh certificate and all meh documents for verification… Months. Months, fuh verify, almost 4 months! And they check pun yuh. Mek sure yuh nuh work in the meantime…Waste a’ time and money.’   17 January 2016  Restrictionist governments, according to Chauvin and Garcés-Mascareñas, construct policy under a ‘deservingness system’, dictating which migrant deserves legal status while ‘contradictorily restricting their ability to deserve’ (2014). Jenny expresses her frustration with the Bajan authorities, for the additional verification of her qualifications and identity documents, which she understood as part of the initial CVQ process. For Jenny, the additional checks cost her four months of potential income, putting her and her dependents under financial strain and causing anxiety. Bajan policy dictates Skills Certificates and CVQs must be validated before CSME nationals can seek employment in Barbados. Migrants must ensure they are able to financially cover their cost of living in Barbados until they are legally able to work. For many Guyanese, the cost associated with the varying validation periods makes moving to Barbados unattainable. Jenny was only able to stay in Barbados after taking out a loan with a family friend.  Guyanese migrants who enter ‘the right way’, under the hassle-free entry, still incur issues. This is expressed with participant Rafia. Rafia is a 24-year-old Guyanese medical graduate, specialising in hematology. She entered Barbados on the 6-month entry, planning to find a job in either a public or private lab. Despite having an undergraduate degree from the University of Guyana and graduate degree from a university in India (as the recipient of a coveted scholarship), she was informed by immigration officials that her credentials had to be approved by the Barbados Accreditation Council (BAC). For the duration of her time on the island, she awaited verification of her medical credentials. Without the certificate, no lab would consider her job application. Rafia remained fearful that overstaying her entry visa would lead to deportation, preventing her from returning in the future (2 years, as laid-out in the 2009 Green Paper). She pre-emptively left Barbados two weeks before her visa expired, without any updates from BAC, to avoid possible immigration ramifications for herself and the extended family members she lived with in Barbados. Her experience speaks to the way immigration policy is structured, limiting her ability to deserve employment and hence regularized migration status.   109      Through the assistance of a Guyanese gatekeeper, I was put in contact with James, a Bajan immigration officer. James works in the Head Office in Bridgetown. He primarily oversees permit and residential applications for regional migrants. Due to his schedule, I was only able to meet him during his work hours, in the immigration office. The literal openness of the surrounding environment provided an awkward space for the interview considering the sensitivity of (and polarising attitudes regarding) the topic. He stated that he could not be as forthcoming as he would have liked in the interview, as his personal sentiments towards national policing of regional migrants differ from his official position as an immigration officer. James appears level-headed and understanding, unlike the image of the harsh, irrational, and biased immigration officer presented by participants. He made comments which sympathized with the legal conundrum undocumented migrants face, while maintaining a neutral perspective in his interview. He highlighted the laws and legal rights which have allowed immigration/police officers a heightened ability to police suspected irregular migrants (as dictated by the 2009 Green Paper, 2009:71), but he stressed that he ‘believe some protocols have gone too far’, without specifically naming any. He went on to acknowledge the moral dilemma migrants face which may have resulted in their knowing circumvention of the law: ‘Regarding Guyanese without papers - I don’t believe anyone - well, very few - have the intention of being unlawful. It’s a mix of desperate circumstances and limited choices, right?... If your relative comes over and lives with you, but is unable - financially, or otherwise - to sort-out their papers, are you going to be the one to call immigration on them?…And by not informing the authorities, you put yourself at risk of deportation. What do you do?’ 29 January 2016  In our conversation, James notes the reality for many Guyanese migrants, who often have few resources, with little understanding of the Bajan immigration system:   ‘For many Guyanese, it’s just too expensive and lengthy a process. Whether they are a spouse of a national, are employed here in Bim7, are joining their families…They would have to enlist the assistance of someone who has already passed through successfully, who is willing to assist them…Many times you’re dealing with people who are scared to come in and apply, because, under current [Bajan] law, making themselves known to immigration is grounds for deportation.’   Despite his appreciation for the difficulties Guyanese migrants face, when dealing with applications, he is bound by the law. The law and legal procedures which he expresses as  7 Short for ‘Bimshire’, the colloquial term for Barbados, equating Barbados as the ‘Little England’ of the Caribbean (albeit contentiously) amongst the Bajan population. For further reading see Clarke, S. (2019). 110      ‘honestly, sometimes, unreasonable, with all the things they require [for CARICOM nationals]…They don’t ask as much from foreigners.’ James goes on to say that those with British, American, and Canadian passports can just ‘walk in the country and set-up shop.’ And while he exaggerates, the process for entry for these groups is less complex and less demanding (as I went through the process myself for the fieldwork).   Throughout my time in Barbados, many Guyanese participants continuously lamented and cited that ‘foreigners’ (from outside the region) were treated with more acceptance and less suspicion than Guyanese travelers. Grantley Adams airport, once again, is the most obvious site of this disparity, with a ‘Barbados/CARICOM passports’ queue and ‘all other passports’ queue. Guyanese participant Verna asks me, ‘You ever land when a flight from Jamaica or Guyana come same time? Let me tell you, everyone pass-through on the next side, but Guyanese and Jamaicans still stand-up waiting (26 October 2015).’ Verna observes that entrants on the ‘all other passports’ queue experience little resistance from immigration officials when entering the country. According to Verna, this is in notable comparison to Guyanese and Jamaican passport holders, which leads her to state, ‘Bajan treat foreigner like God, and Guyanese like trash, they own neighbor.’ Guyanese participants use the term ‘foreigner’ to describe anyone from outside the region, outside the Caribbean, someone who has no connection to the land or culture. Yet, as discussed earlier, Bajans use the term ‘foreigner’ to describe anyone who is non-Bajan, even those from surrounding states (Rao and Sedlaczek, 2012). The intention of having the same immigration lines for CARICOM nationals across ports of entry was done in order to achieve hassle-free travel. However, this is clearly not the case in the experience of Guyanese participants in entering Barbados.  Grantley Adams airport itself proves a contentious spot to create these palpable scenes of exclusion. Guyanese and other Eastern Caribbean migrants provided their masonry and carpentry skills when there was a shortage of skilled local labour during the lead-up to the 2007 World Cup Cricket Tournament (UNDP, 2022). Large-scale infrastructural upgrades to the airport have been possible through Guyanese migrant labour. It is unfortunate that Guyanese built the same airport that serves as a primary location of stress, anxiety and shame for them, in which they are belittled, ridiculed, detained, repatriated and deported through.  111      James’ comments about the complex regularisation process for CARICOM migrants echoes the sentiment of Guyanese lawyer Samuel Legay, who has resided and practiced family law in Barbados for over 14 years. In his immigration work with Guyanese nationals, Legay stresses that he believes Bajan immigration policy is overly arduous and bureaucratic in order to deter immigration of lower skilled CARICOM nationals to the island, which supports Ayana’s claim that immigration policy in Barbados is a socioeconomic issue. Legay believes Bajan policy is inherently exclusionary towards the lower skilled, leading to the criminalisation of many Guyanese who he views as ‘trying to improve their financial and livelihood situation.’ As Legay expands:   ‘I’ve worked on cases that have taken years to sort out. And thousands of [BBD] dollars in application and processing fees… When someone gets denied, in theory they can reapply, but that incurs a new set of fees. Many people – lower-income Guyanese, especially – it’s just not feasible. You have entire households pooling their savings for one family member to move, and unfortunately, their application gets denied because of bureaucracy; the paperwork wasn’t notarised correctly or they were missing one particular document... All the family savings, gone. In the meantime, that individual is now in violation of domestic immigration law. Someone who has never committed a crime, who has no record with the authorities, can now be taken to the Courts and charged, fined, and possibly jailed as an immigration offender. Just to regularise their status.’ 8 February 2016  Michael Brotherson (the first Consul General to Barbados) stresses in our interview that The Guyana Consulate in Barbados was instituted in 2012 specifically to assist Guyanese in their navigation of the immigration pathways in Barbados and is indicative of both nations’ effort to improve bilateral relations (13 November 2015). However, as Legay expresses, ‘Why did the Guyanese government see the need to open an official [Guyanese] diplomatic mission here [in Barbados]? This is the only one in CARICOM. The mere presence of it is a testament to the issues affecting Guyanese here’. Prior to 2012, an ‘honorary consul’ was operating in Barbados, as in Jamaica and Antigua & Barbuda. In 2017 (post-fieldwork), the Guyanese government opened another High Commission in Trinidad. The same year, Trinidad accounted for 81% of CSME ‘denials of entry’ for member nationals, where 41.3% of those denials were of Guyanese nationals (IOM, 2019a:33). Both James and Legay emphasize that the laws themselves, which were enacted under the Thompson administration, have created an overly complex, arduous, and expensive system to regularise a CARICOM national’s status in Barbados, with the specific intention of dissuading migrants from engaging in the process. And as James puts it, ‘well, once you don’t have papers, that’s it…get ready to be deport.’ 112      Regardless of work permits, Skills Certificates, or CVQs, participants remain vulnerable to their shifting and uncertain legal status, as dictated by the various stipulations of Bajan law. Many Bajan participants, regardless of their views on irregular migrants, admitted a bias towards policing Guyanese on the island, in what they referred to as a ‘witch hunt’. Bajan participant Marissa explains:     ‘I would have hate [sic] to be Guyanese then – it was a real witch hunt. Stopping everybody, interrogating everybody. Immigration and police riding around in vans and collecting people at bus stops, walking down the street, hauling Guyanese from their house… Can’t go into a store, the shop keeper holding you up…it was bad. All Guyanese were living in fear, I’m sure of it.’ 5 October 2015  Marissa references the time between 2009-2014, which Guyanese participants (like Sonya and Ram) corroborate as the unofficial height of the raids and policing. She goes on to explain her personal stance on irregular migration:  ‘Look, I don’t agree with breaking the law, and if you don’t get yuh papers sorted, [the law] it’s very clear…but I must say…the situation was bad. The way they was treating Guyanese – all Guyanese…it was impossible…like, how can yuh even live like dat? Harassment all the time.’    On the one hand, Marissa does not question the ethics of the law, she views irregular migrants as in violation of domestic law. However, she recognises that Guyanese were caught in an ‘impossible’ situation, one that she goes on to call harassment. Guyanese participant, Mario, explains this fear and impossible situation, through the experience of having to take another Guyanese colleague to the hospital when he suffered an injury on the building-site they both worked on: ‘We all scared tek he a’ hospital, because we know what gon’ happen, right? I go because I get me things [papers] straight. We gan Queen’s8 hospital. The first thing they ask is for passport and permit. Nah bother the bai get twist-up foot an’ leg, they wan know when he arrive Barbados, how long he plan a’ stay, how long he workin’ construction, if he get woman an pickney hea. If he get bank account. How he gonna pay fuh see doctor. Same time he nearly faint-off answering question…Then they start pun me. Even when they see permit, they need fuh see old passport. They see old passport, they need to see birth certificate. What really going on? Next thing I know, police officers arrive. This whole time, the bai nah see nurse or doctor… But this is what yuh expect when yuh Guyanese.’   3 September 2015   Barbados has universal healthcare for its citizens. The Thompson administration accused Guyanese, in particular, of entering the country under false pretences, in order to access  8 Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Bridgetown. 113      the island’s medical services (Brathwaite, 2014). Although non-nationals must pay for these services, it has not prevented hospital administrative staff from acting as immigration authorities, demanding documentation from individuals, and preventing their access to emergency care. These examples from Mario and Ram (who spent the night in the cemetery) highlight what De Genova notes as the ‘obscene of inclusion’ (2013). As lower-skilled labourers, who cycle between periods of formal and informal employment based on their immigration status, Mario and Ram represent the migrant group who bear the brunt of relentless immigration scrutiny. Their inclusion ‘can be best accomplished only to the extent that their incorporation is permanently beleaguered with the kinds of exclusionary…campaigns that ensure that this inclusion is itself, precisely, a form of subjugation’ (De Genova 2013:1184). Their inclusion, then, is premised on these described scenes of exclusion.   While the cost of residing in Barbados remains prohibitive for many regional migrants (as touched upon in Jenny’s narrative), participants attest their attempts at ‘trying for a better life’ are continually thwarted by restricted access to services and resources. Guyanese participant Veronica explains when discussing options for her pregnancy, ‘I does go to the private doctor. It’s expensive, but you know it work out to be the same than if I go the [government] hospital? Since I is a non-national’ (post fieldwork, via WhatsApp exchange: 29 May 2016). Despite having residency through her marriage to a Bajan national, Veronica does not qualify for the island’s universal health coverage, as she has returned to reside in Guyana periodically over her eight years on the island. She repeatedly refers to herself as ‘non-national’ – denoting a tiered privilege; those with legal status, resident non-nationals, and nationals. She expresses continued financial limitations in Barbados as a non-national. As a non-national, she does not qualify for bank loans on the island, despite being the breadwinner in her marriage. From her savings, she was able to buy land and build a house on the island– all in cash, but legally under her husband’s ownership, because she has not yet qualified for full-residency.   Undesirable CARICOM nationals can be removed from another member state and denied entry, in instances where they are shown to be a ‘charge on public funds’ (Article 45, Revised Treaty). According to Guyanese participants, there is an assumption by some Bajans that they are inherently a charge on public funds. The line of questioning and series of events Mario experienced is standard when trying to access services, according to Guyanese participants. In financial services, this has come in the form of bank-tellers 114      routinely refusing to cash checks for those participants with Guyanese passports, create accounts for those with Guyanese passports, transfer money to participant accounts in Guyana, and transfer funds to Guyana. Bajan officials have refused to grant driver’s licenses to Guyanese participants, hospital administration has refused Guyanese participants access to medical consultation and treatment unless they provide adequate documentation of their status, and ability to pay, etc. In these instances, Bajan staff regularly ‘holds’ these individuals until police arrive to detain and further confirm (il)legality. By creating a system where migrants are unable to access and navigate services (i.e., with banking) and making thresholds for receiving these services beyond reach for many migrants (i.e., cost of prenatal care described by Veronica), immigration is able to make a case that a migrant may be a ‘charge on public funds’, and hence, undesirable. Strategies such as these drastically limit migrants’ ability to deserve (Chauvin and Garcés-Mascareñas 2014). Guyanese participants argue they are unjustly limited in accessing these services, with Jenny, going so far as to claim that ‘Bajans go out of they way to show Guyanese nah pay their fair share, so they have excuse to send yuh back (17 January 2016).’ Guyanese migrants navigate this socioeconomic exclusion as part of their everyday lived realities as undeserving in Barbados.   Regardless of their (il)legality, Guyanese have been socialised to anticipate related acts of unbelonging and exclusion, existing in tandem with their socialised label as undesirable. These participant stories show how the notion of Guyanese undesirability influences the way migrants regard their (un)deservingness of a recognised immigration status, in order to remain and exist in Barbados uninhibited by that status. Likewise, their stories show the varying ways the Bajan public normalises and reinforces (un)deservingness of Guyanese migrants.           115      NEGOTIATING (IN)VISIBILITY The following section explores the ways Guyanese migrants negotiate (in)visibility in Barbados. Migrants have agency; they remain proactive and reactive to their fluid legal status (Robertson, 2019). Davis (2015) indicates Indo Guyanese migrants are targets of immigration officers in Barbados, due to their ‘hypervisibility’ and resistance from Bajan society, towards cultural difference. Indo Guyanese are viewed by the Bajan public as a largely uneducated and unskilled, while generally, Guyanese and Jamaican migrants are viewed as involved in drug trafficking, sex work, and crime (Canterbury, 2012:193). These issues around visibility are closely related to questions around power.  ‘Visibility manifests itself…when particular people fit within national paradigms and are constructed as legitimate and worthy subjects. Invisibility, in contrast, implies an erasure or dismissal of knowledges and experiences, resulting in powerlessness. Visibility and invisibility operate through a variety of markers including race, gender, sexuality, ability and immigration status.’    Villegas (2010:149)  Yet, ‘the relationship between power and visibility is complex’ - visible difference can be associated with powerlessness - ‘power does not rest univocally either with visibility or with invisibility’ (Uekusa and Lee 2018:15). Understanding how this intersects with migration status adds to the discussion. The ways migrants navigate and negotiate shifts in regularity and irregularity can add to the discourse on migrant visibility (Baird, 2013). By exploring the varied ways Guyanese migrants negotiate (in)visibility in Barbados, this section contributes to wider the literature by analysing relationships between social visibility and (un)documented migration. The following section addresses a few of these complex alternatives.    PRONOUNCED VISIBILITY As Erel et al. note, categorizing migrants raises important questions regarding the ways ‘racialization and migration is conceived in an era of overlapping national and international border controls’ (2016:1339-1340). ‘As long as yuh hair straight, them grabbing you’ (10 October 2015). Ram recalls how immigration officers choose which travelers to detain at an immigration checkpoint, supporting Ayana’s assertion that it is ‘easier to pull an Indian out of a crowed street and guarantee, they’ll be Guyanese.’ The intersections of ethnicity, socioeconomic status and legal status are inseparable for migrants (Sager, 2018:176). Lundström argues that migrants with ethnicities outside the national norm are denied a sense of belonging due to the racialization of their migrant bodies; ‘Bodies that appear to 116      be “different” are in everyday life scrutinized along the lines of “belonging” or “not belonging” ’(2017:82). Indo Guyanese are simultaneously hypervisible and socially/legally invisible. Their physical attributes have allowed for an increased form of policing, or racial profiling by immigration officials and police officers, and yet they remain a marginalised community on the island, as noted in the works of Davis (2007), Dietrich Jones (2013), and Cumberbatch (2015).   Nonetheless, some Indo Guyanese with legal status play into the trope of the hypervisible Guyanese migrant. In these cases, participants have taken ownership of their visibility. Darmendra owns a highly customised lime green pick-up truck. The colour of the vehicle plays into the image of the ‘gaudy’ and ‘garish’ Guyanese, as expressed by Bajan participants. The personalization means his vehicle is easily spotted on the road and in parking lots and driveways. His truck is well known around the Christ Church and St Michael Parishes (encompassing the Southern and Southwestern coast of the island). Darmendra states: ‘Before I get this truck, yuh know how many times I get pull over by police? After that [gestures to the truck in the parking lot], I get pull over two times, and never again. Everyone here – Guyanese, Bajan, nuh matter, they know this truck, and better believe they know it’s a Guyanese own. Bajan say Guyanese flashy. Let me show dem who flashy den’.  13 February 2016    Darmendra struggled for years to ‘become boss’ in construction in Barbados, where he was often ‘cheated’ out of pay by employers and was deported twice for working without a permit, so he takes pride in his truck. A vehicle is often equated as a form of material wealth for male migrants, as a means of income generation (as a taxi, for example), and generational investment (can be gifted to a son, etc.). It is a material marker of his success in Barbados, so he takes pleasure in its heightened visibility. However, for some Indo Guyanese participants, the overt display of wealth is not viewed favorably because it draws unwanted attention towards the community. I was cautioned against speaking to Darmendra by other Guyanese participants, who warned that such an expensive vehicle could only be purchased with ‘drug money’.   One such warning came on a Sunday at the mandir, while I was helping to prepare parasd bags (the fruit brought by devotees and offered during pooja, which is then divided amongst attendees in small bags). Mukesh, a taxi driver, approached me while I was putting 117      the paper bags on the tables outside the mandir, which will be part of the distributed food after the service. Mukesh gently told me that he saw me earlier in the week, in the driveway of a Jordan’s supermarket, speaking with ‘the one with the green truck’. He cautioned me that he ‘not certain, but have it under good authority’ that Darmendra is a ‘drug man’, a claim he admits is only substantiated through hearsay, but believes, nonetheless, and that I should ‘take care of who you keep with’ (20 December 2015).   The rumors about Darmendra goes beyond drugs. Some Guyanese believe that Darmendra is only ‘allowed’ to have such a truck, because he aides immigration in identifying Guyanese without papers. During the fieldwork, there were no first-hand accounts of others receiving a bounty or being targets of a bounty, only reiterations of stories they heard from others. This rumor of Darmendra’s involvement was the closest I heard of Guyanese reporting on other Guyanese. Participant Trevor shared his concerns with me, while we were at an eatery and Darmendra’s truck passed by, ‘people say he have some sort of arrangement with police…and he report on Guyanese through his business. Dat’s how he allowed to have that truck.’ In Trevor’s account, Darmendra receives a financial kickback for his supposed reporting of Guyanese, which can be interpreted by other Guyanese migrants (like Trevor) as a form of bounty. As a business owner, however, it is Darmendra’s responsibility to verify a worker’s status, as he is liable for any resultant immigration violations, which can result in hefty fines and the closure of his business. In these instances, Darmendra would not receive money or allowances for his reporting, it is official protocol for operating legally in Barbados. To Trevor however, Darmendra’s truck is the evidence that solidifies rumor to fact; that Darmendra works with immigration authorities to inform on other Guyanese and receives benefits for doing so.    The rumor of Darmendra’s involvement in drugs and as immigration informant is spoken as if it is the truth. This makes the truck’s visibility problematic for those in the Guyanese community who choose to invisibilize themselves. As Villegas reminds, ‘the purpose of strategically invisibilizing oneself is merely to appear as part of the mainstream in order to deflect suspicions’ (2010:161). Skilled and unskilled migrants who prefer to fit-in to the social landscape, don’t understand why Darmendra would choose to ‘call attention to himself’. Migrants compare themselves with other co-ethnic migrants, ‘looking down on them or feeling ashamed of them because the behavior… might reflect badly upon them, and as a result try to distance themselves from them’ (Verkuyten et al., 2019:401-402).   118      For Darmendra however, his truck, aided by his legal status, is confirmation of his ability to draw attention to himself positively, yet defiantly. This contrasts with the years he spent invisibilizing himself. He tells me that in the past, before his tuck and his business, ‘I try to pass for black. My hair cut short-short, all over. I wear dem baseball hat to cover my face and head, and dem dark-dark sunglasses…Everybody does so.’ Like Darmendra, many participants have methods in which they disguise themselves of their Indianness in order to avoid attention, as will be explored in the following chapters. This is supported by Dietrich Jones, indicating in her research that, ‘male (Indian) migrants would typically be clean shaven and wear caps in order to blend in with afro migrants’ (2013:223). This contrasts with Darmendra’s look now. He no longer relies on the cloak of invisibility and grows his hair long (usually styled in a ponytail) to complement the beard covering his jawline.  Regarding his tuck, he asserts, ‘I work hard for it. I want people to see.’   Although wanting to be seen and recognised, Darmendra is quiet and soft-spoken, the opposite image of what his truck suggests. He admits that he ‘struggle hard’ in Barbados for his accomplishments, and he frequently recalls how he ‘suffer for years’ to get where he is today. For him, his truck is a reminder that regardless of the suffering he endured, he was able to ‘become a big shot’. Yet his truck is not how he measures his success. His drive in his business is focused on providing for his family. As a father of five, his children attend ‘the best schools in Barbados’, something he takes pride in as someone who left school at 14. When confronted with the rumors by other Guyanese, he responds:     ‘People foolish.  Everything I do is for them children. I nah bother with what these Guyanese think. Some so miserable, I tell you…stay 10-20 years, go back to Guyana with empty hand. I get so many problem [with Guyanese], even up to now….headache…I just stay focus on meh family and meh business. You can’t trust people here, especially these Guyanese…they like bring you down, just so they can feel up.’   Darmendra’s workforce is comprised exclusively of CARICOM migrants. He often cites that Guyanese give him the most trouble, and he regularly has a ‘falling-out’ with Guyanese employees. The ‘headache’ he refers to, is Guyanese workers lying about their legal status, lying about their knowledge of building work, taking pay advances then abandoning the job, ‘walking-out’ on jobs and leaving the site incomplete, and in extreme cases, stolen goods. Despite this outlook, he feels ‘the situation Guyanese gotta put up with, does mek them turn so’, referencing his own experiences with deportations, and dishonest Bajan employers. Darmendra speaks of his interaction and feelings towards the wider Guyanese 119      community in Barbados contradictorily, expressing annoyance and anger, and a sense of empathy and compassion, concurrently. By looking back on his similar experiences during his early years in Barbados he has gained a level of understanding and tolerance towards Guyanese; ‘I mek excuse [for Guyanese], because I been der… I still employ them and give ‘em chance, because not all bad-mind. How I can be Guyanese and not bring-up Guyanese?’ Darmendra considers it his responsibility to give Guyanese ‘a chance’ in employment, despite his continued issues with them as employees.     Darmendra believes many Guyanese experience feelings of despondency in their inability to achieve. Because his truck is a visual symbol of his success, and a vehicle is often cited by male participants as a marker of their own success, he believes it unearths contentious emotions. Darmendra makes the case that fellow Guyanese assert he is a drug dealer in order to assuage their own feelings of jealousy, envy, and perhaps anger at their inability reach a comparable level of success. His lime green truck is described as ‘garish’ by participants, yet Darmendra plainly states, ‘I get it because it remind me of the green in the Guyana flag…I still a proud Guyanese.’ His experience, although not forgiving, allows him a sense of tolerance for those who are a part of his Guyanese community. The same community that accuses him of being a drug dealer. And despite these accusations, it does not stain Darmendra’s desire to be associated as a proud Guyanese.   Not all means of visibility are objected to by the Indo Guyanese community. Guyanese migrants are often described by Bajan participants as ‘flashy’. Most Guyanese own gold jewelry sourced from the interior of the country, known as ‘Guyana gold’. Guyanese regularly wear multiple items of gold jewelry, which in-turn has become a visible indicator of being Guyanese. Bajan participants joke that you can always ‘catch a Guyanese wearing gold…working in the field, wearing gold, painting house, wearing gold’. These references are also made to the jobs Guyanese migrants are associated as having in Barbados; working in the field – agricultural worker; painting house – tradesman. Bajan participants equate wearing heavy gold jewelry as a typical style of Guyanese. Bajan participant, Ms. Marcia looked at a bowler while we were watching a televised cricket game, saying confidently, ‘He gotta be a Guyanese, look at dat gold chain!’, despite the cricketer being Trinidadian. ‘I can just tell if they Guyanese’, explains Bajan participant Patricia, ‘they flashy – the woman always make-up and the men always wearing gold.’  120      Vishal, the Indo Guyanese owner of a popular rum shop has taken the step of naming his establishment Flash Zone, publicly calling attention to the space as a Guyanese-run establishment. He founded Flash Zone in 2014 after the regularization of raids and deportations in Barbados. As the Guyanese migrant community remained adversely impacted by these government actions, Vishal was compelled to create a space for Guyanese to ‘feel relaxed and comfortable’, a space where they could ‘lime & sport, and enjoy things the way we would back home’, making particular reference to the favoured music and food of Indo Guyanese community. He admits that when he first started Flash Zone, he struggled to attract Guyanese customers, as people thought it would be raided. However, as word spread that a Guyanese-owned bar openly celebrated Guyanese national holidays (particularly the major Hindu festivals of Phagwah and Diwali), it became popular. Vishal believes that an unspoken understanding has been established between the bar and immigration officials, ‘as long as nobody cause problem, they [immigration] nah really interfere… There have been a few times they just come around, walk around - make their presence known, then go.’   The following section addressing attitudes of Flash Zone by Guyanese and Bajan participants was taken over several outings to the bar for observation and participant meetings. As a space, Flash Zone proved vital to the fieldwork, as it was preferred by participants for its public, convenient location along several bus and ZR routes just outside of Bridgetown, in Black Rock. Importantly, participants viewed the bar as a ‘safe’ space; a somewhat neutral area less likely to be policed for immigration violations, and a space that some female participants felt comfortable to lime publicly with other females.     Vishal sees his bar not only as an inclusive space for the Guyanese community in Barbados, but equally for the local Bajan community. Bajan participant, Ryan, describes his preference to liming at Flash Zone:  ‘Yes, it’s Guyanese, and they get Guyanese thing going on, but it also cater to Bajan…so many place focus on foreigners and tourists. So I would say, in my opinion, it is a local bar... And they never get trouble. These places get fight, n’ thing, not here. You feel alright to enjoy yourself.’  20 February 2016  In his late 30s and working at the Barbados branch of Caribbean Airlines, Ryan limes at Flash Zone with friends at least a few times a month. He appreciates that the bar has not compromised its ‘island feel’ in an attempt to attract Western tourists. He also notes there 121      are no conflicts or fights to deter patrons. Vishal has noted that Guyanese customers in particular, ‘don’t want to mek trouble’ or ‘misbehave’, because they are cautious of being deported, even if they are on the island legally, so there are rarely disagreements.          At Flash Zone people share and appreciate Bajan and Guyanese styles of liming, gaining insights into traditional music, food, dance, as well as exposure to various religious customs. Flash Zone hosts Karaoke night weekly, which is a popular past time in Barbados and attracts a large local crowd, while also hosting a Bollywood/Soca & Chutney music night, popular amongst the Indo Guyanese community. Diwali and Phagwah Hindu celebrations, as well as Easter and Christmas Christian celebrations, remain some of the most frequented, busiest, and anticipated events at the venue, along with Guyana and Barbados independence days, and the national festivities of Crop Over. Despite the tensions cited by participants towards Guyanese on the island, Vishal has been successful in organizing fêtes where Indo Guyanese entertainers (who travel from Guyana and the diaspora) come to Barbados to perform at Flash Zone for particular events. Due to these instances, Flash Zone has become a widely popular space for entertainment across ethnonational lines. In the same conversation with Ryan, his friend Mak, reinforces this assertion, stating, ‘they [Flash Zone] always busy, always get something happening…Bajan like to be entertained, so they go where they find that - no bother its Guyanese.’     During celebrations regional diversity becomes visible, as seen with the festival of Crop Over (as well as the Caribbean Festival of Arts, or CARIFESTA). Crop Over was initiated by Planters in the 1800s, as celebrations were held on the plantations to mark the harvest of sugar crops. It has become a regionally recognised Bajan festival (Burrowes, 2013:41-42). As recently as 2019, the National Cultural Foundation of Barbados joined with local and regional partners to launch the ‘Caribbean Identity Crop Over campaign’. In Picture 4.1 on the following page, a masquerader is shown adorning a Guyana flag on the right side of her headdress and a Grenada flag on the left side of her headdress, representing her mixed parentage, during Grand Kadooment celebrations. During these times, participants stress that there is only a superficial acknowledgement of cultural difference throughout the region. Nonetheless, spaces like Flash Zone provide a venue encouraging engagement and participation across the local Bajan and Guyanese communities to celebrate such events.   122      Picture 4.1. Masquerader wearing a Guyana flag (right) and Grenada flag (left) on her headdress (representing her mixed parentage), during Grand Kadooment celebrations for Crop Over  Source: Photo taken during the fieldwork; verbal consent given to take and use photo in this thesis.  Date: 3 August 2015    Flash Zone is a rare space where Guyanese visibility and Bajan inclusivity intersect. The Guyanese community remain reserved when navigating their everyday (in)visibilities in Barbados. Flash Zone is a space for strategic visibilization, where Guyanese decide on what occasion to congregate socially and publicly with other Guyanese and Bajans. It produces scenes of inclusion, acting as a crucial space for cross cultural understanding and exchange. This can be seen with the Bajan community participating in Phagwah (Holi) celebrations at Flash Zone. Bajans take part in covering others, and being covered by others, in colourful powder. This holiday signifies the ‘rebirth’ of Spring and the triumph of good over evil 123      according to Hindu Caribbean tradition. The role Flash Zone plays in celebrations of this holiday in Barbados will be explored further in ch.7.   Vishal has inverted a derogatory term (flashy) and established a space which publicly recognises the Guyanese presence in Barbados while challenging Guyanese undesirability. Vishal sees Flash Zone as a space where Guyanese can publicly celebrate their heritage, while encouraging the Bajan community to participate. In this way, Flash Zone goes beyond an enclave for Guyanese migrants. Vishal has established a means through which Indo Guyanese traditions are made visible and shared with the Bajan public.  Many participants see Vishal’s success as success for the wider Guyanese community. Arguably, this is due to the moments of visible Indo Guyanese culture that Flash Zone provides. Participant Devi explains her appreciation towards Flash Zone, at one of the bar’s many events marking Guyana’s 50th year of independence: ‘it’s a long time since I been Guyana…so to come here [to Flash Zone], it mek me feel happy. It’s like… I connect in a way, still. When they get Guyanese artists, I always reach. And when it like this, they always get things to celebrate Guyana. It mek me feel like a connection back home.’ 27 February 2016  Devi is in her late 60s and has been in Barbados for over forty years. She has lived most of her life in Barbados, yet desires to maintain her connection to ‘back home’. Flash Zone provides that vital connection for her. As we sit at a bench in the outdoor area of the bar, she explains that she attends every ‘Guyanese event’ hosted by Vishal. Devi expresses that Flash Zone is more than a rum shop. She is a strict Hindu that does not consume alcohol nor associates with rum shops. Devi reasons that Vishal’s venue is used by many Guyanese to host family events, birthday parties, anniversaries, baby baptisms, etc. She adds that she often ‘meet friends after so many years’ there. Devi goes on to recount instances of reuniting with many childhood and family friends from her hometown of Berbice; indicating that Flash Zone also acts as a reunion space that builds vital social networks for the Guyanese community on the island. It is unsurprising that Vishal and the bar are widely viewed favorably by participants, both Guyanese and Bajan. Bones explains why he shares admiration for Vishal: ‘I know Vishal since I come here...that boy work hard. Every day since he open this bar, every day he and he wife stay here. Not one day he tek a break. Every Christmas, every birthday – he birthday – he wife birthday. Don’t you see they raising two daughters here? And look, he get the number 1 bar in Barbados... A coolie man reach such heights over here. See? Coolie man don’t always cause trouble.’  23 December 2015 124      Over his ten years in Barbados, Bones has seen Vishal’s evolution from a tradesman, into the business owner of one of the island’s most well-known rum shops. Bones notes that Vishal (and his wife who arrived in Barbados after the bar opened) dedicate all their time to running and upkeep of the bar. Bones makes note of Vishal’s two daughters who, outside of school, are always at the bar: reading, doing homework, playing, etc. Vishal represents the hard-working, entrepreneurial spirit that Guyanese hope to emulate, facilitated through their migration. Moreso, Vishal represents the ‘coolie man’ who is challenging the negative stereotypes of Indo Guyanese, held by the Bajan community.   Guyanese in Barbados can enjoy Flash Zone as a space where they can experience a sense of community, contributing to a sense of collective pride for Vishal. Vishal’s story is aspirational to other Guyanese, like Bones. While not every Guyanese migrant has the desire to open a bar, Vishal’s success is viewed positively by the wider community. Darmendra’s visibility is emphasised through his truck. His truck is crucial for his construction business yet is criticised by the Guyanese community for being too garish. Because no one is able to share in Darmendra’s success (like the communal space of Flash Zone), his truck becomes the object of ire amongst participants.  The perspectives of Darmendra and Vishal (and other Indo Guyanese who hold strong emotional views towards them) add nuance to the discourse surrounding migrant (in)visibilities, which otherwise suggest a degree of passivity in the face of an excluding state policy and suspicious wider public. It also suggests that visibility for male participants is linked to notions of success, as visibility becomes more pronounced with achieving success. The two narratives show that emotions like pride, joy, apprehension and jealousy play into behaviours of how migrants view and subsequently interact with one another. While Vishal is heralded as a ‘businessman’ by Guyanese participants, that others should follow, Darmendra is touted as a ‘drug man’ to be avoided, by the same group.     125      CONCLUSION This chapter addressed the research question which inquired how the Government of Barbados has promoted the trope of Guyanese undesirability. Article 45 of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, and the CCJ ruling in the Myrie case, has outlined the parameters by which an undesirable CARICOM national can be denied entry and removed from a member state. The DLP has used these details to propagate the image of the undesirable migrant which is projected onto the Guyanese community. For example, the Guyanese who is in violation of Bajan immigration law through falsified papers, the Guyanese who poses a threat to the moral fabric of society by being a sex worker, or the Guyanese who enters under false pretences with the intention to access the island’s medical services, or work without a permit. The official policy rules shape the politics of social interactions within the Guyanese community and between the Bajan and Guyanese communities, impacting the day-to-day lives of migrants.  There are several ‘scenes of exclusion’ perpetuated by Bajan officials and experienced by Guyanese migrants. These ‘scenes’ permeate all aspects of everyday living, from the time of arrival in Barbados (Guyana bench), while sleeping at home in the middle of the night (raids), to enveloping interpersonal relationships (bounty). The Guyana bench, raids, and the threat of the bounty, are all used as tools to publicly shame and silence Guyanese migrants. By staging these varied scenes of exclusion, the Bajan government recurrently diminishes a sense of community for Guyanese migrants. This reinforces their impermanence, unbelonging and exclusion, while emphasizing their undesirability in Barbados. These scenes translate to a feeling of emotional exclusion, in which shame, fear and anxiety are repeated experiences for migrants.  The complex and bureaucratic application process set forth in Bajan law has restricted Guyanese migrants’ ‘ability to deserve’ regularity. James and Legay, in their respective capacities as immigration officer and immigration lawyer, have expressed how Guyanese find themselves limited by their legal options in their efforts to follow domestic law. Participants are left with the requirement to demonstrate they are desirable in the first instance, rather than the state proving they are undesirable. Sonya stands barefooted on the pavement, wearing her dressing gown in the middle of the night, while being subjected to an immigration raid. Stacy is accused of prostitution when demonstrating to immigration officials she has the funds to sustain herself while in Barbados, as stipulated by Bajan law 126      as a condition of entry. Ram sleeps in a graveyard to avoid detention despite his documented status at the time. On the one hand, some of the Bajan public normalise and reinforce (un)deservingness of Guyanese migrants, as in Mario’s account of the hospital administrative worker who was preventing his coworker’s access to emergency medical care. Yet, these attitudes and behaviours are not held by all Bajans. Both James and Marissa express their belief that Guyanese migrants are caught in a difficult situation, where policing and irregularity intersect.    The notion of Guyanese undesirability is a narrative not only believed and perpetuated by some Bajans, as the discussions surrounding Darmendra’s truck illustrate. Rumors of migrant undesirability has seeped into Guyanese perceptions of one another, influencing social relations within the migrant community. Nonetheless, by exploring how migrants have created spaces of visibility and inclusion in Barbados (through the example Vishal and Flash Zone), the chapter explored instances where Guyanese are able to defiantly counter the narrative of Guyanese undesirability. Bridging the themes of (un)belonging and inclusion/exclusion, this section addressed the research questions by illuminating how the marker of (il)legality and undesirability influences the experience of Indo Guyanese in Barbados, and how this generates particular tensions and solidarities within and across migrant and host groups.   For Indo Guyanese migrants, these negative connotations are associated across their markers of ethnicity, religion and gender. In the following chapter, I return to the discussion on creolization explored in Part II of ch.2. This next chapter focuses on Indo Guyanese creole identities. It delves into the realities for participants who identify as Indo, whose phenotypical features and cultural and traditional practices separate them from their Afro Guyanese peers.   127      CHAPTER 6 INDO GUYANESE CREOLE BELONGING  This chapter answers the research question: how is creole belonging imagined across participants? The chapter looks at questions of ethnicity and delves further into the discussion about creolization introduced in Part II of ch.2, exploring how Indian ethnicity disturbs assumptions about Creolization in the Caribbean. This chapter draws on the ethnographic findings to explore the relationship between ethnicity, experience, and emotion in the present. The aim is to understand the experience of relationships between five communities who are defined in terms of their ethnicity: Afro Bajan, Indo Bajan, Afro Guyanese, Indo Guyanese and Dougla. In particular, participant narratives will show that Indo ethnic identity does not sit easily with standard ideas of creolization in the Caribbean.   I open the chapter with a vignette about Stephanie's roti shop. This narrative shows the complex cross-cultural dynamics between Bajans and Indo Guyanese migrants. The shop acts as a conduit for migrants to build social capital through food yet remains a contested space. Creole belonging is challenged as Bajans may view the shops and Indian dishes as examples of their openness to regional migrants, while Indo Guyanese migrants may not feel fully included. Police checks targeting migrants at roti shops disrupt any notion of true belonging. Policing takes the focus of the following section. Indo Guyanese participants recount instances where they believe they were targeted because of their ethnicity and physical features which makes them more vulnerable to policing compared to their Afro Guyanese peers. Insights from Afro Bajan participants support the claim that Indo Guyanese are indeed perceived as foreign due to their disassociation with the dominant Afro creole culture.    The following section of the chapter goes on to explore notions of Indian purity and Dougla identity introduced in ch.2. Through the narrative of Aisha, I explore the contradictory categorization of Indo Guyanese as too culturally pure for creole belonging, yet too creolized for authentic Indian status. Brain and Sean’s stories discuss their acceptance into Indo sociocultural circles in Barbados, identifying as Dougla. These narratives reveal how Indo ethnicity disturbs static assumptions about identity and belonging for Guyanese and Bajans in Barbados, while highlighting the ongoing 128      transformation and intricate relationships that shape creolization. In instances where Indo Guyanese traditionally perpetuate bias, excluding others based on a belief to uphold purity (as with Douglas), these participant narratives suggest attitudes of the Indo Guyanese community in Barbados may be more accepting and inclusive. The chapter concludes by discussing the potential of Dougla identities to bridge the ethnocultural divide and provide insights and perspectives into the Indo creole Caribbean.                                      129      VIGNETTE: STEPHANIE   Stephanie identifies as Afro Bajan and is in her mid-30s. She has only lived in Barbados, and for the last four years has been in business with a Guyanese family. She is wearing a bright red beaded necklace with matching earrings, and red heels. The colour contrasts with her starched and immaculate white button-down collared shirt and ironed dress pants. I note that she is always professionally dressed, despite working in an eatery (where I observe other operators dressed more casually, presumably for comfort). Most days Stephanie can be found at the roti shop, an eatery serving primarily Indo Guyanese/ Trinidadian dishes, including roti (flour-based flatbread), dhal puri (roti filled with ground split-peas), various curries (potato, vegetable, lamb/mutton, goat, chicken). Her business partners (a husband-and-wife team) are responsible for the logistics of daily operation (opening and closing, cooking, etc.). She and I are sitting down in the back of her shop, gaffing, and drinking some home-made ginger beer, while she sorts through paperwork. It’s 10am, and already three employees are in the front, prepping food, anticipating the upcoming midday rush. Mid-sentence she suddenly stops talking and asks me if I hear the song playing in the background. I can faintly hear a female voice followed by a male voice singing. She takes me to the front of the shop, and excitedly asks her staff to turn-up the song. Nadia, Stephanie’s Guyanese employee, turns the volume louder. Stephanie turns to me with bright eyes confessing, ‘Believe it or not, this was one ‘ah my favourite songs when I was a little girl.’ Nadia is playing Bollywood music on her phone from YouTube. Stephanie happily mimes the melody and vocals, while the staff (all Indo Guyanese) encourage and cheer her on (7 October 2015).      Stephanie recalls her childhood nanny, Aunty Moon, as she states, ‘That woman practically raise me.’ Aunty Moon moved to Barbados when her son, already established on the island, married a Bajan national and had a child.   ‘Aunty Moon come to Bim to watch Sasha (Aunty Moon’s granddaughter). Me and Sasha just a few years apart. Since I next door, my mommy just send me. That’s the first time I really exposed to Indian things, right? Aunty Moon always listening to songs and tapes on the television-set. That’s when I start to see Indian movies… All these things I learn from Aunty Moon. I learn to cook from her. She always calling us into the kitchen, to roll roti, to stir pot. By the time I nine years old, I cooking sheer Indian food… This business is like a part of Aunty Moon in me.’  19 December 2015   As you drive along any of the main roads in Barbados, you will find roti shops dotted along the streets, particularly the Western to Southern coastline. During the fieldwork, I 130      frequented three roti shops (despite the many on the island). One located in Hastings, an upscale, popular tourist area located on the Southern coast; one located near my residence in Durants, and another in a commercial area outside of Bridgetown. Of these three shops, only one was fully owned and operated by a Guyanese national. The second was owned by a Trinidadian couple and the last was co-owned by Afro Bajan, Stephanie. During the duration of the fieldwork, there were two roti shops that I knew of that went out of business which had Guyanese cooks. One was Guyanese-owned, and according to Stephanie, was ‘operating without the proper paperwork, so had to shut down’. Operating informally is a popular option according to Stephanie, ‘People tek the chance to have business without the paperwork, because it’s expensive…yuh get registration cost, food hygiene permits...it’s an ongoing cost. So, they see how long they can get away without it’ (3 November 2015). Indeed, there is little information regarding roti shops on the island, partially due to high levels of informality, and high levels of business turn-over (ILO,2017; IDB,2017). Eateries (like roti shops) and rum shops particularly, are noted as operating largely in the informal space (IDB,2017). To my knowledge, and the knowledge of Guyanese and Bajan participants, there are no specific Indo Bajan roti shops established on the island. There are eateries owned by the Bajan-Muslim families on the island, however, these cover a range of ‘Bajan’ dishes, i.e., macaroni pie, cou-cou, fish cakes, flying fish, meat stews, etc. Virtually all restaurants and eateries have ‘roti with a curried meat’ option available on their menus, including local fast-food chain, Chefette.   From the perspective of Bajan participants, the mere presence of roti shops plays into a national consciousness that Barbados promotes ethnic diversity and embraces the multiplicity of cultures across the Caribbean region (and referenced repeatedly by Bajan participants as proof of Bajan inclusion). Roti, originating in the Indian subcontinent, is a staple of the Indo Caribbean diet; a flatbread made from whole-meal flour. In the Barbadian context, roti shops primarily serve ‘dhal puri’, a type of roti that is stuffed with several spices and a split pea filling, accompanied by various ‘curried’ dishes (another cooking practice originating from the subcontinent, which involves dishes prepared in the sauce of the spice and herb mix). Curry & roti is a popular pairing across the Anglophone Caribbean. In this context, roti shops are symbolic of the long-standing East Indian presence in the Caribbean. In the minds of Bajan participants, roti shops represent a space of ethnic-entrepreneurship (Bartram et.al., 2014), underlining Barbados as a culturally accepting and open society that enables vendors a source of income through their production of traditional goods; an opportunity that may otherwise be absent in their 131      home-country. The physical existence of roti shops act as material proof in the reasoning of Bajan participants that Barbados is supportive of a diverse Caribbean and inclusive of the varied cultures across the region. While the superficial façade is enough to show evidence of cultural inclusion to the Bajan majority, the migrants who work and operate roti shops may not relate to this narrative constructed on belonging or inclusion.   The cross-fertilizations of what is understood as ‘traditional food’ and exploring the various foodways of the Caribbean, symbolises the dynamic exchange of associated belongings created and shaped by historic and contemporary migrations (Mintz, 1985; Mintz and Du Bois, 2002). Even though Stephanie primarily works in administrative operations of the business, she attributes her desire to operate a roti shop due to her upbringing and her closeness to ‘Indian culture’ through her relationship with Aunty Moon. Her understanding of these dishes is linked to the Indo Caribbean community, thus tying her to the Indo Caribbean community in terms of cultural knowledge.   Indo dishes/ingredients/cooking styles have long been incorporated and indigenized across the Anglophone foodscape (see Garth, 2013; Boer, 2014; Thompson, 2019). And is an identifiable reproduced marker of Indo Caribbean collective diasporic identity (Manuel, 1997; Warikoo, 2006; Tanikella, 2009). Food remains an enduring marker of the Indo influence across the Caribbean region (Sen, 2009). For example, although people of East Indian heritage comprise 3% of Jamaica’s overall population, various Indian influences are embraced as ‘traditional’ dishes of the island (Sen, 2009). The same is true for the Chinese influence in Trinidadian and Guyanese cuisine (Sen, 2009). In Guyana (and across many islands of the Anglophone Caribbean) roti and curry cross over ethnic boundaries and have become symbols of national identity, appearing across popular culture art forms i.e., Soca and chutney music (Sen, 2009).   However, regarding relations of belonging and inclusion, Richard-Greaves reminds us, ‘food has been, and continues to be, a powerful weapon in the ongoing negotiation for national political control among the racial groups that comprise Guyanese society’ (2013:77). Richard-Greaves makes particular reference to the country’s rice and sugar production (which is dominated by Indo farmers), and the Guyana Rice Development Board and Guyana Sugar Corporation which are primarily Indian and generally PPP supporters (2013). As mentioned, the current Indian population in Guyana remains generally rural, and dominates the country’s agricultural/agrarian economy (Rodney, 1981; 132      Hinds, 2011; Richard-Greaves, 2013). While these associations reinforce the racialized label of coolie, they support imagery of the Indo Guyanese community’s enduring connection to farming, and the food they produce and consume. In Guyana, ‘food features as a sociohistorical marker of overarching experiences of each race, while also featuring a symbolic boundary that marks the “Other” ’ (Richard- Greaves, 2013:92).    In the 1970s under the banner ‘Produce or Perish’ Afro Guyanese President, Forbes Burnham, prompted the Guyanese people into agricultural production by banning imported food goods (Richards-Greaves, 2013). Burnham justified the initiative as a move towards a food-secure, self-reliant nation (Premdas, 1997; Richards-Greaves, 2013; Hopkinson, 2018). Along with other widely used food items, the move banned the import of wheat, split-peas, chickpeas, and potatoes. These staple ingredients are integral to the Indo Caribbean diet reflective of the historically provisioned foods allotted to the indentured (Kumar, 2016). The base ingredient in roti, is wheat flour; the base ingredient in dhal is split-peas; while chickpeas (channa), lentils, and potatoes (alou) are standard in the vegetarian-Hindu diet. And while the ban affected the eating habits of the entire country, it arguably disproportionately affected the Indo Guyanese community, impacting traditional diets and religious practices of the Indo Guyanese community9 (Roopnarine, 2018). As Hopkinson notes of the prohibition, ‘it made roti —one of Guyana’s signature dishes, a gift from India— illegal’ (2018:17).  As stated earlier by Garth, ‘although political economic systems do not determine identity…political and economic conditions do relate to and influence identity in various ways’ (2013:8). King asserts, ‘ways of cooking food are some of the most conspicuous areas in which processes of maintaining identity are observed’ (2008:2; 2011). The Produce or Perish policy was used to drastically restrict and fundamentally alter the composition and preparation of Indo Guyanese dishes. The Indo Guyanese community was forced to prepare food in non-traditional ways, abandon traditional dishes altogether, or face legal consequences for purchasing/possessing the banned items (Richards-Greaves, 2013:77). However, the irony of roti and curry being spread across Barbados (a predominantly Afro island), by a group whose traditional foods were targeted for exclusion in their country of  9 As stated by activist Vishnu Bisram, ‘I remember in the 1970s sugar workers complaining that they did lacked [sic] the strength and stamina to cut and load cane when they could not consume roti and dhal. Hindus complained that they could not conduct pooja [religious prayers] to their satisfaction because they could not offer prasad (mohanbhog, lapsey and rote) and roti made from flour.’ June 29, 2011. http://guyanachronicle.com/2011/06/29/the-devastating-effects-of-the-food-ban. 133      origin, was not lost to Indo Guyanese participants, including Taij. Taij is a cook in Stephanie’s roti shop. At 20 years old, she’s been in Barbados less than one year, and has been working at the roti shop for over 10 months. During a lull between the lunch and early dinner rush, Taij says to me:  ‘Let me tell yuh joke - Bajan proppa like Indian food, not just curry. Baigan choka, bhajee, dhal puri - all a’dese Bajan proppa like - it does mek me laugh. But I’m thankful for it. That I able to cook and pass money to meh family, because back home meh nah able find work. My family dem mek joke dat I gan a’ Barbados fuh clap roti, and I betta hurry home before they stop [allowing] geera and masala in the country. Then all the Indians [Indo Guyanese] outta job and hustle back’.  12 August 2015  In their jokes, Taij’s family alludes to the DLP of Barbados adopting a policy akin to Guyana’s 1980s Produce or Perish, which will no longer allow geera and masala (staple seasonings of many Indo dishes) on the island. The inference is that once those ingredients are absent, Indo Guyanese will not be able to produce their cooking in Barbados. This would render many migrants like Taij, jobless, giving them limited employment options, other than to return home to Guyana. In the reasoning of Taij’s parents, domestic policy in Barbados can always be used to deter Indo Guyanese from staying on and coming to the island.   For Afro Bajan participant, Rasheed, a Bajan politics of belonging is not necessarily centred on ethnic-bias, but socioeconomic-bias. It is assumed the Indo Guyanese migrant group are not highly skilled, and as a result turn to production of traditional foods to find work. Rasheed views roti shops not as a sign of cultural appreciation or acceptance, rather as the visual confirmation of an increasingly unskilled migrant presence on the island:   ‘Roti shops are popping-up everywhere. Why? If Guyanese had better opportunities, or had more to offer, do you think they would be so quick to set-up roti shops? One week the roti shop is there, the next week, it’s shut down. To me it’s a sign of desperation, not entrepreneurship.’  4 February 2016  Rasheed’s view provides valuable insight as there is little formal data on the number of roti shops operating on the island (ILO, 2017). There are many (as he perceives) Guyanese roti shops, with a high turn-over in business. Rasheed’s claim is repeated by other Bajan participants, who also believe that roti shops are a popular option for what they identify as a large number of low skilled Guyanese. Bajan participant Rodney asserts, ‘They [Guyanese] get roti shop all over. But how you going to make money if you have roti shop 134      on every corner?...if they get a next job, they would tek it...but it’s just too many [Guyanese] here’ (3 November 2015). Rodeny claims that if there were less Guyanese, migrants would have an increased job prospects reducing the amount of roti shops on the island. However, it would be wrong to assume these are low skilled migrants with no other options. Indeed, most Guyanese participants speak of the freedom and potential for economic growth that business-ownership brings. As an orthopaedic surgeon, participant Vince reflects, ‘give me a next ten, fifteen years, I’m going into consulting and opening my own practice’ (5 January 2016). The same for corporate attorney, Aisha, who states, ‘My plan is to stay in Barbados, and start my own firm’ (6 January 2016). In fact, it is the aspiration of business ownership that pulls many participants to Barbados. For participants Joyce (through selling fashion accessories), Sunita (through operating a dessert shop), Lalita (through running a clothing store), Darmendra (through owning a construction business), Sunil (also through a construction business) and Vishal (operating a rum shop), their aspiration has become a reality. Roti shops are viewed by Guyanese participants as another avenue to realise this goal of economic security, where they ‘call the shots’ and ‘ain’t have to slave for nobody.’    Nonetheless, pursuing a business venture in Barbados comes with risk. Vishal, the owner of Flash Zone, views Guyanese-owned rum shops as operating in the same way as roti shops; ‘Nuff [Enough/A lot of] Guyanese try run rum shop here… But they get plenty a’ problem and gotta close. They [Guyanese] think it’s going to be easy... But many ah dem don’t know how to run a business, or [how to] deal with immigration’ (4 December, 2015). But as Vishal attests, this rarely acts as a deterrent to Guyanese migrants; and during the fieldwork, all rum shops I frequented with participants were owned and operated by Guyanese.   The sudden closures of businesses, particularly roti shops, is supported by Guyanese participant narratives. Taij and another participant, Seema, separately worked at roti shops which abruptly closed (suggesting they were operating informally), leaving them both without employment. As Yuval-Davis et al. contend of their research in the UK, employers and employees from ethnic minority backgrounds must function within their everyday constraints which may have ‘potentially destructive consequences on people’s lives’ (2018:235). For Taij, this meant she had no other option but to move back to Guyana, which resulted in years before she was able to return to Barbados. For Seema, this meant she reluctantly engaged in informal employment until she found formal sponsorship. Participant Veronica, who once operated a roti shop, provides her insight: her shop was 135      closed because of high turnover of staff, due to a constant immigration enforcement presence. Veronica notes frequent ‘permit checks’ performed by police discouraged her employees:  ‘Immigration see a roti shop and know they going to find Guyanese. They can’t help themselves. They come and tek down everyone information, even customers! Tek pictures, gotta mek sure it’s not “fake documents” – I get girls who stay with family that ain’t get papers, they scared. They leave. Now, imagine you sit down eating and immigration come ask you for yuh papers? All the time I gotta deal with that. So, I close-down the shop. I can’t handle it, just me alone. It’s a shame, because the business was good.’ 26 January 2016  Veronica attributes the frequency of shop closures to the policing of Guyanese owned business, through routine occurrence of immigration checks, ‘that’s why so many roti shops closing, because it’s hard dealing with police and immigration all de time. Sometimes they [immigration/police officers] just come and sit down whole day. People [customers and Guyanese staff] don’t want that.’ Stephanie separately corroborates Veronica’s assertion regarding the presence of police/ immigration officers, ‘that’s one of the reasons I here almost every day. To handle them when they come.’ Because she is Bajan, Stephanie’s authority and validity as the business owner of the roti shop raises fewer concerns for police and immigration officers. She is able to operate with relative ease (as compared to Guyanese roti shop owners, like Veronica), despite her partnership with, and employment of, Guyanese migrants. She notes that officers check her business license and her worker’s passports/permits, but have never requested their personal information (i.e., cell phone numbers, address of residence, etc.), nor have questioned the authenticity of documents, or asked for information from patrons. She confesses that her ease of operation contrasts with a discriminatory attitude amongst officials towards Guyanese business owners, who deduce ‘if they [Guyanese] get a shop, illegals must be involve in some way.’ These contrary experiences draw attention to the influence ‘the politics of belonging’ has on the operation of Indo Guyanese businesses, as compared to a Bajan owned business. Operating within the borders/boundaries of her belonging, Veronica was forced to close her shop, and move onto another business venture after less than 10 months, but Stephanie has been able to sustain her business for over four years. During the fieldwork the partnership of Stephanie and an Indo Guyanese migrant family was unique.  Indo Guyanese have found a way to monetise on their perceived ethnic difference, through food. What was once marginalised in Guyana, is now used as an income generating activity 136      and a viable means to improve the livelihood of Indo Guyanese migrants in Barbados. Dishes associated with Indo Guyanese and the wider Guyanese community have become popular throughout the island (with cassava pone, cassava bread, cook-up rice, and pepperpot each having an indelible place on the foodscape of the island). And while food in the region is defined by its adaptability and merging of traditions, the spread of Indo Guyanese dishes on an island with a relatively small Indo population is redefining ‘traditional’ dishes and tastes while expanding knowledge and awareness of the cultural products of Indo ethnic foods (King, 2008, 2011).   Roti shops remain contested spaces for Guyanese migrants in Barbados, simultaneously encompassing the site of frequent tensions between immigration and migrant workers yet representing a space which also fosters inclusion and belonging. Adlerova argues that ‘food is a social and cultural capital’ (2014:1); and despite the complicated reality for Guyanese migrant business owners and workers, I argue these establishments are crucial for maintaining cultural identity and promoting cross-cultural understanding between Guyanese migrants and Bajans. These are spaces where Indo Guyanese producers are appreciated and where Bajans constitute the main consumers. Indo Guyanese migrants have found a means to build deeply desired social capital. This notion will be expressed further in this chapter with the exposition of Brian, who reasons that Indo Guyanese migrants are willing to abandon/expand previous hard boundaries of inclusion in order to build social contacts and relationships.  Food is both personal mnemonic and a cultural mediator, so it connects to an array of emotions. It acts as a conduit for migrants to ‘relive particular experiences, to be symbolically transplanted to specific areas “back home”, and to relive the memories that were systematically constructed through acts of cooking and eating’ (Richard-Greaves, 2013:92, citing Douglas, 1971:67; Mintz and Du Bois, 2002). It also has the power to unite, ‘serving as a mediator between different cultures’ (Adlerova, 2014:2). Johnston and Longhurst have explored the varying ways belonging is achieved through the embodied geographies of food (2012). They contend that the ‘sharing of food and feelings…helps establish affective ties between women migrants’ (2012:325). Indeed, Stephanie’s experience shows how these ties are also established across migrant and host populations. For Stephanie, food transports her to her childhood and memories of her Guyanese ‘Aunty’, who not only taught her how to cook ‘real Guyanese food’, but indirectly instilled an appreciation for ethnic Indo dishes and hence, Indo Caribbean culture and traditions. 137      While her shop serves as that mediating space to bridge the cultural disconnect between Indo Guyanese and Bajans and to share traditions, through food, while providing a space for belonging and inclusion for migrant workers; for Stephanie the roti shop represents a connection more personal to her, ‘This business is like a part of Aunty Moon in me.’  This vignette, despite painting a primarily harmonious view of ethnic relations between Indo Guyanese migrants and Bajan nationals, starts to expose the complexity of these relationships. Although food is viewed as a mediator between cultures and roti shops are presented as a somewhat safe space for Indo Guyanese to share and impart their food with Bajans, there is an indication that outside these spaces, there is not always a sense of inclusivity and belonging regarding traditional food. As Jenny recalls when she is working at her fashion accessories shop:  ‘They say the store stink… Listen, I here all day, I just hot-up one plate in the microwave in the back. Not like fish or anything, yuh know? But when dem Bajan always walk in, they say how the place stink. And yuh know I is vegetarian, so it’s not like mutton, and heavy meat. But it’s because its we [Indian] food…because they can smell the spice, they must say it stink… And for what? After me done eat, the smell gan.’   17 February 2016  Jenny touches on her experience that although she only takes one working food break while she is in her shop, Bajan customers comment negatively on the smell if they happen to be in during this time. Jenny makes the argument that her food is vegetarian so there is no ‘rank’ smell that accompanies spoiled meat or fish. Moreover, she feels it is pointless to comment, since the smell abates once her meal is finished. She asserts that Bajan customers comment for the simple fact to make known the difference of Indo Guyanese food. Jenny believes this is proxy for reminding Indo Guyanese that they do not belong and are not welcome in Barbados.   On the one hand, roti shops and certain Indo dishes have become associated with the island and are found on nearly all menus, yet outside of roti and food shops, Indo food becomes less accepted, and less tolerated. In this regard, Indo Guyanese food serves as an analogy of the complexity of Indo creole belonging in Barbados, suggesting that the presence of Indianness is conditional on the island. The remainder of the chapter explores the nuances of these complicated dynamics and analyses its relevance to how Indo Guyanese participants understand Indo Guyanese and creole Guyanese belonging in Barbados today. In the following section, participant Ram describes his experience being 138      chosen at a check-point to confirm his legality in Barbados, whereby he notices only Indo Guyanese are selected for the immigration checks.      ETHNIC BOUNDARY CONSTRUCTION  This analysis emerges from the primary accounts of participants, based on their subjective assertions, perceptions, experiences, and interpretations – it is not seeking to provide a balanced account so much as one coming from their particular perspective. This section affirms that although ‘race and ethnicity may be social constructs’ they nevertheless ‘have consequences on people’s lives’ (Ang et.al., 2022:586).   Kapoor calmly reasons of the Indo Guyanese community in Barbados, ‘We’re nobody here. Indians don’t have any particular representation; nothing good, anyway. If yuh don’t like it, then leave, simple as that – it’s Bajan country, them can do as they like’ (22 September 2015). Indo Guyanese participants express that being met with community resistance by Bajans is unfortunate yet inevitable, plainly stating they are Indian, and Barbados, in the words of participant Sunil, ‘is black-man country - they can do as they feel. Why would they want us here? We’re Guyanese, worse yet, we’re Indian’. Sunil and Kapoor speak of their nationality and ethnicity as compounding attributes to their othering, as if justifying the marginalisation encountered by Indo Guyanese migrants. Ram explains one such instance:     ‘So when I on the ZR to get to work, we get stop by police. They board the bus and start holding people. I waiting there on the side of the road. They check me papers, call meh boss, tek down me address, call the police station to mek sure I nah mek trouble and thing - one big story! … I look around. I catch myself - eh, sheer Indians. Bajan don’t tek ZR dat early, only dem who work plantation. Dat bus full of Vincentians, Jamaicans, but they only haul out Indians. Tell me why, eh? Don’t pull no one else fuh get off de bus, just pick up the Indians fuh harass. All ah we get papers, and all ah we get hold. Dat sound right to you?…Mek all ah we late, just fuh harass we…Bajan mek yuh life hard here. Gotta remind yuh everyday yuh Indian.’ 10 October 2015  Ram is in his mid-50s and has resided in Barbados intermittently over 20 years. He is an agricultural worker but works occasionally as a general tradesman. Like many migrants, public transportation is vital to his daily life on the island. What Ram views as regular ‘harassment’ contributes to his sense of exclusion in Barbados. In this example, Ram notes the Indo migrants chosen for immigration checks produced their work permits and contact information of employers yet were still taken off the ZR to further ‘verify’ their documents.  139      Indo Guyanese participants have described ways they mask their Indianness, so as to pass  for creole on the island. As discussed in the previous chapter, migrants will purposely invisibilize themselves in order to avoid policing  (Villegas, 2010). This was described by  Darmendra in his account of regularly wearing hats and sunglasses to hide his hair and face, before gaining residency. Participant Sandy discloses the method she uses in order to avoid unwanted attention by what she views as suspicious Bajan public:   Sandy: Bajan like stare when they see yuh Indian. You know what I does do? I wrap my hair in them cloth creole women get. The one with the pattern. You see dem, right?   TR: Does it work? Sandy: Girl, yes. Sometimes they looking, like they can’t tell if I is mixed or black, or what. But as long as they don’t see soft hair underneath, I pass through. TR: Do you do it every day? Sandy: Not every day. When I going for work, when I know I going to be out long, shopping…sometimes I get one in my purse.  TR: How long have you been doing it? Sandy: Doing the wrap? Since I reach. Another Guyanese woman tell me to cover it because it so light, because of immigration problem. So, I doing it since then.  7 January 2016   Sandy notes that she uses the traditional headwraps that are widely used among Afro Caribbean females to cover her own hair. Sandy’s justification isn’t so much as to pass as creole, rather it is to not be identified as Indo Guyanese. She uses the head wrap to cover the ‘soft’ texture of her hair, and the auburn colour, which she views as a clear sign of her Indian heritage. For the six years she has been on the island, she still uses a headwrap to cover her hair in public to avoid Bajans who would otherwise ‘stare’ at her Indianness. She has become accustomed to using it, and regularly has one at-hand in her purse. For Ram, Sandy, and other Indo participants, instances of marginalisation in Barbados are expected and anticipated. Ram’s narrative is an example of the ‘everyday bordering’ in Barbados, which occurs for Indo Guyanese migrants, or ‘suspected illegitimate border crossers’ (Yuval-Davis et al., 2018:228). For Sandy, she covers her hair ‘merely to appear as part of the mainstream in order to deflect suspicions’ (Villegas, 2010:161). In Indo participants’ sense of regional migrant belonging, ethnicity and nationhood are inseparable. The sense of mutually exclusive ethnonational belonging persists beyond the national boundary (Brubaker, 2010a, 2010b) and works towards everyday bordering (Yuval-Davis et al., 2018). This everyday bordering in ‘black-man country’ is seen as inherently excluding Indo Caribbean identities, and Indo Guyanese are viewed as peripheral, separate, and apart from Caribbean belonging. Similar notions of exclusion and subaltern positions are felt of the coolie experience and identities in the Francophone Caribbean (see Hardwick, 2014). 140      WHO IS CREOLE & WHO IS INDIAN? In this segment Bajan participants, Harold and Ms. Donna address how they view Indo Guyanese migration on the island. Their narratives provide insight into how Indo Guyanese ethnic difference is understood and viewed by some in the Bajan community. This is contrasted with the views of Indo Guyanese participants Tulsi and Sunil. They reason that Afro Guyanese are more easily accepted on the island due to their identification as creole, in comparison to the Indo Guyanese community, who are viewed as foreign due to their traditions and customs.   Harewood explains the justification which reinforces the protection of the ‘cultural borders’ of the Barbadian nation-state: ‘A Guyanese becomes an Indo Guyanese, an Indo Guyanese becomes an East Indian, an East Indian becomes brown and brown becomes foreign and dangerous to the security of national identity’ (2010:219). For Bajan participants, Indo ethnicity and heritage is not only different, but also divergent. It is viewed as foreign in relation to Bajan norms, which justifies the social ‘resistance’ to the Indo presence, as described by Bajan participant Harold:   ‘Yuh know, the Indians get their own ways…religion, food, their own ways of talk, customs... It’s different. Nothing wrong with it, it’s just Bajan ain’t accustomed to that, we’re not accustomed to Indians.  Barbados is a black nation; we’re mainly black – not like Guyana. And if yuh not accustomed to something, then, is going to be resistance. And Barbados get PLENTY a’ Indians now, so…naturally…it’s a lot of resistance.’ 21 August 2015   Harold is a secondary school teacher in his late 20s. As a teacher for the last six years, he has seen the tension between Guyanese students and Bajan students. In extreme cases, he notes that, ‘Guyanese students always ready to fight…but I suppose you must always be ready [to fight] if people pressing yuh.’ Harold notes in instances that Bajan students purposely provoke and incite altercations with Guyanese students, giving Guyanese students the reputation as disruptive and disorderly. Although Harold is speaking generally of Guyanese students, he notes, ‘with female pupils - Guyanese pupils say Bajan pupils call them “Indian girl”, pull their plaits, because their hair long, so it easy, and tell them they smell like curry.’ Harold describes that often, Indo Guyanese girls report that their (typically) long braided hair is easily pulled by other students, while being called Indian. Again, food and in particular, curry, is seen as a differentiator between Indo Guyanese and Afro Bajan students. Harold’s insight shows that recognition of difference is already 141      realised across the age groups of 11-16, and that long hair and smelling like curry are by now attributes associated with being an Indian girl. Although these are insights about his students and the student body at his school, Harold can speak to the dynamic he sees everyday between Guyanese, Bajan-born Guyanese and Bajan students.   By citing their ‘own ways; religion, food, their ways of talk, customs’ Harold is expressing what constitutes the broad collective elements of Indo Guyanese ethnic identity, which is viewed as outside the Bajan collective identity, despite the long-settled Sindhi Hindu community and the Hanafi Muslim community on the island. Nonetheless, most Bajan participants associate Bajan identity with an African/black identity. As seen with Afro Bajan participant, Ms. Donna, who expresses her confusion on Indo Guyanese emigration to Barbados,  ‘So many Indians [Guyanese] come here. It does make me wonder; they can’t go to Trinidad? Then they can be surround with persons like themselves. It make no sense to come to a place where yuh so different from everybody. At least in Trinidad they can be with they kind.’ 19 January 2016  Ms. Donna believes this differentiation is validation for Indo Guyanese migration away from Barbados, to what is believed to be a more ‘compatible’ nation, Trinidad. As mentioned earlier, Trinidad, like Guyana, has a large Indo identifying population. 35.4% of the population identify as having Indian descent, with Trinidadians of Afro descent following closely behind, comprising 34.2% of the population (Trinidad and Tobago Population and Housing Census, 2011). Ms. Donna views this unifying attribute across Indo communities as justification for her reasoning that ‘Indians [Indo Guyanese] would make it easier for themselves’ by going to Trinidad. She further deduces that Indo Guyanese are complicit in their social marginalisation, as they choose to migrate to Barbados, rather than migrating to another location in the region where ‘they [Indo Guyanese] can be with they [people of Indian heritage – in this case, Indo Trinidadian] kind’, whereas in Barbados, difference is understood as ‘incompatible with their [Bajan/Afro] way of life’.   As a retired administrative worker at UWI Cave Hill, in her late 60s, Ms. Donna is aware that CARICOM students represent a significant portion of the Cave Hill student-body. As previously mentioned, regional student permits far outnumber the total CARICOM Skills Certificates issued in Barbados on a yearly basis (UNDP, 2022). Despite the sizeable presence of students from throughout the Caribbean in Barbados, Ms. Donna questions 142      why Indo Guyanese, specifically, would move to the island, where they are ‘so different from everybody.’ In Ms. Donna’s rationale, only Indo Guyanese are held to this standard, not Afro Guyanese or other CARICOM nationals. Ms. Donna’s comment illustrates how she understands belonging as defined by ethnic markers; where Indo Caribbean is different, and hence, outside of a creole Afro belonging.   The remainder of this section unpacks this understanding across Indo Guyanese participants, and how they situate themselves and their migratory reality as separate from fellow Afro Guyanese migrants. The ‘meaning and significance’ of being creole or creolized is contingent on the context (Khan, 2007:238). Hall reminds us, ‘Guyanese talk about “Indians or creoles”, and by creoles they mean “blacks”, descendants of Africans born in Guyana, whereas Indians refers to the “indentured population from Asia” ’ (2010:27). While creole ‘brownskin’ is associated as the ‘authentic center of the Caribbean, East Indian brown’ is viewed as ‘external and foreign’ (Harewood, 2010:212).   Guyanese participant Tulsi explains her frustrations with being seen as external and foreign in Barbados because of her Indianness:   ‘It’s really hard sometimes to live in Barbados. This place and the people make it really difficult for Indians to live and raise a family here. Yes, it’s better money-wise, I can’t argue that. That’s why I stay…but it’s hard to get along here. Yes, they [Bajans] don’t like Guyanese, but if yuh creole – it’s like they already know each other, but if yuh Indian – it’s like they ain’t get no time fuh yuh. Like they nah want mek time fuh yuh. You always feel different…they [Bajans] does mek yuh feel like something wrong with you any chance they get.’  5 November 2015  As Probyn has suggested, ‘if you have to think about belonging, perhaps you are already outside’ (1996:8). Due to her Indian heritage, Tulsi feels resistance directed towards her when stating that Bajans ‘nah want mek time fuh yuh’. She feels socially alienated from the Bajan community, as she makes note in our conversations of how ‘short’ Bajans are with her, which she attributes to her ancestry and their presumption of her irregular status. In our conversations she discusses several instances over the years where she has attempted to form relationships with Bajans but has been met with indifference and (sometimes) aggression. Tulsi recalls one year making sweets to mark Diwali celebrations and trying to share with her Bajan co-workers. All the coworkers promptly refused, telling her they don’t eat ‘temple food’ or anything ‘offered to Hindu gods’, even as she explained the sweets were a family tradition, and was not made in a temple or offered in prayer. As a result, she 143      no longer pushes herself to form connections with Bajans and those in her close social circle are fellow migrants. Participant Sunil echoes these sentiments:  ‘Yuh know, creole [people] have it better here. It’s easier for them all-around. They can just be themselves here, like Bajan. But if yuh Indian [Indo Guyanese], it’s a different life – always gotta watch yuh self, because somebody watching you…then next thing yuh know, yuh get [immigration] police knocking-down yuh door’. 27 February 2016  In Sunil’s reference to creole people, he refers not only to the Afro Guyanese but the wider Afro Caribbean community of migrants in Barbados, stating this group ‘can just be themselves here’ like Afro Bajans. Indeed, Sunil views not just Barbados as ‘black-man country’, but the wider region as inherently more accepting of ‘creole’ people. Sunil speaks of Indians finding themselves not being fully absorbed into Bajan society. He attributes this to an active policy of preserving unbelonging, such as the ever-present threat of police and immigration in the minds of Indo Guyanese migrants. In these instances, it is clear that Indo Guyanese view being creole and behaviours and traditions associated with creole culture as socially acceptable, whereas being of Indo heritage raises suspicion. Sunil speaks to the relative ease of belonging for creole Afro Guyanese migrants opposed to migrants of Indo descent (although issues of nationality and national belonging remain a divisive factor i.e., ‘those/them Guyanese’ vs. ‘we Bajan’). The various ways Indo Guyanese are excluded from creole discourse and belonging, in turn works to rationalise their othering by Bajan participants. Indeed, Ms. Donna’s comment that Indo Guyanese should move to Trinidad to be with ‘they kind’, supports Sunil’s assertion that inclusion for Indo Guyanese is more difficult and associated with increased immigration policing as compared to Afro Guyanese migrants. Despite Sunil owning a construction business and residing in Barbados for over 10 years, and Tulsi residing for over 20 years, they still feel their Indianness, their ethnic difference, impacts their daily lives. Their views are representative of how Indo Guyanese participants perceive themselves as separate from the wider creole Caribbean. It is because of this problematic view that Indian is separate from creole, that Indo Guyanese participants consider themselves apart from the wider Anglophone creole Caribbean.   THE AUTHENTIC INDIAN As the previous section addressed how Indo Guyanese identity has been shaped outside of creole belonging, the remainder of the chapter explores the ways creolization and Indianness are interdependent for Indo Guyanese. The following sections dissect Indo Guyanese Indianness through the lens of creolization. The Indo Guyanese migrant 144      experience of Indianness emphasises ‘authenticity’ and ‘purity’ – the opposite of creolization. This supports my claim in this research that Indianness for Indo Guyanese is always relative to creolization.  To Guyanese participants, creole and Afro are synonymous, leaving Indo Guyanese identities on the periphery of wider Caribbean belonging and inclusion (as supported by Yoshiko’s 2008 research). This view of belonging and acceptance is not limited to the Afro Bajan view of the Indo Guyanese migrant population, nor are the Indo Guyanese the only group to feel othered due to their ethnic identification. According to Koefoed and Simonsen when migrants are not recognised as belonging to the wider imagined community, alternative spaces for identity arise, where identity affiliations may become relational (2012). As previously noted, the Bajan population is not homogeneous. Ideas of creolization, belonging, and being an authentic Indian intersect in participant Aisha’s experience:  ‘I was in a beauty shop, near Bridge Street, looking for some things, nothing particular. An older man in the shop approached me, he had a long beard, wearing a kufi and kurta. He handed me a container of hair product, told me his daughters used the same one – and that it suited “our type of hair” …Anyway, when I told him my name, he asked if was Muslim. When I said “yes”, he jokingly – but not really kinda way, asked if I was married. When I told him no, he asked if I was here in Barbados alone. He went on to ask how my parents allowed me to move here by myself, unaccompanied – then he just said, “that’s right, you’re Guyanese.” I don’t know what it was about him saying that, and the way he said it, but I didn’t appreciate it at all. Dealing with all the other crap from people here when they look at you and assume all kinds of nonsense about you because you’re Guyanese…I was actually more disappointed than anything, you know. Because here we were, talking so nice. Then out of nowhere, for him to imply that my family don’t share the same values as him, because we’re Guyanese? Like he’s better than us? Please.’   6 January 2016   Aisha’s narrative highlights varying intersecting themes beyond ethnicity: gender, religion, and socioeconomic status. As a female raised in an Indo Guyanese Muslim household, Aisha has grown accustomed to the several traditional patriarchal gendered expectations of her. She explains that growing-up, her family followed the standard social behaviours of the Indo Guyanese Muslim community; she was sheltered, had little personal freedoms, and stayed in the home, ‘like a typical girl-child’. Pursuing further studies, becoming a licenced corporate attorney, and moving out of Guyana (despite her parent’s disapproval) allowed her to experience a sense of independence and control, which she believes would not have been possible if she remained. Aisha begrudgingly acknowledges that she often comes across more conservative and ‘concerned’ (‘concerned’ that she is not upholding 145      traditional values, or that she is ‘straying’ from customary ways) members of her community and extended family who comment about her being ‘too modern’; her choice not to hijab, her less-conservative clothing, her choice to pursue higher education, reside outside of Guyana, and her focus on ‘establishing herself’, rather than ‘settling down and having children’. Of note, Aisha at age 32, was the only Indo female participant who lived alone (all other contributors either lived with partners or immediate family/extended family members). And while she usually responds by rote, she admits this exchange with the owner of the shop was not only unexpected, but offensive and hurtful, considering their shared ethnoreligious heritage. Aisha says regarding values, customs, tradition and religion:  ‘In the [West-Indian] Indian community, there will always be people who claim to be “more religious”, who raise their girls being more pious, and more traditional. But is he better because he’s Bajan? Do we not pray the same way, or pray to the same God because I’m Guyanese? Are Guyanese-Muslims incorrect? What was he trying to say? I can’t make sense of it.’  6 January 2016  Instead of building on their commonalities, Aisha is jarred that the man chose to emphasize their differences. However, as discussed in Part II of ch.2, this attitude supports the notion of the authentic Indian of free passenger past, compared to the inauthentic Indian of indentured past (Degia, 2018). ‘Creolization always entails inequality, hierarchization, issues of domination and subalternity, mastery and servitude, control and resistance. Questions of power, as well as issues of entanglement, are always at stake’ (Hall, 2010:29). In this case, Indo Bajans view their own lack of creolization as a form of cultural resistance, having maintained their perceived authenticity over two centuries. In the same way, they view their purity as a standard to other and emphasise the difference between themselves and the wider Indo Caribbean population. This manifests through a hierarchy of unbelonging and exclusion. These notions of distinction between like-religious groups emphasise difference which work to uphold distancing behaviours, as expressed in Aisha’s narrative.  Indo Guyanese are viewed as too ‘pure’ and foreign to wholly and fully belong to and be recognised by the larger Caribbean community yet are conversely too creolized to be considered ‘authentic’ Indian and gain recognition by the Indo Bajan community. Ideally, in the region, ‘since no one has been spared creolization, no one can assert “purity” of origins’ (Stewart on Glissant, 2007:3). Nonetheless, binary interpretations have emerged posing ideas of closeness to an ‘original or originary culture’ (Puri, 2004:38; Tsuji 2009:59-146      60) as seen with the claims of an ‘authentic’ and ‘pure’ Indianness of Indo Bajans in their  comparative view of the ‘inauthentic’ Indianness of Indo Guyanese.   BECOMING DOUGLA Brian has an imposing stature – standing well over 6-foot-tall, with a muscular build, both attributes fitting with his occupation as a professional boxer. Brian shares the phenotypical features of his parents, who themselves share the features of their fathers; Afro textured hair, and dark-brown pigmented skin. To anyone looking at him, it would be hard to discern attributes not aligned with an Afro heritage. I look at the faded photograph with upturned ends, of a woman dressed in red saree, a man in a cream and red kurta. Although the photograph is dated, it is clear the woman’s hair and face has been groomed with care. The red dupatta covers her head, while carefully curled ringlets of hair fall on her shoulder. Her modest jewellery is simple: a single maang tikka hangs from the middle of her parted hairline to her forehead, gold dangling earrings, a nose ring with a chain attaching to her ear. Her hands and feet are painted with intricate designs of deep red henna. The man, styling a short afro and a thick moustache, is staring at the floor with a jovial, almost childlike, smile overtaking his face. The pair are outdoors, walking around a small havan10 on the ground. The woman walks ahead of the man. The shawls draped over their shoulders have been tied in a knot at the bottom to connect them as they walk. White sheets are spread over the dirt floor of what appears to be a yard or garden area of a home. A pandit is standing at the edge of the frame of the picture with his hands in prayer near his chest, presumably reciting a Vedic prayer.  The picture is the Hindu wedding ceremony of Brian’s parents. Brian’s maternal and paternal grandmothers were Indian and both grandfathers Afro, making his parents the conventional idea of ‘Dougla’ – offspring from an Afro and Indo union. I hand the picture back to him, as he returns the photograph with the utmost care into a cracked paper folder, and back into his dusted backpack. He smiles (resembling his father in the captured moment), as he recalls the story of his parent’s wedding, as it was recounted to him so many times before by his parents and grandmother. Brian was raised with his paternal grandmother; his maternal grandmother passed away before he was born. Both his paternal  10 The sacred fire: usually made from small sticks and lit with camphor. During the ceremony offerings of sandalwood, rice, herbs, ghee, and sprinkles of water are made to Agni, the fire god, while the pandit recites Vedic prayers. 147      and maternal grandmothers were adamant his parents observe Hindu marriage rights prior to establishing a household, keeping with religious practice. Brian goes on to explain that days later, the couple donned ‘western’ wedding attire and stood before a priest and exchanged vows in a Christian church, according to the Anglican faith their fathers (his grandfathers) followed.   As discussed earlier, the Indo Caribbean community has largely ignored ethnic mixture across the Indo Caribbean population (Sampath, 1993; Reddock, 1998, 2010, 2014b; Puri, 2004). As Calhoun asserts, ‘Treating ethnicity as essentially a choice of identifications neglects the omnipresence of ascription (and discrimination) as determinations of social identities’ (2003:534; Wimmer, 2013; Anthias, 2001, 2013, 2016). Brian refers to this simultaneous ascription and discrimination, ‘People in Guyana never surprised to hear you mix-up. They may not treat you like one a dem, but they never shock to hear you like dem.’ Reddock claims this perception is common within the Indo Caribbean community: while one can be both African and mixed, Indianness is absolute (1994, 2010, 2014b). Both of Brian’s grandmothers in Guyana were shunned and cut-off from their Indo families when it was revealed they were in relationships with Afro Guyanese men. His maternal grandmother was kicked-out of her childhood home at age 15 because of her relationship, while his other grandmother was refused contact with any of her family members once she married Brian’s paternal grandfather. Even after the birth of their children (Brian’s parents), neither grandmothers were able to reconcile with their families. Subsequently, Brian never met the ‘Indian-side’ of his family as a child.   Similar stories followed for Dougla identified participants, Trevor and Sean. Like Brian, Sean also has phenotypical Afro dominant traits. Reflecting on growing-up Dougla in Guyana, Sean reflects, ‘When yuh Dougla, Indians [Indo Guyanese] does punish yuh bad. It’s like they can’t stand that yuh Indian and black’ (in conversation post-fieldwork: 9 April 2016). His experience of claiming ‘Dougla’ identity followed a typical trajectory; outright rejection of his membership by the Indo Guyanese community and social and familial disavowal of his Indian mother for ‘having black-man and getting black pickney [children]’. I say ‘typical’ referencing the documented experiences of Dougla identified persons in Trinidad in Puri’s 2004 and Reddock’s 2014b research, as well as participants that identify as Dougla in this research.   148      The way race and ethnicity are interpreted is based on how migrants are perceived and received within the host nation (Chee et al., 2021). Participants that identify as mixed, bi-racial, or identify with an ethnicity that does not match their appearance in the popular imagination find themselves (re)negotiating and (re)defining their daily interactions in Barbados. For participants Brian and Sean, who identify as Dougla and present with Afro dominant features, the openness of creole belonging works to their advantage in Barbados, as they are absorbed into the dominant visual demographic of the island (although this does not remove national bias). Over the course of his three years in Barbados, Brian has learned how to navigate instances where identity and ethnicity come into play. Brian has a ‘situational approach’ to his ethnicity, allowing him a sense of liberty to choose the circumstances under which he reveals or conceals his ‘Indian-side’ (Okamura, 1981). He notes how his ethnic (re)designation on the island works to (re)construct his relationships with Indo migrants:   ‘I get some real Indian friends they always bring attention, when we does lime, it’s always some issue. We stay to Guyanese places, to avoid problem. Indian and Black Guyanese, all ah we does lime together, but yuh always got to be careful of where.’ 25 July 2015   Brian’s quote also reveals how he views himself as not fully Indian. This is described in the way he differentiates between his Guyanese friends whom he considers ‘real Indian’. Brian goes on to discuss the way spatial boundaries are delineated along social boundaries for migrants – boundaries that include both ethnicity and nationality (Lamont and Molnár, 2002; Wimmer, 2008a). Klocker and Tindale find ‘identity and belonging…shift as different configurations of bodies move through public space together’(2019). When Brian is with other Afro Guyanese, he has a larger range of mobility, as he can comfortably navigate public spaces and feels at ease in most Bajan-owned businesses (although government institutions, banks, hospitals, etc. represented places of unease for all Guyanese participants, including those with resident status). However, when he is with his Indo contacts, the group’s comfort and ease of being is spatially restricted, containing their social activity within the boundaries of limited locations, frequenting known Guyanese-owned establishments.  Brian speaks of the diverse ways he experiences his ethnicity in Barbados, which draw parallels to the ‘strategic in/visibilization’ (Uekusa and Lee, 2018:10) discussed in the previous chapter. Brian’s Indianness is erased in the Afro Bajan social context (based on 149      the Bajan community’s interpretation of his physical attributes and his own silence regarding his heritage):  ‘When Bajan see me, they see a black man. They don’t see my Indian grandmothers. They don’t see a man who raised on chutney and chowtal11. They see a black man. And for them, that’s it. I try fuh stay away from trouble, so I keep my mouth quiet.’   Brian expresses guilt over this admission of his ‘quietness’. However, he asserts that to divulge his Indian heritage would not only destabilise his steadily developing relationships with Bajans, but potentially create tensions within and possibly end those existing relationships. As Amy Clarke argues, ‘belonging is as much about being recognised as belonging as it is about self-identification, a substantive sense of belonging requiring recognition – if not acceptance – in the eyes of existing members (2019:96; Wood & Waite, 2011; Yuval-Davis, 2011). During his upbringing in Guyana, Brian’s identification as Dougla was contentious and often challenged. Brian follows both Christian and Hindu religious traditions. He notes the occasion of his grandmother having to use the same wedding photo of his parents to verify they were wed under Hindu rites, so that Brian could attend tabla (classical drum) classes at a village temple. When Brian’s mother was refused from registering Brian, the pandit claimed that only those ‘raised as Hindus in a Hindu household’ could attend temple classes. Brian’s grandmother intervened and became the default mediator (as she had done for her children and continued to do for the duration of Brian’s childhood, when negotiating his place in Indo Guyanese social settings) – as she was the only one in the family who ‘look Indian’ and ‘know the prayers’. For Brian growing-up in Guyana led to instances where he had to ‘prove’, or perform, his Indianness to the Indo community in order to gain a form of conditional acceptance and limited recognition. Not total inclusion as he describes, a ‘tolerance’. Usually based on knowledge regarding non-material culture/cultural products i.e., ‘Indian’ traditions and customs, food, music, the Hindu religion.   Similar experiences of discrimination being raised in Guyana and identifying as Dougla were noted of both Trevor and Sean. Sean’s father passed away when he was six. His maternal grandparents allowed his mother to move back to her childhood home with Sean,  11 Not to be confused with food, in this context chutney is referring to an Indo Caribbean fusion music genre created in the Caribbean, while chowtal is a folk-style of music and song transferred to the region by indentured mainly used in temples to mark religious celebrations; both are primarily sung in the Bhojpuri language.  150      despite not having contact with her since she married Sean’s father. Sean expresses that when he was young:  ‘I think I was Indian. My muddah [mother] Indian, meh grandparents Indian, I live in an Indian house… Meh daddy die when I young, so I only see Indian around me. Of course I know I get black skin and black hair. But they get Indian darker than me, so I just think I a black [skinned] Indian. ’   12 January 2016  However, his perception and understanding of his belonging soon changed. Although he and his mother were allowed to live in the house, Sean admits he never felt accepted, and his grandparents often excluded the two from family events and gatherings. Sean recalls one instance he remembers vividly - not being allowed to act as Sai-bala for his uncle’s wedding. Sean reflects on his grandparent’s insistence that he not participate in the wedding, despite being the only nephew/young boy in the family to fill this role and accompany and sit with the groom during the ceremony. He is reminded, ‘Ma tell me not to worry. But it’s natural. I feel bad, yuh know’. According to Sean, his grandparents did not want him to ‘black-up the mandap’; implying his blackness would distract, in a shameful way, from the marital couple’s ceremony. For Sean, as a child and young adult in Guyana, he learned not to express or voice his Indian heritage, as he felt it would exclude him further from Indo social circles. Sean had no Indo friends in Guyana growing-up, besides family members of similar age. He found that as a child, other Indo children in his village ‘nah accept me as Indian, because of my black skin’. Exclusionary experiences like these as well as living in his Indo grandparents’ home has made Sean reluctant to voice his Indo heritage to others, even as an adult. His silence towards divulging his Indo heritage is how he chooses to strategically invisibilize himself in Barbados.  In Barbados, Brian has found a verbal proclamation of his Indo heritage piques interest with many fellow migrants, with his range of specific knowledge further solidifying his Dougla placement as genuine. Even though Brian continues to ‘act’ his ethnicity to gain group membership (Kachtan, 2017:708), he finds it infinitely easier to assert his Indo identity and gain acceptance amongst fellow Indo migrants in Barbados, as compared to Guyana. He states of Indo Guyanese migrants, ‘they always happy when I tell dem I Dougla. Like we have a connection, like they find someone they can share that connection with.’ As Eriksen states, ‘Only those differences that are made relevant contribute to defining an ethnic relationship’ (2013:294). Brian views this more accepting stance as a result of the marginality, public scrutiny and relative isolation particularly male Indo 151      migrants face (which will be explored in ch.8; in short, male migrants operate with more autonomy in Barbados, usually living and working outside of existing familial networks). Brian reasons, ‘Guyanese lonely here. When yuh find someone who can understand you, yuh keep with them, if yuh can’. Brian’s racialized Afro body allows him to foster and build networks and connections across community groups, a powerful route to social capital less feasible for racialized Indo bodies.   Sean acknowledges his Indian heritage and identifies as Dougla, despite not openly disclosing it to others as freely as Brian. Like Brian, Sean finds Indo inclusivity among the Indo Guyanese migrant community more open in Barbados. In the same conversation recounting how he was not allowed to act as Sai-bala when he was younger in Guyana, he speaks of his ‘family’, that he found in Barbados. When Sean arrived in Barbados roughly eight years prior to the fieldwork, one of his housing arrangements had him living in a house share with eleven other male migrants. He befriended one of his roommates, an Indo Guyanese of similar age named Avinash. Sean recalls that he and Avinash first bonded over their love of cricket. Over the years, the two have established a close bond, enough for Avinash to call Sean ‘Babu’, a term of endearment in the Indo Caribbean, used amongst family members. When speaking to Avinash about his friendship with Sean, he reflects,   ‘We been through a lot here in Bim. It’s a hard time, he going through his, me going through mine…working and punishing, and family back home and trying to please everybody…so it’s nice to get somebody who [is] like you. Someone to share all of that with. It’s hard to find that in life, I think. But I find it with this one.’ He motions to Sean, ‘No lie, he family.’  12 January 2016   Avinash feels that it was their joint experiences on the island that deepened his relationship with Sean. Both experienced harsh treatment from employers (sudden terminations, withheld pay), they were ‘punished’ doing ‘back-breaking’ agricultural work in the hot sun for 14hrs a day, they dealt with a landlord who had them living in overcrowded unsafe housing, with up to six people to a small room on bunkbeds, with one toilet for a house of twelve. All this while managing financial expectations of family members in Guyana as they remit. The hardships Avinash recounts which drew him and Sean closer, correlates with Brian’s assertion that ‘Guyanese are lonely here. When yuh find someone…yuh keep with them.’   152      Despite their friendship, Avinash is well aware of how Indo Guyanese perceive and treat those who identify as Dougla in Guyana. He discusses how members of his own Indo family in Guyana treat other Dougla family members:  ‘I can tell you how it is [for mixed Dougla], from my own family. Coolie people clannish, they mean. Yuh can’t get black children, grandchildren…it’s a thing of shame.’ Avinash speaks about his Dougla cousin growing-up and how she was treated when visiting his grandparent’s home, ‘How they [the adults] get-on, it’s an embarrassment [to me]. Now that I can understand what was going on…My sisters were told to leave she, not play, not share clothes …what craziness.’   Avinash asserts that Indo Guyanese perceive it as shameful to have mixed-Afro family members. He notes that when he was younger in Guyana, the adults in his family instructed younger family members to exclude their Dougla cousin. As an adult, Avinash recognises how embarrassing this behaviour is, yet admits that it is typical response from Indo Guyanese and is similar to the exclusion Sean and Brian faced in accounts of their upbringing in Guyana. Yet Sean and Brian are able to create stronger bonds with the Indo Guyanese community in Barbados. Sean describes how his relationship with Avinash led to him having family in Barbados, by becoming a Godfather to Avinash’s son,  With his arm around Avinash, Sean states, ‘Dis is my family..Hear[listen] ….This man mek me Godfather to his only child, right? He [Avinash] get brothers in Guyana, he get cousin, nuff [enough] family back home, but he ask me. He entrust that to me.’   Sean takes pride in this title. It is a source of recognition for him to have a role in Avinash’s son’s life, particularly in a fathering position. Sean sees this as an honour, to be entrusted with the responsibility to act as a father in Avinash’s absence. Sean contrasts this to treatment by his family in Guyana, ‘They [Avinash and his wife] accept me into their home and treat me better than my own family even up to now.’ He goes on to say, ‘They not really want a connection. After all these years…even I send ‘em money. I put my niece dem through school, and still, they never favour me.’ Sean explains that despite his earnings being used to benefit the wider family, he has not been able to gain acceptance and a sense of belonging with them. Nonetheless, he continues to send money, because he feels ‘it’s meh place, even if I never hear a “thank you” ’.     Indo Guyanese male migrants express that it is shameful when not financially providing for loved ones (as in the case of Sean), and discuss the constant state of uncertainty, anxiety and loneliness they experience in their attempts to provide. This is compounded by 153      pressure to remit, which is tied to their ideas of manhood and responsibility. Sean believes it is his duty to remit, even though his family in Guyana deny him a sense of acceptance despite it. This connection between Sean and Avinash is rare amongst male participants. As will be explored in ch.8, male migrants largely forgo deep relationships with others remaining emotionally vulnerable due to their mostly solitary experience of migration.   In Guyana the Indo population accounts for the largest ethnic group, whereas in Barbados, their numbers are negligible. In an act of solidarity in order to build social connections/networks and foster growing relationships/possible friendships amongst fellow Guyanese, Indo Guyanese have adopted a more pliable view of Indo belonging. They expand in-group membership to Douglas, a traditionally excluded group. This supports Barth’s assertion that [ethnic] groupings are formed not around cultural markers, but social markers (1969; Eriksen 2015:102). As these ethnic boundaries are ‘socially constructed, not primordial and inborn’, ethnicity is viewed as an aspect of this socially created relationship (Barth, 1969:115; Wimmer, 2013:22; Jakoubek and Budilová, 2019:16). Furthermore, this social reconstruction of boundary inclusion to expand personal networks, supports Abner Cohen’s claim that ethnic groupings act as informal interest groups, whereby this process of inventing tradition, constructing ethnicity, ethnicization (or retribalism as described by Cohen) ‘is not the product of continuity and conservatism; although it uses “traditional” customs or elements of a traditional culture’ (Cohen A., 1969:200; Jakoubek and Budilová, 2019).  Brian does not consider himself a real Indian because of his mix and because of his physical body (as stated when describing how he limes with his Indo vs Afro connections). This shows how deeply rooted the constructs of the traditionally closed hardened boundaries which form Indo belonging, are rooted (Todd, 2018). He has been socialised to adhere to these boundaries, despite his observance of Indo norms and traditional practices. He assigns the label ‘Indian’ to those with physical attributes of typical Indianness, regardless of their own familiarity or following of ‘Indian/ coolie things’. These hesitations are also felt by Sean, who continues to be less forward about his Indo background with others. Sean’s idea of his own Indo belonging has been marred by his exclusionary experiences growing-up with his Indo family in Guyana. Arguably, however, as a result of his migration to Barbados he has made a greater connection to his Indian side, through his found sense of family with Avinash.    154      In Barbados, Brian and Sean’s Afro- featured bodies are made irrelevant to their Indo belonging. It is Brian’s knowledge of Indo/Hindu customs and traditions that solidifies his place amongst Indo migrant circles, who themselves often lament the ‘loss of culture and values’ of Indo Guyanese when moving abroad (will be discussed in relation to gendered behaviours in ch.8), and Sean and Avinash’s shared experiences as migrants that has connected them as a family through their migratory journey. They are both able to create networks with their fellow migrant community and improve their sense of belonging and inclusion on the island. This reconstruction of Indo boundaries exposes ‘the myth of cultural distinctiveness’ by positioning ethnic groupings not as ascribed attributes, but as learned behaviours (Cohen A., 1969:101; Jakoubek and Budilová 2019:22). In Barbados, the Indo community have redefined the boundaries of Indo belonging, shifting emphasis on attributes which they value as important. For Sean, he has become ‘Babu’, family, to Avinash. For Brian, this resulted in him becoming Dougla in Barbados. Now in his mid-40s, he jokes, ‘it tek my whole life to be Indian in Guyana. All meh had to do was move to Barbados’.   Despite Brian and Sean’s affirmation of Dougla belonging, most of the participants do not identify as mixed. Conversations are delineated along an either/or, rather than a both/mixed structure when regarding ethnic belonging and how participants viewed themselves. Based on participant descriptions, ideas of mixed were recognised when a parent of a participant belonged to another ethnic group, i.e., ‘my father Chinese’. However, if the family member went further back along the bloodline, a grandparent or great-grandparent for example, those descriptions were acknowledged, but not incorporated into a participant’s sense of identity. As a result, many participants openly acknowledge their mixed backgrounds (see Biographical Data of Participants in appendix), however, choose to identify as Indian, rather than mixed. I have represented participant’s self-identification as expressed to me and take seriously ‘the charge of upholding individuals’ interpretations of their own identities’ (Klocker and Tindale, 2019:4).   In the ethnography, this raises questions as to how self-identification works in contested spaces where notions of mixed/adulterated, pure/ unadulterated continue to spark debate. While the values associated with Indian purity continue to be upheld by some, the (slowly) growing affirmation of a ‘Dougla identity’ disrupts the notion of ‘pure’ Indo Guyanese. Dougla identity challenges the boundaries of both creole belonging and Indian purity. This speaks to a dynamic malleability shaping belonging, inserting Indianness into the dominant 155      creole discourse and creole narratives in the Caribbean. For Brian, his identity as Dougla has allowed him to belong and feel acceptance in the Indo Guyanese migrant community in Barbados, the same for Sean. Both participants have been able to foster friendships and personal connections with Indo Guyanese which they previously did not have in Guyana.  Figure 6.1., below, shows that the Indo Guyanese population in Guyana has been in steady decline since the 1980s; comprising 51.1% of the population in 1980, down to 39.8% of the population in 2012 (Bureau of Statistics: Guyana, 2016). However, the growing demographic of ‘mixed’ identities suggests a rising recognition among the Guyanese consciousness that Indianness can and does exist alongside other ethnic belongings12. The narratives of Aisha, Brian, Sean and Avinash  display how Indo/Dougla regional migration disrupts existing ethnic constructs, illuminating the varying ways ‘one is not necessarily only or always included or excluded’ (Thorjussen and Sisjord 2020:54).    Figure 6.1. Chart indicating the decrease of Indian identifying Guyanese from 48.6% of the population in 1991 to 39.8% of the population in 2012, and the increase (by 43%) of Mixed identifying Guyanese from 11.2% to 19.9% for the same period Source: Bureau of Statistics: Guyana, 2016      12 This is seen in other regional research. Moreno Morales discusses the socioeconomic and political impact of shifting identity affiliations in the nation when enumerating the indigenous population in Bolivia (2019). 0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00%IndianAfricanMixedAmerindianEuropean/Chinese'Ethnic identification' reporting of  Guyanese population between 1991 census and 2012 census1991 2012156      CONCLUSION This chapter addressed the research question by answering how creole belonging is imagined across participants. In-line with the region, Barbados and Guyana represent areas where ethnicity and belonging weave an intricate and complex tapestry. The ethnography revealed different groups interact with participants based on perceptions of Indo Guyanese creolization. Referencing the work of Khan (2001; 2004a; 2004b; 2007), Munasinghe (2001, 2006), and Puri (1999; 2004) cited in ch.2, this chapter challenged the narrative of ‘creole openness’ incorporating the Indo Guyanese experience of closure or exclusion in Barbados. The chapter showed the everyday experiences which illustrate that Indo Guyanese ‘remain sidelined from the creole game’ (Stewart, 2007:4). This situation undermines the image of total creole openness assumed by cultural theorists. If the world is in creolization the Caribbean, paradoxically, might have some catching up to do’ (Stewart, 2007:4). Indo Guyanese participants experience unbelonging and exclusion because of their perceived lack of creolization by the Afro community yet are excluded by Indo Bajans because of their perceived creolization.  The narratives exposed the fragility of feeling accepted and excluded along these lines. Indo Guyanese view themselves outside of notions of creole belonging, which was echoed in the way Bajan participants perceive Indo Guyanese.  The narrative of Stephanie and her roti shop exposed an aspect of the complexities which arise from these ethnic relationships and cross-cultural understandings between the Bajan community and Indo Guyanese migrants. Food is a mediator between cultures. Roti shops on the one hand, provide business opportunities for Guyanese, while also spreading the influence of Indian food on the island. And despite the popularity of Indian derived dishes, for Indo Guyanese participants, these foods amplify their difference. In the case of Jenny, her store is ‘stink’ whenever she has lunch, and Harold notes that his Indo Guyanese students are ridiculed for ‘smelling like curry’.    The chapter explored the contradictory categorization of Indo Guyanese as too culturally pure for creole belonging, yet too creolized for authentic Indian status. The narratives of Aisha, Brian and Sean exposed how attitudes towards ethnic belonging shifts in new migrant spaces. Aisha’s narrative illustrated that creolization is relational, and that through migration, notions of a homogenous Indianness is challenged on the island. This is illustrated through claims to authenticity and perceptions of inauthenticity, as seen with descendants of free passenger Indo Bajans in their view of descendants of indentured Indo 157      Caribbeans. Aisha remained vexed by her interaction, unable to make sense of her exchange with a member of Indo Bajan community, resulting in her reluctance to pursue relationships with Indo Bajans. The engagement between Indo Guyanese participants and Indo Bajans will continue in the next chapter, as participant Kareem endeavours to form connections with the Bajan Muslim community through acceptance at the local masjid.   Brain and Sean’s experience sheds light into the emotions associated with feeling accepted as Dougla by Indo Guyanese migrants in Barbados, challenging the notion of Indian purity. Brian and Sean find the rigidity of Indo belonging has become more fluid amongst fellow Indo migrants in Barbados. They have been able to find greater inclusion and acceptance with other Indo Guyanese through their migration. This brings attention to the potential of Dougla identities to bridge the ethnocultural divide and provide insight and perspective into the Indo creole Caribbean and the role migration plays in this process. Aisha, Brain, and Sean’s narratives show that while creolization is relational, so too are notions of Indianness.  As Stuart Hall and Torabully describe the unique placement of the Caribbean and its peoples, ‘cultural change is thus a matter of de- and re-accentuation…there is no perfect or completed model of this process. Everything is a variant. Everything is still in trans-formation’ (Hall, 2010:31). The regional movements and lived experiences of Stephanie, Aisha, Brian and Sean show this transformation. Their narratives assert that the Indian presence is deeply rooted and woven into the fabric and lives of the Caribbean people, yet a complete and absolute recognition of Indianness in the region remains contested. However emotionally charged and complex the relationship, the regional movement of Indo Guyanese show how Indo creole identity continues to be (re)negotiated, (re)shaped and transformed.  Most Guyanese participants in this research, while identifying as ‘Indo’, openly noted their mixed heritage. The remainder of participants immediately and directly dismissed the plausibility of ethnic mixture in their heritage, upholding the narrative of Indo Guyanese purity. This recognition of mixture in itself, however, poses a space for discussion regarding the multifaceted Indo Caribbean identity. Attitudes regarding mixture and acceptance are becoming more acknowledged in the Indo Guyanese mind-set, which is a positive step towards sparking robust conversation and initiating critical thought into the 158      ever-evolving nature of Indo Caribbean ethnic/ cultural identities, laying the foundations for future discussion and analysis.   The narratives showed that participant’s exclusion and unbelonging manifests in perceived over-policing compared to their Afro Guyanese counterparts. This is supported by the testimonies of contributors in Annalee Davis’s activism work (2015). Afro Guyanese participants have described how they are able to ‘hide in plain sight’ and mask their Guyanese nationality by not speaking in public. For Indo Guyanese, however, speaking in public is the least of their concern. Indo Guyanese must attempt to hide their Indianness. Indo Guyanese participants describe ways of hiding their physical bodies in their attempts to evade policing, like Darmendra and Sandy. Indo Guyanese men shave their facial hear and wear caps to conceal their hair, while women tie-back and wrap their hair in head wraps, with both wearing sunglasses in attempts to cover their face. But beyond their bodies, they have to mask their religious traditions and customs. In the following chapter, participant Joyce describes how she no longer wears sindoor, a visual sign of being a married Hindu woman, in order to exist in Barbados with less impediment. Other Hindu participants explain how they too, do not outwardly show signs of their religious difference to avoid apprehension from the Bajan public. And yet, even in spaces where devotees have a shared religious belief, divides based on nationality exist, and become spaces of exclusion, supporting the claim that when amongst Indo Bajans, Indo Guyanese continue to be othered.   159      CHAPTER 7 RELIGIOUS PRACTICE  This chapter addresses the research question: in what ways does religion contribute to, or hinder, the emotional well-being of migrants? The chapter explores how places of religious worship become spaces of migrant (un)belonging, how the racialization of religion furthers difference between Indo Guyanese migrants and the Bajan community, the way religious practice is informed by a sense of familial responsibility, and how religious practice is impacted by bereavement.  ‘For people that inhabit a religious tradition, every aspect of life may be connected to something beyond the measurable world, something that can be called ‘the sacred’. In effect, it is ‘the sacred’ that motivates many people to act, feel, and think in certain ways that are not always comprehensible to those on the outside.’  Saunders, Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, and Snyder (2016:2-3)  Defining terms in this field is not straightforward. Though religion, faith, and spirituality have different specific meanings, they are encompassing and interrelated terms which are used to capture a linked set of beliefs, practices, and rituals (Frederiks, 2016; Saunders et al., 2016). For most participants, distinctions between practicing and non-practicing or ‘strict’ and ‘loose’ have limited value when discussing religion. What they uniformly express however, is a connection to their beliefs, which can guide their dedication to religious practice in varying degrees. This connection motivates migrant behaviour while also providing comfort and solace (Straut Eppsteiner and Hagan, 2016:52). As Frederiks asserts, ‘When migrants grapple with the bewildering experiences of loss, separation and disorientation, faith provides them with a vocabulary to express these experiences and construe meaning’ (2016:14).   Religious belief and religious practice are intensely emotional endeavors which influence belonging. Discussions with participants revealed ‘the full range of ways in which immigration and religion intersect, including the ways in which the sacred, ritual, belief, identity, and community shape and are shaped by immigration’ (Saunders et al., 2016:13). Like the work of Ryan and Vacchelli, I found that in this research, religion ‘plays a central role in providing a sense of meaning and belonging for migrants and represents a source of identification’, giving participants a sense of purpose throughout their migratory experience (2013:1). I contend that religion needs to ‘be integrated with analyses of the 160      migrant trajectories and experience, not seen as epiphenomenal to them’ (Ager and Ager 2016:303, Joshi, 2016:124; Saunders, 2016:6).   This chapter shows how emotions relate to the religious practice of migrants. It analyses how a migrant’s relationship with religion can influence their social relationships, and vice versa. Religions are conceptualised as a confluence of the intrapersonal and the interpersonal and understood as always hybrid socio-spiritual interactions. Participant narratives show the bidirectional ways Indo Guyanese migrants in Barbados negotiate their relationship with religion and religious practice on the island. These stories demonstrate that although individual migrant behaviour incorporates (and in some cases is bound by) observation of religious ‘duty’, the migrant experience of religion is profoundly social. It is responsive to, and crafted by, interactions with other migrants and with the host population (Saunders et al., 2016). These narratives illustrate how religious tradition and religious practice shape migrant lives (irrespective of personal devotion and dedication to the religion itself), and likewise, how religious practices are shaped by migrant behavior. The analysis in this chapter attends to the array of emotions migrants describe when talking about their religion: from peace, contentment and hope to guilt, remorse, and regret.  It is estimated that ~80-85% of total indentured population was Hindu, with 5-10% being Muslim (Younger, 2010:76; Chickrie and Khanam, 2017). Throughout the generations many Indians converted to Christianity as a result of ‘the Christian missionary project’ under colonial expansion (Bramadat, 2011:315), and as a strategic move to increase social mobility prospects afforded to Christianised members of society. By converting to Christianity and adopting Anglo names, they gained access to educational and civil positions to which they were otherwise banned (Kanhai, 2011). Nonetheless, Hinduism remains the primary religious following of Indo Guyanese, for the time being. Contemporary trends of traditionally Hindu regions of Guyana report a decrease in Hinduism and an increase in Christianity, particularly Pentecostalism (Bureau of Statistics: Guyana, 2016). Participant testimonies emphasise that a repeating element in the experiences of Indo Guyanese othering revolves around them being racialized as Hindu by Afro Bajans, regardless of their religious beliefs.   The first section of the chapter adds to the discourse on ethnicity and creolization, regarding conversations of ‘authentic Indians’ as put forth by Degia and explored in the 161      last chapter with Aisha’s narrative (2018). Participant Kareem discusses his decision to self-exclude from the masjid, a religious public space (an area which otherwise, would prove to be a space of community and solidarity), because he feels he does not belong. This sense of unbelonging is driven by the judgement of Indo Bajans who other Indo Guyanese migrants and label them as ‘inauthentic Indians’. The chapter continues with how Indo Guyanese are associated with Hinduism in Barbados. This is used to emphasise their unfamiliarity and lack of belonging by the Afro Bajan host population and used to distinguish them from Afro Guyanese migrants. A main point in this chapter is that the racialization of religion is a key mechanism by which Indo Guyanese are excluded from belonging in Barbados. The narrative of Joyce examines the varying ways religion is racialized (expanding on the work of Joshi, 2016:141). Based on her experience in Barbados, she chooses to remove a visible sign of her Hindu religion from her body to minimise her difference. Minimising the visibility of their religious difference is how participants reduce scrutiny from what they perceive as an unwelcoming Bajan public, as will be explored in Sunita’s narrative.   The following section of the chapter explores Buddy’s use of a Reader (a Hindu astrologer) to aid in his travel to Guyana, and hassle-free entry into to Barbados. Buddy’s narrative is analysed as the adoption of a religious practice tied to his migration (expanding on the work of Straut Eppsteiner and Hagan, 2016:52-53; Holm Pedersen & Rytter, 2018). Buddy has adopted this practice for the removal of any bad luck placed on him by those with mal intent towards him. As the narrative will show, he specifically seeks this service because his ability to provide for his mother is reliant on his ability to travel in the region. Buddy’s story illuminates the lengths participants will go to, in order to provide for loved ones. Buddy’s narrative also displays the syncretic nature and continued influence of Obeah in the region (Forde and Paton, 2012; Crosson, 2015; Boaz, 2017). Obeah is a belief-system originating in West Africa, which came to the Caribbean through the transport of slaves. The practice was defined by associations to magic, superstition, and witchcraft; associations used to criminalise the practice under the colonial regime throughout the Anglophone Caribbean (Paton, 2009; Boaz, 2017; Rocklin, 2019). And as Buddy’s narrative will show, across religious groups in the region, Obeah continues to be recognised as a formidable spiritual practice.   162      The final section of the chapter follows Kapoor, as he discusses the loss of his brother, and the subsequent influence of this event on his own religious practice and beliefs. While religion can prove to be a comfort in such times of personal loss, unfulfilled rituals can bring added pressures to migrants, and a subsequent disconnection to religious practice, as happened with Kapoor. This vignette touches on feelings of responsibility and care, which are used to segue into continuing themes in the following chapter related to gender.  During the ethnography, there was no evidence to indicate religious tension within the Indo Guyanese community. However, there were no visible acts or signs of solidarity, either. Events organised by the Guyanese Association in Barbados, Inc. (or, GABI) were the only time I saw an exchange across/between religious communities (the Hindu temple and the Christian church). Yet this was not done as a joint effort by religious groups, but more as a request to attend by GABI board members. As a source of reference for this chapter, the following page shows the population breakdown of religious identification in Barbados and Guyana (Figure 7.1. and Figure 7.2., respectively). In both nations Christianity accounts for the single largest following, at 76% of the population in Barbados and 63% of the Guyanese population (Barbados Population and Housing Census, 2010; Guyana Population and Housing Census, 2012). In Barbados, 21% of the population describe themselves as areligious, or not practicing religion, and less than 3% of the population have a religious following outside of Christianity. In Guyana 34% of the population have a following other than Christianity, with Hinduism representing 25% of the population, Islam at 7%, and the remaining 3% of the population identify as areligious, or not practicing any religion. ‘Other’ religions in both countries include Buddhism, Judaism, and Baha’i. This religious difference across the two countries is important to note, as (un)belonging and inclusion and exclusion for Indo Guyanese migrants is indicated in their (in)ability to express their religion publicly and share festivals and holidays across religious faiths in Barbados, as they do in Guyana.            163      Figure 7.1. Religious Following in Barbados  Source: Adapted from the Barbados Population and Housing Census (2012)     Figure 7.2. Religious Following in Guyana Source: Adapted from the Guyana Population and Housing Census (2012)  Christian:76% (including: Protestant, Anglican, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, Jehovah's Witnesses, Methodist, & Rastafarian followings)Areligious:21%Jewish, Buddhist, Baha'i: ~1.4%Muslim: 0.7%Hindu: 0.5%'Non- Christian':< 3%Religious Identification in BarbadosHindu: 25%Muslim: 7%Areligious: 3%164      REVISITING (UN)BELONGING AND AUTHENTICITY IN CONVERSATION WITH KAREEM Islam first arrived in the Caribbean through the transatlantic transportation of African slaves. Slaves from the Mandinka and Fulani tribes of Senegambia and Sierra Leone were sent to Jamaica, Trinidad, Saint Dominique, and British Guiana, by the French, Dutch, and British colonists (Chickrie and Khanam, 2017:110). Gomez notes that it is ‘no doubt factual’ that Muslims came to the Caribbean out of locations other than the Senegambia & Sierra Leone area (which includes the African Windward Coast), however ‘it is from these two regions, accounting for 10 percent of the African total, that Muslims were most likely to have come’ (2005:50). The systematic stripping of culture, religion, freedom and way of life, coupled with daily struggles of survival and intense indoctrination into Christianity, meant that by the abolition of slavery in 1834, Islam was not a significant faith among the population (Chickrie and Khanam, 2017:111). The second wave of Islam to the Caribbean, came through the concurrent import of indentured labour and free passenger migration from the Indian subcontinent. It is estimated that out of the 239,909 Hindustani laborers that were sent to British Guiana, ~20% percent followed Islam (Chickrie and Khanam, 2017:109). This infusion of Muslims to the population led to what Chickrie and Khanam describe as the ‘rebirth of Islam in Guyana’ (2017:109). In Barbados, Islam arrived through the free passenger Indian migration scheme (Degia, 2018:155). Considering this settled Bajan-Muslim population that arrived on the island in the late 1800s as free passengers, the 2010 Barbados census has reported more Muslims than Hindus on the island (at a rate of 0.7%, or 1,605 people, reporting adherence to Islam, and 0.5% or 1,055 people, reporting adherence to Hinduism).   Unlike Guyana, the free passengers to Barbados (comprised of Sindhi Hindus and Gujarati Muslims) were not exposed to the conditional factors of the indenture system which forced inter-ethnic religious closeness and proximity. The absence of past inter-mixing allowed the distinct traditional practices and behaviours which characterised the ethnoreligious groups to endure throughout the generations. This reflects contemporary associations, as the modern-day Indo Bajan represents these two historical groupings (as covered in ch.2, these are the Sindhi community and the Gujarati community) (Degia, 2018:157). The Sindhi are Hindu, occupy a middle-class standing, and tend to live in the residential suburbs outside of Bridgetown. The Gujarati-Muslims are Hanafi Sunni, and occupy a working-class standing, living in the urban center of Bridgetown (Degia, 2018:158).   165      This section revisits the discourse on ethnicity, creolization, and discussions regarding the ‘authentic Indian’ highlighted in Part II of ch.2 and through Aisha’s narrative in the previous chapter (Degia, 2018:157). Similar to Aisha, participant Kareem discusses being Muslim Indo Guyanese and his experience with members of the Muslim Indo Bajan community,    “They got a masjid close to here, but I don’t really go. I gan during Ramadan, but all ah dem is India-people. [Kapoor and I shake our heads, understanding the implication] Kareem continues, ‘They not really mix with me. I stay for prayers, break-fast, then come home…even for Eid, I stay and talk, I get invite to people house, but It’s like dey invite me fuh give charity, so I nah bother go’. [We all laugh] ‘Das the last I gan [to masjid]. Maybe I mek time a next day [another time], but let me sort meh visa an’ thing, den I worry about dat.’ He switches the topic to something more hopeful, ‘next few weeks I gan back Guyana for meh bruddah wedding.’ He motions to Kapoor, ‘Yuh need me fuh send back?’ Kapoor nods, barely acknowledging with a quiet ‘yeah bai, next time’ response. Kapoor continues more exuberantly ‘sort yuh papers, den you gan back Guyana an marry’, Kareem reminds, ‘but still she must fi get a visa, to bring she back, too!    6 November 2015    In his attempts to practice his faith with the Islamic community on the island, Kareem feels excluded amongst Muslim Indo Bajans. Kareem makes reference to ‘charity’ as one of the five pillars of Islam, which obligates Muslims to offer acts of charity, particularly during Ramadan and Eid. He suggests that invitations from Indo Bajans to their homes for Eid are an act of charity, rather than an act of genuine inclusion. In the same conversation, he notes the difference in celebrating religious holidays in Guyana,   ‘Every Ramadan and Eid, back home, we get people at the house. Mammy feeding the whole neighborhood when they get off of work. All the women coming from morning to help cook and prepare – and half of the people not Muslim.’   Kareem recalls the regularity and normality of instances ‘back home’ in which both Indo and Afro Guyanese, Hindu and Christian alike, joined him and his family for Eid celebrations, weddings, funerals, etc., events he has not experienced crossing religious [Muslim] boundaries in Barbados.   In this exchange, Kareem offers to ‘send back’; an offer to transport cash to Kapoor’s family in Guyana. Because of Kapoor’s status, he does not enter banks, as they are known places for immigration and police officers to round-up undocumented, with bank tellers requesting valid work permits/visas/passports, before completing a transfer. As childhood friends from the same village in Guyana, who have reconnected almost 20 years later 166      through their respective migrations to Barbados, Kareem suggests an invaluable service. Kapoor often relies on remitting by entrusting money with a fellow migrant returning to Guyana, a practice that often results in diminished funds to his family (commonly ‘lost’ or confiscated by Barbados immigration officers, before leaving the country – both claims Kapoor does not believe). The two joke that Kareem will be prosperous enough in Barbados to marry a Guyanese girl in Guyana but will then have to sort-out her immigration status before she is able to move to Barbados. A reoccurring topic of many male migrants in their mid-20s-late 30s is being ‘successful’ enough to find a wife. The desire to marry ‘settle-down’ and create a family, for male migrants, was viewed as directly tied to their economic success as migrants – how this would translate back home (i.e., the ability to build a house/buy a car for income, etc.) or the ability to secure a work visa.     Despite ending on a jovial note with Kapoor, Kareem speaks of the real feelings of undesirability and undeservingness he experiences. Kareem feels excluded in masjid gatherings, as he feels he can not relate to the other members – he does not speak Hindi or Guajarati, nor is he familiar enough with the island to engage in social activities. Ultimately, he feels uneasy in masjid, and prefers to observe his faith at home (which he shares with an Indo Guyanese Hindu roommate). For the duration of the fieldwork Kareem remained content to practice Islam at an individual level outside of attending masjid and religious events: observing salat (5 daily prayers) privately, maintaining a halal diet, and continued abstinence from haram, or forbidden, practices like consuming drugs, alcohol, tobacco. His decision of personal and private religious practice was bolstered by his view of impermanence on the island, stating his intent, ‘I nah stay long, jus’ a few years’, an intention which aligned with most young (early 20s to early 30s), unmarried male participants, including Kapoor. Kareem is the only transnational migrant in his immediate, close-knit family. He views his stay in Barbados as a temporary, but necessary, step to guarantee future stability and improved livelihoods for him and his family, in order to ensure that his return to Guyana will be permanent.     Kareem’s decision to self-exclude from the masjid, a religious public space (an area which otherwise, would prove to be a space of community and solidarity), was prompted by his feelings of unbelonging. Frederiks argues, ‘when cultural retention and reproduction become core-activities, migrants’ churches may lapse into religious nostalgia, risk ethnic or cultural captivity or may cultivate an “other-exclusive” identity, that disallows those who 167      are different’ (2016:16; Belousek, 2012:590). Kareem views the masjid as a space unofficially reserved for Muslim Bajans of Gujarati descent. The masjid acts as a safe space for Muslim Bajans of Gujarati heritage. They are able to reaffirm their historic and traditional ties to the homeland, ‘pray in their native languages, and practice familiar cultural rituals’ (Straut Eppsteiner and Hagan, 2016:59). Albeit at the cost of excluding other Muslim migrants, like Kareem.  As explored in Part II of ch.2, Indo Guyanese are perceived as culturally closer to Indo Bajans, in the minds of Afro Bajans, yet perceived as creolized and hence similar to the Afro Caribbean population, in the minds of Indo Bajans (Degia, 2018:156-158). This comparative perception allows Indo Bajans to perceive their ‘authenticity’ as a measure to other Indo Guyanese migrants as ‘inauthentic’ Indians. These attitudes have socioeconomic undertones, deep-rooted in the conditions in which indentured and free passengers arrived in the region. Free Indians, untethered to contract-labour, were financially capable of purchasing their passage, and became merchants and business owners in Barbados. They were usually more educated than their indentured peers and benefitted from greater socioeconomic mobility. As these groups operated outside the structure of the plantation society, they were able to continue aspects of learned traditions, which maintained a sense of closeness to their homeland, such as retention of language, which was not possible for indentured community (Degia, 2018). Additionally, their ability to climb the socioeconomic ladder as independent traders and entrepreneurs meant they were separate and privileged from the lower-class, and less mobile indentured population (Degia, 2018).  Kareem felt less welcomed in the masjid and was less likely to attend. This contrasted to the majority Indo Guyanese presence at the Hindu mandir frequented during the ethnography, which has the Sindhi Bajan/Indian presence as a minority group. While in many cases, Indo Guyanese find solidarity, familiarity, and a sense of community and belonging through the Hindu temple and their shared Hindu religion, Kareem finds the masjid to a be more isolating space rather than connecting experience, due to the smaller amounts of practicing Indo Guyanese Muslims on the island.      168      VISIBILITY AND EMBODYING A FOREIGN RELIGION   IN CONVERSATION WITH JOYCE This section fits into the call of K.Y. Joshi (2016:141) to examine the varying ways religion is racialized, beyond Joshi’s own analysis of the Indian subcontinental Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim migrant experience in the United States. Using the narrative of Joyce, this section illustrates how racialization of religion in Barbados ultimately emphasises religious and ethnic difference between Indo Guyanese migrants and the Bajan community. Racialization of religion is used in Barbados to distinguish and emphasise faith-based ideas of (un)familiarity and (un)belonging between the host and migrant populations, while reducing a religiously diverse migrant community to a monolith.  ‘I remember meh at one house, cleaning, and the mistress ask if I buss meh head and [she] start laugh’. Joyce continues, ‘Meh ain’ know why, but meh get so embarrass – me-self laugh with she! [I got so embarrassed – I laughed with her] …back home, meh wear sindoor every day. But after dah, nah, not here. Like she know, yuh know? But she wan mek joke…I don’t like people stare an’ ting…I ain’t want no problem, so I stop.’ 22 October 2015  Joyce is in her mid-30s and has been in Barbados intermittently over the last six years. She has worked a range of jobs since her first arrival to Barbados: as a domestic cleaner, a cook/cleaner in roti shops and eateries, and in the agricultural sector. For the last two years, she has owned and operated her own fashion accessories store. Her husband, a Guyanese national, was deported in 2014 for overstaying on an expired work visa. She lives with her brother in-law and his wife (both Guyanese), and their two Barbados-born children. Joyce married her Guyanese husband, Roy, in November 2008. The couple met in 2004 in Grand Cayman, where they were both working temporarily. It was her husband’s idea to relocate to Barbados, as he previously worked and lived on the island with his brother. When the couple decided on the move, Roy entered Barbados first, in early 2009, and Joyce joined him in 2010, after he became more established and settled. Two months after Joyce’s move to the island, her husband was picked-up, arrested, detained by the police during a raid on their home, and deported to Guyana. At the time, her husband was working without visa sponsorship, which violates terms of the CSME free movement policy. Joyce was allowed to stay in Barbados, as she was within the 6-month free entry period.   Sindoor is the red powder traditionally worn by married Hindu women in the centre of their foreheads and along their middle-part of hair. Joyce wore sindoor from the day she 169      was married, a practice her mother and grandmother observed. According to Joyce, wearing sindoor will ensure the long-life of her husband. Joyce learned these details from her mother and grandmother who paid respect to their husbands in the same way, until widowhood (sindoor is reserved for married women, hence unmarried and widowed women are ‘prohibited’ from wearing it). Joyce continued to wear sindoor after her husband’s deportation in 2010, as she felt it connected her to him, despite their physical distance. To Joyce, wearing sindoor signifies more than her marriage to her husband, it is a reminder of her dedication to him and to the endurance of the relationship.       One of the earliest jobs Joyce gained in Barbados was as a domestic cleaner, through connections of an existing migrant network. She believes the mistress, or lady of the house (an Afro Bajan), was knowledgeable of the significance of sindoor (at the very least, recognising that married Hindu women wear the powder), yet was feigning ignorance in order to mock her. By making the comparison of sindoor to that of blood from a wound, Joyce feels the mistress was demeaning and disrespecting the meaning of her traditions. For Joyce, this was particularly hurtful, because at that point of their two-year union, she and Roy spent only five months living together as a married couple; three months in Guyana from November 2008- February 2009, and two months in Barbados from August-October 2010. By adorning sindoor, she affirms her commitment to her marriage and means she is willing to endure physical separation and the continuing economic and immigration hardship, in order to ensure a prosperous and fruitful married life in the future. However, as indicated, her mistress was able to trivialise this meaning. The mistress’s comment added ridicule to the cruel irony that Joyce waited to join Roy for over a year, only to have him deported back to the place she was waiting for him, two months after their reunion. Roy subsequently returned to Barbados in 2011 but was later deported in 2014 (his third deportation).  Joyce recalls her nervous reply as a result of trying to placate and prevent ‘mekin’ bad’ with the mistress, who ultimately has the ability to terminate her employment. She suggested that openly expressing her discomfort with the statement may have been interpreted by the mistress as a sign of insubordination. Furthermore, she feared this could prevent her from future employment, citing that a ‘hot mouth’ could gain her a reputation of being disrespectful, combative, and difficult to work with within the small migrant network and their Bajan contacts. Fearing the consequences of a non-agreeable response, she decided to laugh along with the mistress in the moment and deride herself over her use of sindoor.  170      Joyce claims she became more self-aware of her difference and how the Bajan public perceive her, after the incident with her employer. Sindoor (a norm in Guyana for married Hindu women) would not elicit comments by the public, regardless of differing non-Indo or Hindu backgrounds, supporting Younger’s assertion that ‘within Guyana the sense of a shared religious world is strong, and Hindus, Muslims and Christians are all familiar with one another’s rituals’ (2010:94). In Barbados, however, this ‘shared religious world’ Younger speaks of is not present, and Joyce became uncomfortable and nervous in public, noticing more and more, people ‘staring’ at her and the physical mark of religious difference she places on her head. She became ‘nervous’ because anti-Guyanese sentiment began to spread a year before with the 2009 election of David Thompson, and the narrative that Guyanese were ‘illegals’ and ‘criminals’ was increasingly permeating throughout Bajan society. The sindoor added to unwanted attention, and worked to compound her difference, along with her ethnicity and nationality. As referenced earlier in the chapter, over 96% of those practicing religion on the island identify as Christian, with only ~2.6% of the religiously active population classified as ‘non-Christian’ (Barbados Population and Housing Census, 2010). To Joyce, removing the sindoor allowed her to be less visible to the Bajan public (like Sandy, who regularly covers her hair in public). Combined with her ethnicity, and nationality, the sindoor, an outward display of her religion, is yet another indicator, a visible confirmation, that she is separate, a foreigner, who follows a foreign religion. While Joyce may no longer wear sindoor in Barbados, she observes various fasts in honour of her husband.     For Hindu Indo Guyanese participants, minimising outward displays of their religious difference is yet another way of reducing their visibility in order to exist in Barbados with as little attention focused on them as possible. Participant Sunita describes how she intentionally practices certain worship before dawn in order to avoid what she considers a scrutinizing Bajan public:   Sunita: When I does do Durga Pooja, I go do aarti early, early, before the sunrise. Dem Bajans always watching me. All dey does do is watch, and talk, yuh know? All kinda thing I hear dem say. So I does go early, so I don’t have to deal with them – I can say my prayers an’ done.  TR: Well, what do they say? Sunita: Like, ‘watch, she polluting the water, she throwing trash’…like, they don’t even see its natural things, from the earth…why would I offer trash to God? Who pray with trash?  171      Sunita is the owner of a dessert shop. Her day typically begins anywhere between 4-5am, depending on when deliveries are dropped off. Despite her early start, Sunita arranges to do her aarti (prayers as part of a pooja) before she goes to the shop, specifically to avoid Bajans. Certain poojas call for the release of offerings into a body of water. Sunita specifically looks for beaches that are ‘not easy to get to, so nobody gone be there’ on the West side of the island to release her offerings into the Caribbean Sea. Her offerings usually consist of small amounts of coconut, ghee (a form of butter), milk, flowers and grains of rice set on top of a banana leaf that is released into the water. She notes how uncomfortable she is when she performs her aarti in public, and the disheartening feeling as bystanders would associate her religious work with trash. She expands on how this impacts her ability to perform her prayers:   ‘To do aarti properly, you must go into the water, not just stand-up by the beach. The offerings get taken out [to sea], not wash-up on shore. But Bajan can’t let you be. I get people standup behind me [on the beach] and tell me to tek meh things, that people don’t want to be in the water with dem things. But how can it to do them anything? It’s just to be mean, I feel... But then it mess me up…your heart and mind supposed to be pure when you pray, and I get so agitate, I can’t concentrate… Sometimes I feel like turn around and scream at them.’   5 November 2015  Sunita admits that during these instances with Bajans, she is unable to devote her attention to her prayers. A distracted heart and mind, according to Sunita, defeats the purpose of her pooja, frustrating her even more. It is precisely because of these experiences, that she chooses to make her Hindu religion less visible to the wider Bajan public and does her offerings before dawn.    Participants have noted that outward displays of religious difference have been used to identify the Indo Guyanese community for increased policing and immigration probing. Mounting a bamboo pole and a colourful triangular cotton cloth, outside of one’s home or temple after a pooja, known as a jhandi flag, is commonly practiced in Guyana and by the diaspora Guyanese Hindu community (Rampersad, 2014). However, respondents state that Guyanese Hindus are hesitant to ‘raise jhandi flag’ in front of their homes in Barbados since those dwellings are often first, and repeatedly, raided by police officers searching for undocumented migrants. Participant, Trevor, notes that he does not want to make his Bajan neighbours ‘feel some kind of way’ with a ‘all kind of Hindu thing.’ Religion has become intertwined with not only ethnicity, but also nationality, blurring the lines of belonging and exclusion. For Joyce, the experience with her previous employer has made 172      a lasting impression, as she has not worn sindoor in public since 2010, and for those who no longer ‘raise jhandi flag’, their experience has worked toward a visual minimalization of religious variation in Barbados.   Affixing ethnic markers to religion means that all members of a particular migrant group become visual representations associated with difference and ethnoreligious change of their social fabric (Joshi, 2016:123-124). Bajan respondents speak of Hinduism as a ‘foreign religion’. According to Christian participants, it is characterised by idol worship, worship of multiple gods, animal worship, and knowledge and use of ‘they language’ (Sanskrit is used for the religious song bhajans and kirtan). Bajan participants view these defining features in direct conflict with the popular and widely practiced Christianity on the island. Service is conducted in English, and through adherence to the Ten Commandments, Christianity denounces the worship of idols/animals, and acknowledges a singular almighty God. Bajan respondents claimed to be unfamiliar with Hinduism. Due to this unfamiliarity, Bajan participants made assumptions based on what they had seen or heard, in the media, from second-hand accounts of the temple. Bajan participant, Ronaldo, is in his mid-50s, and a mechanic. He explains why he views Hinduism and Indo Guyanese as undesirable:   ‘They [Guyanese] have their Gods… and you know…it’s different from what we believe here in Barbados. We are mainly Christian. We believe in Christ, the one son of God – yes, we got Anglican, Catholic, all the Evangelical. But we all believe in one God, Christ. The Hindus do this idol worshiping, you know? Idol worship is strictly forbidden by the Commandments…They worship monkey, and cow, and elephant…even fire.’  6 August 2016  The less-known, foreign religion is viewed as separate from the social fabric of society, which has led to the othering of Hinduism in Barbados. This is despite its 180-year presence in the Commonwealth Caribbean, and on the island of Barbados itself through the free passenger Indian Sindhi community. Hinduism in Barbados is widely viewed as an exclusively Indo Guyanese religion, associating the religion’s presence on the island as a direct import of Indo Guyanese migration, despite the presence of Hindu Trinidadians, Surinamese, and Indians (from the subcontinent), and of course, the established Bajan Sindhi community. This perception has effectively reduced all Indo Guyanese as Hindu, ignoring the religious difference within the Indo Guyanese population. This has reinforced social divides between migrants and non-migrants as contrasts in religious practices are interpreted as markers of difference. This ethnicization of religion (see Prindiville and 173      Hjelm, 2018) has permeated discourse among Bajan society, as references to Hinduism and Indians are particularly made in orientation to Guyanese migrants. This can be seen in the articles posted by Barbados Underground, Hindus in Barbados Show Insensitivity (posted 9 March 2010) and Can Indians and blacks coexist in Barbados? (posted 20 January 2008).  As Saunders et al. highlight, receiving sites where migrants tend ‘to be cultural, religious, and ethnic minorities…makes for vulnerability in interreligious and political conversation’ (2016:6). In our conversations of this intersecting space, Pandit Thakoor discusses approaching the Barbados Ministry of Culture Sports and Youth, several times over the years with the objective to organise a Diwali and Phagwah parade. Beyond religious celebrations, his intent with the parades is to acquaint the wider Bajan public with Hindu festivals and celebrations observed by the Hindu population. Pandit Thakoor describes his proposal as repeatedly met with a flurry of resistance. This is affirmed by the publication Hindus want to Spread the Word13 in the Barbados newspaper, The Nation (posted 9 March 2010). The article claims the Hindu Temple, via Pandit Thakoor, seeks to proselytize and convert Bajan Christians to Hinduism. By ignoring attempts and remaining silent on bringing major Hindu festivals and spreading religious knowledge to the wider population, the Bajan government is complicit in promoting, affirming and emphasizing racialized religious difference between the dominant Christian Afro Bajan community and the minority non-Christian Indo Guyanese community. This re-affirms public sentiment that Barbados is a Christian Afro state.    THE VISIBILITY OF PHAGWAH Despite the barriers put in place by Bajan leadership to not recognise the Hindu minority’s religious festivals, the celebration of Phagwah has gained popularity across the island. Also known as Holi, or the festival of colours, this holiday signifies the triumph of good over evil and coincides with the start of Spring. A tradition that marks the holiday is wearing white clothing and throwing an array of coloured powders on loved ones and friends. Pandit Thakoor notes this is the most popular time for the temple, as it is visited by Hindu and non-Hindu alike, Guyanese, Bajans, tourists, etc., where ‘everybody welcome.’ The weekend of the festival is marked by a celebration programme at the temple, which includes a selection of Hindu prayers, chowtal, bhajans (Hindu devotional song), Indian  13 archived in https://www.pressreader.com/barbados/daily-nation-barbados/20100309/281492157484314.  174      religious-based classical dancing, folk and Bollywood song and dance. While my fieldwork did not coincide with the time of the holiday, various participants spoke of the popularity and the festivities celebrated by all on the island. Guyanese participant Lloyd, who is of Afro Portuguese descent and associates as Adventist tells me, ‘It’s a shame yuh miss it. I go every year. They get tassa music, nice food… everyone…full ah Bajan… happy and playin’ Holi’ (2 March 2016). Lloyd, who is neither of Indo heritage nor Hindu, has been twice to the mandir to celebrate Phagwah. While understanding its base in the Hindu religion, Lloyd views Phagwah as a community holiday that he has been enjoying since a boy in Guyana. In Barbados, he views it a continuation of that ‘festive vibe’, particularly at the mandir. He notes the music of traditional Indian drumming, the Indian dishes and the atmosphere of everyone present, including Afro Bajans, participating in throwing coloured abeer (powder) on one another. Importantly, in these instances, Lloyd notes there is ‘only acceptance and love for each other…with abeer we all the same...no Black, no Indian, no Pudegee (Portuguese), no Bajan, no Guyanese’. Lloyd believes that when covered in colorful Phagwah powder, there is no discernible difference between ethnic groups or distinct nationalities; everyone is in effect, ‘the same’. Everyone has the opportunity to enjoy the holiday equally, and in Lloyd’s account, everyone does. For Lloyd, Phagwah celebrations in Barbados is a time of acceptance, inclusion and belonging where an Afro Portuguese Christian Guyanese can openly celebrate a Hindu holiday with others from varying backgrounds.    Afro Bajan participant, Keith, supports Llyod’s claim. Keith is in his late 30s and is a truck driver for a Guyanese owned construction company. During our conversation marking Grand Kadooment in the Bajan Crop Over festival and speaking of heightened Guyanese visibility during these times of celebrations (as people openly wear the Guyana flag, for example), Keith notes, ‘Every year Phagwah getting bigger, and more people getting involved…You see how busy dem temple stay, and the Guyanese owned rum shop...Bajan like getting involved…not just Guyanese…I excited when it come (2 August 2015).’ These times of cross-cultural participation are apparent in spaces like Flash Zone, where people of all backgrounds take part in celebration, as shown on the following page, in Picture 7.2.       175      Picture 7.2. Bajan and Guyanese participating in Phagwah celebrations at Flash Zone   Source: Photo taken from ‘Flash Zone Bar’ public Facebook page; verbal consent given by Vishal to use photo in this thesis.  Posted on Facebook: 21 March 2020    In his account, Keith anticipates the festivities of Phagwah. He emphasizes that it is not just a time for Hindu Guyanese to celebrate, citing that the celebration is gaining more attention and celebrants with the Bajan community on the island. On experiencing a traditional Hindu celebration with the Guyanese community, Keith asserts,   ‘I think Bajan get to see a different way… it’s good to learn and see how Guyanese stay…it’s not the same as we, but we all live together, so why not? We all children from the same God, no matter if yuh call he Jehovah or Hanuman.’  Keith reflects on the importance of the visibility and popularity of the Phagwah parade in fostering understanding between the two groups. For Keith, experiencing Phagwah allows Afro Bajans to recognise that religious difference of Hindu Guyanese is not undesirable (as would be touted by the DLP and media outlets like BU, and believed by Bajan participants like Ronaldo), just a ‘next way’, or another way, to live your life and observe religion. Despite these religious differences, Keith is able to find commonality with Guyanese Hindus, which he believes is necessary to live harmoniously on the island.   176      Although there are barriers put in place by Bajan leadership to minimise the visibility of religious difference on the island (i.e., refusing recognition of the Hindu minority’s religious festivals), the celebration of Phagwah has gained popularity across the island. Despite these religious differences, some Bajans, like Keith, are able to find commonality with Guyanese Hindus. Nonetheless, Keith’s attitudes sit in parallel to the views of other Bajans, like Ronaldo.   Lloyd’s account emphasizes the importance of feeling a sense of community through a religious festival. In an attempt to foster integration, and belonging (most often tied to convenience), many participants display flexibility and openness in religious practice. For example, I met participant Rafia, at the mandir. Although she was raised in a Muslim household in Guyana, Rafia’s extended family members with whom she lives in Barbados, are Hindu. While in Barbados, she regularly attended satsang with her aunt and young cousins. While this act hardly counts as adopting Hinduism, she is free to occupy this space without being expected to make a religious commitment to the pandit. There is a sense of familiarity in the temple from being raised with Hindu family members, which allows her to be respectful in this space, and mindful of her presence, without committing to worship, herself.    OPEN-BOOK/READINGS AND OBEAH IN CONVERSATION WITH BUDDY As mentioned at the start of the chapter, Obeah is a belief-system originating in West Africa, that came to the Caribbean through the transport of slaves, defined by associations to magic, superstition, and witchcraft (Paton, 2009; Boaz, 2017; Rocklin, 2019). Current religious practice in the Caribbean is the product of religious syncretism and transformative adaptation as a result of dynamic migrations (Forde and Paton, 2012; Boaz, 2017:424; Rocklin, 2019). The distinction between what was ordained a religion, as opposed to what was relegated as a belief or practice, was defined by ‘colonial law-making and law-enforcing practices’ (Paton, 2009:1; Forde and Paton, 2012). Colonial constructs of defining religion as ‘theist’ was used as a means to discount belief systems of slaves and indigenous peoples as primitive (Boaz, 2017:424). The structuring of religion allowed for ‘the colonial production of the crime of Obeah’ (Paton, 2009:3; Forde and Paton, 2012). This criminalisation went in tandem with the proliferation of Obeah as a harmful practice, by the planter society (Murrell, 2010; Rocklin, 2015).   177      In the Caribbean, Obeah thrived in part due to its criminalisation (Murrell, 2010). Amerindians established a connection to their own indigenous practices, which lasted through the centuries of slavery. This combined with the ability of Obeah to blend with existing elements of the religions in the region, meant that although driven underground, it was practiced by followers of many faiths (Ivor Case, 2001; Murrell, 2010). This syncretic evolution exists alongside aspects of ‘mainstream’ beliefs in Guyana, which recognise the influence of the supernatural, for instance, Kali-Ma puja14 in Hinduism (Vertovec, 1992; 2000; Ivor Case, 2001; Rocklin, 2015), Spiritual Baptism and Pentecostalism in Christianity (Forde and Paton, 2012), jinn/Sufism in Islam (Murrell, 2010), and shamanism in Amerindian practices (Ivor Case, 2001). As Brent Crosson asserts, the notion of Obeah as a practice to impart harm, spread throughout the Caribbean, as a direct result of ‘colonial false consciousness’ (2015:152). This was heavily based on fear by plantation owners of slave uprisings and revolts and instances of planter and overseer poisonings. The practice of Obeah gave slaves the belief they were protected from harm and were immune to bullet fire, which gave them impetus to revolt and spark slave uprisings across the British-Caribbean colonies (Murrell, 2010).  The notion of Obeah as a protective, but more so a harming practice, justifies its continued marginalisation by wider society (Paton, 2009; Murrell, 2010; Boaz, 2017). This has led to its contemporary ‘tabooed and discreditable’ image across the Anglophone Caribbean (De Kruijf, 2006:334; Boaz, 2017). However, this has not hampered an emphatic emotional belief in Obeah as vehicle of spiritual force and power in the region (Crosson, 2015; Boaz, 2017). In his research on Guyanese participation in Obeah, Frederick Ivor Case notes historically Obeah attracted both Afro and Indo communities, two separate and ‘different ethnic groups united in their poverty and political impotence’ (2001:41). He argues that ‘Obeah in Guyana remains the spiritual resource of the disposed seeking inner and physical healing as well as the experience of nearness to God’ (2001:41). The physical and emotional displacement of both the Afro and Indo population from their homelands, resulted in a spiritual displacement, which over generations in Guyana ‘forged a new imaginative process based on changed circumstances of place and time’, ultimately ‘recreating the sacred’ (2001:41). Through this process, and the recreation and convergence of practices  14 Or Shakti puja, which involves ritual of animal sacrifice and spiritual manifestation, and is therefore distanced by the widespread and more ‘traditional’/’orthodox’ practices of Sanatan Dharma, practiced in the Caribbean (Forde and Paton, 2012:8; Taylor and Ivor Case, 2014:316,321-322). 178      (i.e., purification rituals, animal sacrifice, and spirit manifestations) Obeah was cemented between African, Hindu and Aboriginal spirituality (Ivor Case, 2001:51).  Buddy has been residing in Barbados since 1991, through a combination of work permits, and visa-entry passes. Due to his circumstance, he often travels to back to Guyana, where his elderly mother and two adult daughters live. He has no family in Barbados. He prefers to not apply for Barbados residency, as he believes it will affect his ability to stay in Guyana for prolonged periods. His limited literacy has made him weary of judicial process, and he prefers to deal with authorities and bureaucracy only when necessary. Buddy relies on Hindu-related spiritual practices to resolve legal and personal issues, despite being a non-practicing Hindu.   My eye is drawn to the black yarn with a small spherical charm tied around Buddy’s neck. For someone I’ve observed wearing only a single ‘Guyana-gold’ bangle15 and a Casio digital watch, the additional accessory is noticeable. When I ask him about the necklace, he responds, ‘mind yuh-self, nah’, as to imply the question is too invasive and personal, suggesting I mind my own business. Taking his response as indication not to pry further, I turn my attention to the various documents he has laid out on the small couch in the living room for me to ‘tek a look at’. He explained over the phone he ‘nah get glasses’ and asked me to bring a pen. Among the documents are: his current passport, attached (glued?) to an expired passport, his Guyana identification card, various expired Barbados work visas, a notarised letter of employment by his current employer, and a Guyana police Certificate of Character. These are the documents he is required to travel with, to be presented to the immigration officers upon his return to Barbados. I sit on the living room couch, filling-in the blank Barbados immigration exit paperwork, and using the information from his personal papers, to fill in as much as I can, of the Barbados entry-form (for his return in a few months). He sits on the floor across from me, wrestling-open his large and aged suitcase. Buddy decides to revisit my earlier question.  ‘I gan pandit fuh open-book’. Referencing his woven necklace, Buddy continues, ‘he tell meh must wear dis fuh safe travel an’ thing’. I ask him which pandit and the location of the temple. Hesitantly, Buddy clarifies, ‘Nah, nah. He nah get temple. He does reading from he house. When meh travel, I gan by he, and me ain’t get no problem.’  30 September 2015  15 Although colloquially referred to as ‘bangle’, historically these manillas have deep roots embedded in the West African slave trade. Originally made of copper/brass and later of other metals, these were not only used as a form of adornment, but also as currency up until the twentieth century. Ironically, these bangles (which are commonly worn today by both male and female West Indians) became the preferred currency of exchange between Europeans and African traders, from the Slave Coast down to the Gold Coast of Africa, as the slave trade consisted of a barter system and the use of ‘specialist currencies’ (Paul, 2014:140).  With its horse-shoe shape with open flared/balled ends, this style has remained a distinctive feature of current designs, fashioned mainly from gold or silver.   179      Despite being a non-practicing Hindu, for over fifteen years, Buddy has visited a Reader every instance before international travel, more specifically, whenever returning to Guyana. To be clear, ‘Reader’ is my term, not his. I do this to distinguish between a Hindu philosophical teacher/scholar (pandit) and someone who (in this case) specializes in removal of black magic. Buddy referred to him as ‘astrologer’, pandit, ‘priest’, and ‘India-man/India-coolie’. ‘Open-book’, as referenced by Buddy, consists of the Reader’s ability to discern the Panchaanga (Patras, the Vedic astrological calendar) and deliver horoscope readings. Based on the readings (interpretations) of the book, Readers will impart recommendations and guide on various personal matters (spiritual, social, financial). Readers may be approached to guide on matters of general ‘fortune’. As Buddy describes, his Reader has recommended a cleanse tailored to Buddy’s specific concerns. The cleanse consists of fasting, reciting mantras, jharay (healing ceremonies to remove the evil eye and cure various afflictions), and offerings (in the form of financial donations, flowers and fruit) unsurprisingly, to Lakshmi, the goddess of good fortune (De Kruijf, 2006). Buddy believes this cleanse will remove any evil-willed spirits or spells intended to cause him any major inconvenience or harm during his travels.   Buddy first left Guyana when he was 17 and found work in the heavily jungled interior of Suriname mining for bauxite and gold. He returned to Guyana to marry in his early 20s but continued to leave the country for work in Suriname. While in Paramaribo (Suriname’s capital), he began picking-up work painting hotels. Buddy’s first use of readings and opening-book occurred over twenty-five years ago (it wasn’t until 10 years later that this practice became regularized in his travel). He believes Obeah was placed on him by his Muslim ex-wife, preventing him from ‘mekin’ good in life’, which he views as primarily rooted in financial and medical issues. In the Anglophone Caribbean Obeah as Forde and Paton explain, ‘was and is widely used to refer to dangerous power’ (2012:8). Buddy uses the term Obeah to reference what he believes as any form of ‘black magic’ or ‘witchcraft’, using spells and incantations and what he specifies as ‘blood sacrifice’. ‘Blood sacrifice’ refers to animal sacrifice. For Buddy, who was raised in a vegetarian Hindu household, this is viewed as particularly heretical, as it counters the teachings of the Puranas, that life is sacred, but also cements in his mind how potent and powerful the Obeah placed on him is. Buddy believes his wife paid an ‘Obeah man/woman’ to ‘wuk [work] Obeah’ on him16  16 To ‘wuk Obeah’ on someone, is the belief that the spell/incantation that brings misfortune was placed on the receiving individual by an Obeah practitioner.   180      after their divorce. According to Buddy, this prevented him from finding stable work in Guyana, leading him to ‘all the time hustle’ throughout the Caribbean, where his employment and legal status have remained unstable and inconsistent for almost two decades.   In a separate conversation, Buddy recalls the instance which prompted his use of a Reader for all subsequent travels, ‘Dis was long time back, before the whole CARICOM thing. I get calling-card and call [home] once a week. Dis one time, when I get through, meh Bhabi (Hindi for sister-in-law) the one who tell me Amma (mother in Tamil) fall an’ break she hip. But it’s not my time fuh go back [to Guyana], so I haffi stay in Grand Cayman for a next couple ah months. Then I go through travel agent to get the plane ticket, but the break stay on Easter, so the plane ticket tek all meh wages.’  8 January 2016  Buddy recalls before establishment of the CSME hassle-free travel, he was working in Grand Cayman when he was informed by his sister-in-law that his mother fell and broke her hip. He was not given permitted leave, since the buildings he was tasked with painting at the time were incomplete. Months later when he was able to leave, most of his wages were spent on the plane ticket back to Guyana as it coincided with the Easter holiday. This entire episode he believes was due Obeah, asserting, ‘Yes, it Obeah. Yes! You can’t tell me how it happen so...Meh get one friend tell me go this pandit fuh jharay [cleanse], and he tell me I get strong Obeah pun me.’ After this incident, a friend encouraged Buddy to seek advice from a Reader, who cleansed him and confirmed that strong Obeah was put on Buddy. Buddy believes this is the continued Obeah from his ex-wife and maintains that there is no other explanation for these events, what he calls ‘misfortune after misfortune’.   Since the past event involved his mother, Buddy believes her safety and health will always be at stake because of the Obeah placed on him. Like other participants who have migrated in order to provide for vulnerable loved ones (as in the case of Steven, who will be discussed in the following chapter), Buddy’s time in Barbados is preoccupied with thoughts of concern and worry for his mother. Buddy’s mother is in her late 70s, she lives alone in a remote village in the Berbice region of Guyana. Buddy is her only living son and remains her sole financial provider. Buddy’s ability to provide for his elderly mother is dependent on his ability to move easily in region. His income goes directly to supporting his mother’s healthcare and upkeep. In her older age she suffers from diabetes, arthritis, cataracts, and high blood pressure. Because her village in Berbice is relatively isolated, and because Buddy 181      does not reside in Guyana, he must ensure he has enough savings to allow another family member from a neighboring village to travel to his mother’s village and transport her to the regional hospital, if necessary. Buddy must also pay for her medications, which cost between $250-350USD a month, a small fortune for Buddy. Nonetheless, he tells me with satisfaction that the house he has refitted for his mother,   ‘Is proppa modern. We get toilet. No latrine. No squat latrine, proppa toilet, fuh sit-down and it flush and everything go in the sewer…we get refrigerator, nice refrigerator. I get a stand-alone freezer. She able keep food an’ thing for long time. Things nah go stale… she get generator. So even when electricity cut-off, she get. The only one in the whole village who get generator.’    These upgrades are significant improvements to Buddy’s mother’s quality of life. All of these have been afforded through his trade as a painter. According to Ramsaran and Lewis, Buddy’s account is representative of the heights Indo Caribbean men will make to provide for family members, a theme which follows in the following chapter (2018:111). Despite not having a Skills Certificate, Buddy often speaks about the importance of his ability to travel in the region to earn income, ‘Me must haffi [have to] travel. I follow them developer n’ thing, wherever dem go [in the Caribbean]. They get them big hotel and when one finish, they still get the next one. So dey always get work, just depend on where.’ He explains that he follows a team of maintenance men who provide upkeep to the largest resort chains across the Caribbean. When one project is finished, the team moves on to the next location. For example, Buddy worked on a Sandals location in Jamaica for three weeks, immediately followed by a location in St. Lucia for five weeks. If he is unable to travel, he is unable to earn. If he is unable to earn, the consequence for his mother’s health is, without exaggeration, fatal. At age 48, Buddy has been mobile in the region for over 30 years. And precisely because he does not have a Skills Certificate, is older than his work peers (whom he considers ‘more able [bodied]…dem faster, quicker, stronger’ than himself), and has irregular status in Barbados, Buddy continuously fears that he will ‘wake-up one day and find me-self without work.’ Buddy obstinately believes he must take necessary precautions to reduce any chances of misfortune befalling him, due to these factors of uncertainty. Buddy’s dread and fear in the misfortunes Obeah can bring him and his family is precisely why he takes his relationship with the Reader so seriously.  For Buddy, a major factor in deciding which Reader to use, is to employ the ‘most strang[strong]’. For Buddy, he believes the most capable is an ‘India-coolie’. He believes 182      astrologers from India are more powerful than Indo Guyanese astrologers. He maintains that the ‘India-coolie’ Reader knows ‘the proppa prayer and can read the book proppa’. Buddy refers to the Reader being able to read the Patras in Sanskrit, as opposed to Guyanese pandits, who may rely on translations. Buddy both asserts Indo Guyanese inauthenticity, by citing what he claims are ineffective Indo Guyanese pandits, while bolstering the Indian astrologer’s authenticity as more legitimate and effective. When dealing with issues of utmost importance and care, Buddy is propagating the trope of Indo Guyanese inauthenticity by supporting claims that Indo Guyanese are inauthentic, and indeed too creolized to be considered Indian (Degia, 2018).     Obeah has rarely been adopted as a religious identity (2012:8), but is a regularly sought-after practice (Murrell, 2009:205). While no Guyanese participant openly discussed practicing or seeking an Obeah practitioner, some (like Buddy), spoke of having to participate in removing Obeah from themselves or family members, at some point in their lives. Removing, or remedying, the Obeah can either be done by an Obeah man or woman, or through Christian and Hindu therapeutic and spiritual healers (Forde and Paton, 2012; Crosson, 2015), like the Reader Buddy visits. Indo Guyanese participants however, vocalised a preference for seeking the assistance of Hindu Readers and healers, regardless of their non-Hindu background (Christian and Muslim). This makes it not only feasible to Buddy that his Muslim ex-wife would employ West-African Obeah to ‘bad-eye’ him (a Hindu), but believable to the extent that he seeks protective measures through his faith’s appropriate religious medium (a common practice noted by Ivor Case, 2001; and Murrell, 2009). This is despite his own relaxed attitude to practicing and adhering to the teachings of Hinduism. He has not observed a Hindu holiday in over ten years (he has not held the duties related to them, i.e., fasting, attending the temple, conducting prayers or aarti at home, but has participated in related celebrations to mark the events), yet seeks the advice of (and makes financial donations to) his Reader at a minimum of once a year. Buddy’s religious practice follows in the footsteps of many migrants globally, who create enduring but novel practices related to their migration processes (see Straut Eppsteiner and Hagan, 2016:52-53).   In Guyana and Barbados, seeking services for ‘removal of Obeah/black magic/evil spirits’ is a niche, but present market. Hindu ‘astrologers’, openly advertise their services on 183      personalised websites and social media platforms, like Facebook17. Like Buddy’s Reader, these individuals have created business and a loyal customer base by marketing themselves as authentic Indians hailing from the subcontinent (‘World Famous Indian Spiritual Healer,’ as written on the business card of Buddy’s Reader in Picture 7.1., on the following page). Although the credibility surrounding Readers’ ability and intentions have been questioned18, this does not diminish his authenticity, and by proxy capabilities, to Buddy. The Reader provides an invaluable service to Buddy and those like him – peace of mind. As Buddy maintains, he ‘nuh tek no chances’ and because of his dedication to this practice, he believes, he has never been deported, detained, or raided by immigration, despite his 24-year ‘irregular’ relationship with Barbados.  By receiving blessings and adhering to the duties prescribed to him from the Reader each time he returns to Guyana (roughly twice a year), Buddy believes he is warding off the any bad luck that may come to him and his loved ones. Moreso, he believes he is preserving his good fortune ultimately enabling him to continue to provide for his mother in Guyana. Buddy’s belief in the Reader’s ability to avert the evil eye gives him the peace of mind to go about his everyday life in Barbados. Without it, he would be overwhelmed by stress and anxiety, and consumed by worry over his mother. He is able to find emotional balance through this religious practice, which mitigates those feelings. Yet, religion and religious practice may also be the cause of stress and anxiety for some migrants. The following vignette explores such a relationship, as participant Kapoor describes his relationship with religion after the tragic loss of a loved one.             17 Shiva Parvathi Astrology center, New Amsterdam, Guyana; https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Astrologist---Psychic/Shiva-Parvathi-Astrology-center-1280319122114520/ Indian Vedic astrologer in Georgetown, Guyana; https://www.facebook.com/astrologeringuyana/. 18 See article ‘Pandit from India fleecing Guyanese’ reported in the Guyanese-run newspaper, Kaieteur News, which highlights the vulnerability of these like-minded clients, who prefer the authenticity of Indian-born astrologers. Published, May 02, 2010. https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2010/05/02/pandit-from-india-fleecing-guyanese/. 184        Picture 7.1. Business card of Buddy’s Reader    Source: Gifted to me by Buddy during the fieldwork Photo taken: 30 September 2015        185      BEREAVEMENT, FAMILY, AND RESPONSIBILITY VIGNETTE: KAPOOR Kapoor sits on the edge of his bed, mixing the dhal, mutton curry, and cook-up rice in the bowl with his right hand, before scooping a golf-ball sized amount into his mouth. His living space - he insists - is nicer than the typical Guyanese worker. He has his own room; and while the toilet and bath are in the same room as the bed, he does not have to share a bathroom with the other boarders in the housing complex, which has been altered to accommodate both family/couples and individual renters. He hangs his few items of clothing on nails hammered into the wooden panels which make the walls of his room, while washed clothing hangs from a wooden rod above the bathtub. A large tattered and torn suitcase serves as a safe, which houses school records, family pictures – the items with an emotional connection determined as ‘valuable’ through a memory work exercise. Over the years, he has been able to purchase a wooden bedframe for his inherited mattress, a second-hand chest of drawers, a fan, and a 12-inch television. He attaches a dated portable DVD player to the television and inserts a music DVD. A variety of chutney19 and Bollywood remixes play in the background as we talk.   Picture 7.3. Kapoor’s living space.  Source: Photo taken during the fieldwork; verbal consent given by Kapoor to use photo in thesis. Photo taken: 25 November 2015  19 A fusion genre of music, specific to the Indo indentured community, sung in varying Hindi dialects, primarily Bhojpuri and Awadhi.  186      “I here not 2 years, and meh small bruddah done kill he-self when he reach-back Guyana… Yuh know, coolie love story,” he lets out an uneasy grin. “He wan marry one gyal, but she muddah and fada say no, and de gyal gan an marry one bai in de village over. So he go an drink ah battle ah dem poison. What can I say?’ He pauses, takes a breath, and continues, looking only at his bowl of food as he eats. “Meh miss meh own bruddah funeral…He small yet, 19 years ol’, an I ain’t reach, because I ain’t get papers. Immigration get meh passport, and I ain get nothin – no visa, no ID, no birth certificate. Meh can’t get on a plane, because they get mi passport. If I try [to] go, dey hold me up until they find meh tings, or dey just deport me and done. And it make no sense I get deport – I is the only one in de family making money, dey does need me ah mek money. Meh next bruddah der, but I’s de eldest, I’s de one who must do prayers an’ thing, yuh know. So I here, workin. The last time I see he, before he gan back [Guyana] - after the next one [brother] get deport. Mi muddah do dead work every year, but me nah able.” He stops abruptly, and looks straight in my face, “yuh want more drink?” He exits the room to the shared kitchen, uses a key to remove a small padlock from the heavily rusted refrigerator door, and brings back a container of chilled mauby20 to the room.  25 November 2015  At age 29, Kapoor has been living in Barbados since 2007. He is the eldest of 4 brothers. His passport and all supporting documents have been at the Department of Immigration since 2010. Out of fear of deportation, Kapoor refuses to approach the department to inquire about his paperwork. He has been without a form of identification since then. This affects all aspects of his life, curbing his ability to use formal legal channels to access necessities. Despite having moved to Barbados with his two younger brothers, Kapoor is the only one who has remained. After one brother’s deportation in 2009, the other brother returned to Guyana. During this time, Kapoor decided to apply for a work permit as a gardener. He was never issued the permit despite working for nine years as a gardener on the island.  Baldassar (2014), Bravo (2017), and Mas Giralt (2019) have documented varying ways experiencing the death of a loved one, as a migrant, affects families and the migrants themselves. Mas Giralt argues ‘the study of transnational bereavement and grief can help further illuminate transnational geographies of intimacy and family life as well as the migration experience in all its complexity’ (2019:579). Kapoor’s personal account of familial suicide explores the intersections of migrant bereavement and religious practice. His narrative sheds light on the responses, fallout and aftermath for surviving family and loved ones of suicide victims (see Groh et al., 2018). Considering his precarious legal  20 A beverage popular throughout the Caribbean; originally made from boiling the buckthorn bark, adding spices (like cinnamon cloves, and anise), and sugar. However, pre-mixed concentrated syrups can be readily purchased, in many shops, which only require the addition of water/ice.  187      position, Kapoor labels himself ‘without papers’ and like other migrants strategically invisibilizes himself, existing on the periphery and margins of Bajan society. Kapoor does his best to maintain anonymity and prevent drawing attention to himself in public spaces, he has a very limited small circle of Bajans that he remains ‘friendly’ with, primarily known through his work network he’s established throughout the years, and a small pool of migrants, known through his work and his living arrangements. His legal status and his lack of specialist qualifications means his employment opportunities are limited to various manual labour positions, where he can earn up to 100BBD a day (50 USD).   I am thankful to [the late] Head Pūjari, Dane Rampersad, of Sri Kali Amman Kovel, Arouca, Trinidad, for providing insight into this sensitive topic regarding contemporary Hindu religious practice and suicide in the Indo Caribbean community, which informs this analysis, and analysis in the following chapter (October 2017). Kapoor discusses not only the impact of his brother’s death on him and his family, but the impact of his migrant status on him and his family, in response to his brother’s death. Kapoor touches on mourning, and while grieving is involved, he is speaking particularly of duties, or Shraddhas, he is expected to perform as a practicing Hindu. According to Pūjari Rampersad, as the eldest son Kapoor inherits heightened religious responsibility as compared to his other siblings. Five male family members are expected to complete final rites, a process that continues after the funeral and cremation, and involves heavy fasting and pooja (ritual prayers). Kapoor was unable to participate in the funeral rites for his brother and the subsequent ‘dead work’ which followed in Guyana. Dead work is the name given to the collective rituals carried out by surviving family members in dedication of the deceased, which is observed 12 lunar months after the passing (Sidnell, 2005). It includes a fast of food (no meat/fish/eggs) and drink (no alcohol), and performing poojas – or ritual prayers - which involve meticulous planning and preparation, and require the presence of a pandit to preside over and complete the sessions.   Kapoor’s work schedule does not allow him flexibility to dedicate sufficient time to carry out these practices (including the yearly observation of Priti Paksha, which involves paying homage to one’s departed ancestors). It is a point of personal conflict, as he expressed the willingness and desire to carry out ‘prayers’ but cannot compromise his financial responsibility to remit money to his family in Guyana. Ultimately, he feels he is a failure because of his inability to carry out any religious customary final rites and rituals for his 188      younger brother, five years after the event. Contrarily, he feels bound by dharmic duty to provide for his family. As the first-born son, he assumes this responsibility as primary caretaker, more so, because of his brother’s suicide. This is two-fold; in practical terms, there is one less male to help support the family, emotionally, there is the loss of a son and sibling. This is coupled with not being able to mourn with the family unit and carry out necessary religious practices in totality.   For Kapoor, he believes it is his religious and traditional responsibility to care for his family (and for most male participants, like Buddy, Darmendra, and Vishal). Care in his understanding takes the form of providing spiritual closure for his brother’s passing through performing the funeral customs, the rituals of poojas and dead work, while providing financial upkeep for his parents, and (to a lesser extent his) siblings. As the eldest son, he sees this as his duty. His inability to religiously care (or provide ritual care, see Baldassar 2007) by performing Shraddhas for his brother is offset by his commitment to financially care for his family. Baldassar (2015), and Mas Giralt (2019), note this response to grieving and bereavement, as partially motivated by the guilt of the migrant.   Kapoor often works seven days a week, as frequently as he can find work, as much as his body will allow him (as a gardener), in order to send as much money as he can, back to his family who live in a village in the north-west of Guyana, bordering Venezuela. He immerses himself in his work to ensure the stability of his family in Guyana, but also as a means of justifying his faltering religious observation in Barbados, and his inability to complete Shraddhas on behalf of his brother. He has stated that the more he works, the less time he has to think about his brother and his passing.   Kapoor expresses his frustration with the immigration office for losing his papers. Yet he remains hesitant about contacting the office to inquire about his application, with the fear that immigration officers will use this expired status as a reason to deport him, despite their administrative clerical error. This sentiment was reiterated by many participants – the fear of deportation if they make themselves known to immigration officials. In Kapoor’s reasoning, like the other participants, remaining quiet and existing on the periphery of society is a more favourable option than being deported. ‘Meh karma bad, fuh truth’, Kapoor states, as he alludes to his precarious legal status as connected to his failure to perform the religious duties associated with his brother’s passing. In this way, Kapoor 189      accepts the relative self-isolation and public (in)visibility, as a fair consequence for not conducting customary prayers and poojas for his brother. It is a personal penance he must bear.   Pandit Thakoor projects the number of Hindu Indo Guyanese on the island to be roughly 10,000 (including the Bajan-born children of at least one Hindu Guyanese parent). This is in stark contrast to the census account of 0.5% of the population, or 1,055 people, following Hinduism (Barbados Population and Housing Census, 2010). Nonetheless, there is only one government registered Hindu temple, the Barbados Hindu Society in Welches, Bridgetown. An unofficial second temple on Pinfold Street, Bridgetown, exists. Post fieldwork this has become a more established mandir, taking on the name Jai Lakshmi Narayana Mandir, however it remains unclear if it is recognised by the state. According to Pandit Thakoor, there are less than a handful of pandits on the island who are knowledgeable of the Vedic scripture and Puranas to adequately preside over the temples.   The locations of temples and the limited availability of pandits, means spiritual guidance is not readily available or easily accessible for Kapoor. Kapoor lives in the north-west of the island, in Rock Dundo, St. Peter Parish. The temple is located in Welches Terrace, Bridgetown. To get there, Kapoor must rush home from work to shower and prepare for temple (it is customary to be cleanly bathed before offering prayers, as this is viewed as a sign of both physical and spiritual cleansing) before taking a series of buses. If he attends evening worship, he arrives home close to midnight, and has to wake at 4:30am for work. In Hinduism many religious holidays are determined based on lunar cycles, with subsequent night services in accordance. Kapoor is specifically referencing Navratri -or nine nights- where service is held daily for 10 consecutive nights. Weekend satsang/yagna (worship done with a religious teacher usually consisting of reciting mantras and singing bhajans) means he is already at work. Despite his personal commitment and belief in his religion, the lack of options for where to worship make it impractical for him to maintain a regular presence and connection in the mandir. Because of this, Kapoor feels a lack of belonging in the temple and with the pandit. Ultimately Kapoor chooses not to perform prayers on behalf of his brother while in Barbados.   Kapoor quietly expresses guilt and sadness over the loss of his brother. He believes that if he were home in Guyana, his brother would not have died by suicide. He chooses not to 190      voice these feelings aloud very often, mentioning it a few times, only in passing. Kapoor believes that his migration to Barbados resulted in the distancing of his close relationships, particularly with his siblings, whom he lived with prior to his migration. While this distancing has affected Kapoor, he feels that it also impacted his youngest sibling whom he says he ‘abandoned’ through his move, leaving his brother without his usual confidant, companion, mentor and friend.        The sadness Kapoor feels at the loss of his brother is omnipresent in his daily life, which he channels into the wellbeing of his surviving family members. For Kapoor, the emotions associated with his brother’s suicide include an immense feeling of inadequacy for being unable to be physically present with family, before, during, and after the event. Kapoor’s description of his brother’s suicide and his candid discussion of his perceived responsibilities partially encapsulates the frustrations and insecurities of migrants who, in a long-distance capacity, both affect and are affected by the wider reverberations of the act. These responsibilities are bound by a range of religious, social, and financial pressures (Baldassar, 2014; Bravo, 2017; Mas Giralt, 2019). Kapoor believes his absence continues to be felt by his family, as he in turn, feels his family’s absence. He feels guilt and shame for his inability to perform his religious care through fulfilment of customary death rites, compounded by the looming sadness over the loss of his brother.   He assuages this guilt through his financial care and despite working diligently with the intention of an imminent return to Guyana, his latter goal is continuously delayed by what he views as unachieved success. Kapoor has earned enough to build two mortar/concrete and steel houses (a considerable upgrade from his wooden childhood home). One is a two-story structure he financed for his parents, and the other is one single-story structure for his brother, that he funded as a wedding gift. Despite this, Kapoor often speaks of not earning enough to secure his own future and ensure financial stability when he returns to Guyana. He is doubly burdened by this responsibility and expectation; his mother, father, and brother regularly contact him, ‘always calling [me] fuh send money’. He feels that by easing the financial strain, his family has come to over-rely on his remittances, demotivating them to become wage-earners themselves (similarly noted in noted in Lindley’s 2011 research). In his late 20s, Kapoor often speaks of his desire to marry and start a family of his own. However, this comes with the implicit understanding that he will be able to financially maintain a family - a future he has not yet guaranteed. He has expressed aggravation towards the males in his immediate family (his father and surviving younger 191      brother), linking his support of them to the delay in realising his own future. However aggravated, he accepts these circumstances as a minimal setback. He reasons that the suicide of his brother, the loss of a ‘boy-child’21, makes his parent’s financial position insecure, and that the emotional loss of a child for his parents, trumps his emotional loss of a sibling.  Kapoor expresses comparable sentiments expressed in Lindley’s 2011 research with the Somali diaspora in London. In her research, Lindley found that most of her participants felt indebted to family members, and remitting as a form of generalized reciprocity was common. Despite facing hardship in their own financial and personal circumstances in London, they continue to remit because they rationalize their hardship as incomparable to the situation faced by loved ones in Somalia (2011). The sense of indebtedness described by Lindley was expressed as a sense of duty and responsibility by participants in this research. Likewise, many participants expressed their belief that they were in the ‘fortunate position’ to be in Barbados compared to others who had to stay in Guyana. Because of this privileged position, they felt it was their necessity to remit, regardless of whatever financial, social, and/or emotional hardship they endured in Barbados, like Kapoor.  Due to a lack of economic opportunities in Guyana, the perceived pressure to provide for his current family, and in turn, to be a provider for his future family, Kapoor has validated his move overseas. As mentioned earlier, single, young (early 20s-mid30s) males in this research, were particularly often overwhelmed and preoccupied by the perceived pressure of familial financial responsibility. This is shaped by expectations and interpretations of traditional responsibility, which male participants constantly worried, would result in their (in)ability to start a family of their own. For Kapoor, these factors drive him to stay in Barbados, despite his brother’s passing. The challenges Kapoor faces continue to inhibit his ability to grieve the loss of his brother. These factors exacerbate Kapoor’s associated guilt related to his brother’s passing (Mas Giralt, 2019).  And while this account is one of survival and coping, Kapoor (like many participants) continues to endure his brother’s passing removed from his typical social (familial and religious) support networks; networks which otherwise provide comfort. Kapoor migrated from a place of ethnic pluralism (where he belongs to largest ethnic and second largest  21 ‘Boy-child’/ ‘girl-child’ referencing the gendered expectations associated with male and female children of an Indo Guyanese family. 192      religious groups) to a place where his identity marks him as not only an ethnic and religious minority, but as an undesirable Guyanese. As an undocumented migrant, Kapoor would have to pursue private medical counselling services if he chose to, however this is an option he has not considered (as anything falling under the umbrella of mental health is considered taboo in the Indo Guyanese community). The feeling of isolation is compounded by the everyday realities associated with the complexities of his legal status and his limited access (and desire to access) to the healthcare system.   Kapoor feels remitting to his surviving family members in Guyana has become his personal atonement to excuse the unperformed final rites for his brother,   ‘Meh nah do dem yet…meh wan fuh do it properly…in de house, where he stay, and where he put to rest…nah here…So I mekin sure everybody comfortable in the meantime.’ 15 November 2015   It is important to Kapoor that he complete the customary rites in-full when he returns to Guyana. He will perform the necessary poojas in their childhood home, the same place where his brother passed-on. Until he is able to do so, he feels both bound and obliged to keep his family comfortable in the only way he feels he can provide, financially – this is his karma, this is his burden to bear. For Kapoor, this act reflects his care for his loved ones and his devotion to family responsibility.             193      CONCLUSION The Western world remains the geographically dominant space for studying the migrant experience and related intersections of religion, migration, and identity (Saunders et al., 2016; Frederiks, 2016). This chapter on the Indo Guyanese religious experience in Barbados not only sheds light on regional migration in the Anglophone Caribbean but adds to discussions on the intersections of religion, migration, and identity in South-South migration. As Kanhai asserts, despite the smaller following of Islam and Hinduism in this Christianised region, the presence of these practices in the hemisphere is ‘symbolic of their resistance to religious engulfment’ (2011:7). I argue that the narratives presented illustrate vividly how those of faith in the Indo Guyanese community endure in their devotion to practice their [Hindu and Muslim] religions, despite the reality of spiritual hardships they face through their migration. This chapter illustrated how emotional realities have significant consequences for the religious practices and religious beliefs of migrants. The narratives presented demonstrate that, ‘the support that religion and spirituality can offer must be viewed along-side the complexities that various contexts add to the religion and migration equation’ (Saunders et.al., 2016:13).  This chapter focused on varying forms of ‘othering’ and difference emphasised within religious communities (through Kareem’s narrative) and between religious communities (Joyce and Sunita’s narratives). Kareem’s story shows how his socioeconomic standing and nationality works as identifying markers to isolate him from members of the same faith, illustrating how places of religious worship can become spaces of migrant (un)belonging. Joyce and Sunita’s stories illustrate how the racialization of Indo Guyanese as Hindu in Barbados is used to distinguish and emphasise faith-based ideas of difference, unfamiliarity and unbelonging between Indo Guyanese and Bajans, while reducing a religiously diverse migrant community to a monolith.   The contrasting sentiments from Ronaldo and Keith illustrate the differing, and often conflicting, ways Guyanese religious practice is interpreted across Bajan participants. These sentiments have real life impacts on the religious lives of the Guyanese community in Barbados. Joyce has taken steps to minimise her religious difference by removing her sindoor based on what she interprets as her Bajan boss not understanding and being intolerant of foreign Indian customs. As described by Sunita, she chooses to conduct her offerings and poojas at dawn, specifically so she is less susceptible to the scrutiny of the 194      Bajan public while doing so. There continues to be those who no longer ‘raise jhandi flag’, in fear of reprisals, moving toward a visual minimalization of religious variation in Barbados. However, there are some instances where acceptance of Hindu religious difference is growing, as seen with Phagwah. The festival of Phagwah in some ways has been able to surpass religion, where it is celebrated by participants as a Guyanese festival, not necessarily a Hindu festival. In this way, Guyanese migrants who are not Hindu or of Indo heritage increase the visibility of religious difference on the island, while maintaining a connection to home. One example of this comes from Lloyd, in his insistence of attending Phagwah celebrations.   The chapter also highlighted the contentions within religious groups and their surrounding religious spaces. The ease and relative acceptance Rafia describes of the temple community is unlike the experience of Kapoor, who individually, views the same temple as a place heavily saturated in social politics. Without familial connections to act as a conduit to create a sense of belonging in the temple, Kapoor is left to experience and face the temple community as an individual, which he feels is impacted greatly by his markers of a lower socioeconomic standing. Kapoor speaks of the temple as a space of social exclusion, where he feels judged by both his legal status and his occupation (he expressed this feeling of disconnect as a contributing factor for not pursuing prayers for his deceased brother while in Barbados). Kareem speaks in the same way about the masjid. While his experience is relational to his nationality, his exclusion and subsequent seclusion is compounded by his personal feelings of fulfilling and embodying negative stereotypes of the Guyanese migrant. This includes being undocumented and unskilled, both amplifying his Indo Guyanese inauthenticity. Buddy’s narrative also perpetuates this trope of Guyanese inauthenticity. In order to eliminate Obeah placed on him, Buddy chooses to seek guidance from a Reader who recently migrated from India, as opposed to seeking council from a fellow Indo Guyanese Reader. He maintains the Indian Reader knows the ‘proper’ way to remove the bad-eye, due to their familiarity with Sanskrit, signaling Buddy’s own bias against Indo Guyanese authenticity.   Participants demonstrate a range of interactive relationships under the umbrella of religion; while individual dedication to practice and ritual may be personally observed, it is not necessarily dependent or tied to a physical place of worship. As seen with Buddy, religious practices, beliefs, and rituals continue to adapt in relation to (and in reaction to) the life 195      events of the participants, without the use of a religious space. Buddy has found a way to maintain a religious and spiritual leaning which is outside of a place of worship. And while this means he is shielded from social politics that Kareem and Kapoor interpret as excluding rather than including, his absence means he is unable to know a greater sense of belonging or inclusion which other participants describe, like Rafia.   The last two vignettes expressed the need for participants to provide for loved ones, and the role religion plays in that process. As demonstrated in the first narrative, Buddy’s ability to travel in the region is paramount in his efforts to care for his elderly mother. He employs the abilities of an astrologer to ensure he is able to journey without obstructions. Using a Reader gives him peace of mind and eases his stress. However, as Kapoor’s vignette illustrates, religion and religious duties can also act as sources of stress. Kapoor’s story showed how religious practice is impacted by bereavement, and how unfulfilled religious duties can add to grief and mourning. As a result, he remits in an effort to supress his guilt and sadness. This theme of responsibility and care continues into the following chapter, with a focus on masculinities. The discussion of ch.8 widens to ideas of gender roles and gendered expectations in Indo Guyanese male migrant lives.    196      CHAPTER 8 INDO GUYANESE MIGRANT MASCULINITIES  This chapter addresses the research question: what can a gendered reading of care inform us about migrant masculinities? In this chapter, I analyse how Indo Guyanese men experience and make sense of their manhood through the context of their migration, using participant narratives from the ethnography and supported by relevant literature. The first section of the chapter relays how Indo Guyanese migrant men perceive notions of expectation and responsibility as a reinforcement of their dedication to family. The following section delves into how migration is used by male Indo Guyanese participants as a method of caring for family and loved ones, and how these pressures influence their experience as migrants (which was introduced in the previous chapter’s narratives with Buddy and Kapoor). Using this foundation, I consider what has been described as the ‘vulnerability of the patriarchy’, as expressed by University of Guyana sociologist Rishee Thakur (Ramsaran and Lewis, 2018:114), to frame Indo Guyanese male participant’s behaviours and sentiments surrounding alcoholism, domestic violence, and suicide. The final section of this chapter focuses on how migration creates a space for participants to manage and (re)define traditional gender behaviors and (re)work these expected roles.   This chapter analyses the converging understudied areas of male migrant realities through the contemporary Indo Guyanese male experience, addressing previously noted voids in both migration and Caribbean masculinities literature. By analysing the Indo Guyanese male migrant experience, the research expands upon the limited scholarship regarding Indo Caribbean boyhood and manhood. It offers insight into the less explored view of what it means to be male in the Caribbean, while showcasing the varied range of Caribbean masculinities. The chapter addresses how participants view themselves as Indo Guyanese males and females inhabiting this regional space, which speaks to the overarching themes of (dis)connection and (un)belonging, inclusion, exclusion and integration. Specifically, this information informs the research questions by exploring how Indo Guyanese experience their migration in gender-specific ways, and how this marker of identity influences their migratory reality in Barbados.    197      GENDERED MIGRATION Migration is gendered, and the differences in male and female migration realities is well documented (Blunt, 2007; McKay, 2007, 2011; Silvey, 2013; Morokvašić, 2014; Locke, 2017; Pande, 2017; Choi, 2019, to name a few). Despite this, there is growing consensus in academia that ‘there has been very little theoretical or empirical attention to the ways in which migrant life impacts on, and is shaped by, men and masculinities’ (Locke, 2017:277; Pande, 2017; Wojnicka & Pustułka, 2017; Choi, 2019). Instead, men’s migration has been primarily positioned as an economic activity, as it impacts and is impacted by the neoliberal capitalist system (McKay, 2011; Locke, 2017). In this view, masculinity is tied to economic associations of their migration, including ‘work, breadwinning, family and community respect’ (Lam and Yeoh, 2018b:106-107, citing McKay, 2011:4; also see Locke, 2017; Pande, 2017).   Pioneering gender specialists in the Anglophone Caribbean have stressed that inquiry into the construction of manhood and practices of masculinity in the regional context, must not be viewed in opposition to feminist discourse, but regarded as an interconnected and complimentary body of work (Lewis, 2003, 2005; Mohammed, 2004; Reddock, 2016). Although the male and female dynamic is interconnected, the unique experiences of men; how they connect with the community, negotiate identities, and make sense of self and place, is needed to enrich gender studies for the region (Barriteau, 2003:46-47). Moreover, Ramsaran and Lewis state, ‘The lived, everyday experience of masculinity in Guyana has yet to be fully articulated’ (2018:99). Masculinity is ‘relational not only to femininity but also to factors of space, time, and socially constructed structures, such as class and race’ (Hoang and Yeoh, 2011; Montes, 2013:473). This chapter explores Indo Guyanese migrant masculinities within the context of these intersecting influences.  ‘A significant body of feminist scholarship by and about Indo Caribbean women has emerged yet a similar literature on Indo Caribbean masculinity has not…What was even more noticeable was the relative absence of Indo Caribbean men and women writing on the situation of Indo Caribbean men or masculinities.’  Rhoda Reddock (2016:263)  Despite the understanding that male and female experience remains varied and unique, there is an imbalance in academic work regarding the two. Indo Caribbean feminist scholarship has burgeoned in the last forty years (see Patricia Mohammed, 1994, 1996, 2004; Gabrielle Hosein, 2020, 2016; Roseanne Kanhai, 1999, 2011, 2012; Gaiutra Bahadur, 2013; and Hosein and Outar, 2012, 2016, to name a few). While critical thought on Indo 198      Caribbean masculinities has remained woefully underdeveloped (Mohammed, 2004; Hosein and Outar, 2016; Reddock 2004; 2014a; 2016:263). With the exception of Niels Sampath’s 1980s research on the mainly Indo Trinidadian village of ‘Indian Wood’, which analyses the negotiation of young Indo Trinidadian’s masculinity through a reputation and respectability lens (1993, 1997), study devoted to men and masculinities in the English-speaking Caribbean are firmly rooted the Afro Caribbean experience. This is seen in the influential works of Chevannes (2001) Learning to Be a Man: Culture, Socialization and Gender Identity in Five Caribbean Communities. and Reddock (2004) Interrogating Caribbean Masculinities: Theoretical and Empirical Analyses. It must be noted that Caribbean scholars and thinkers have emphasised the call for empirical evidence on Indo Guyanese and Indo Caribbean masculinities, with contemporary foundational research attributed to Dave Ramsaran and Linden Lewis’ 2018 publication Caribbean Masala: Indian Identity in Guyana and Trinidad.   This final empirical chapter addresses the converging understudied areas of migrant realities through the contemporary Indo Guyanese male experience, addressing previously noted voids in both male migration literature (Locke, 2017:277; Pande, 2017; Wojnicka & Pustułka, 2017; Choi, 2019) and Caribbean masculinities literature (Mohammed, 2004; Hosein and Outar, 2016; Reddock 2004; 2014a; 2016: 263). This chapter illustrates how the interplay of socialised gender roles and gendered behaviours intersect to shape realities of Indo Guyanese migrants. The act of migration works to simultaneously renegotiate yet reinforce ideas of what it means to be an Indo Guyanese man in Barbados. Following from the previous chapters, the experience of male and female participants is intertwined and connected to various aspects of their identity. Ethnoreligious practices and teachings continue to dictate and mould both female and male migrant behaviour. This dynamic is met, often in opposition to female migrants, and their metamorphosizing ideas of what it means to be an Indo Guyanese woman in Barbados.   The work of Chamberlain (1997) has shown that the way Caribbean migrants tell their stories is gendered. This was apparent in how Chamberlain’s participants recounted their migration narratives and how they subsequently made sense of their migratory experiences (1997). Chamberlain found that men positioned themselves as singular actors, using the word ‘I’ to describe their journeys and experiences around their migration. This was in comparison to female respondents who would tend to use collective terminologies (‘we,’ ‘us’, ‘our’) to describe their experiences. While women spoke of their children, spouses, extended families etc., as an integral part of their migratory story, these actors were 199      peripheral in the men’s stories. Men presented themselves autonomously; in control of their decisions surrounding migration, seemingly with the home and family taking a back seat in men’s priorities. This contrasted to women’s account; where their decision making was presented as heavily dependent on family input and their intended behaviours circled around fulfilling the needs of the family. Chamberlain’s research makes an important contribution in showing that despite the reality of neither group being fully independent from nor fully dependant on others, their accounts showed females understood themselves as part of a wider network of relationships while men saw themselves as operating outside from these same systems. In the case of Indo Guyanese migrants in Barbados, this research shows that these gendered feelings of independence and dependence are reflected in how migrants feel about leaning on their networks for support and how they interpret their responsibility to them. This autonomous outlook means that male participants do not recognise networks as a means of support during times of need – dealing with their struggles and times of hardship largely by themselves. Conversely, men perceive responsibility to their families and loved ones, not as a collective issue for the family unit to tackle, but as their unaided individual onus.   ‘I is deh man’ is the saying used by male participants to represent their understanding of this duality, which is explored in its own section of this chapter. By equating work with the potent emotions of familial duty and responsibility, the expectation of Indo Guyanese men to be engaged in gainful employment remains paramount in their migration story. Male participants migrate in order to fulfil and provide financial care as an act of love for those they care for, as prescribed through the Indo Caribbean community’s understanding of enduring Hindu philosophies (Grihastha) that have become the cornerstone of expected gender roles. For Indo Guyanese men, as ‘work is not merely a desirable objective but rather a duty’ (Ramsaran and Lewis, 2018:110), their migration is dictated by socialised pressure to avoid notions of shame, embarrassment, and worthlessness. However, this rigid patriarchal structure that maintains male authority in the Indo community and family unit contributes to the social pressure on Indo Guyanese males to provide. While male migrants endeavour to be providers, in their understanding, they bear this duty alone. Likewise, this lone outlook contributes to a sense of detachment and disconnect from conventional sources of support. Without recognising social networks as outlets that could provide ease and support during difficult times, they may lean into unhealthy behaviours. The legacies of the indenture and plantation system combined with the socioeconomic realities for many Indo Guyanese men has resulted in racialized gendered behaviours. 200      Expressed as the ‘vulnerability of the patriarchy’ by Thakur (Ramsaran and Lewis, 2018:114), this is demonstrated through relatively high levels of alcoholism, domestic violence, and suicide. This has resulted in a reality in which Indo Guyanese men have been unable to find their place in a dynamic social scene (Ramsaran and Lewis, 2018:111-116). Among participants, the ‘vulnerability of the patriarchy’ displays as Indo Guyanese men perform these variations of violence on loved ones and themselves, indelibly forging their migrant experiences and the migrant experiences of their loved ones.    EXPECTATION AND RESPONSIBILITY  ‘I IS DEH MAN’        ‘Every Indian here [in the Caribbean] tied to Hinduism in some way. All a’ we get a Hindu in deh family somewhere. The ways of back home is what guide we [Indo Caribbeans]. A man know what he must do fuh run house because he learn from small; same - a woman learn what she must do fuh keep house, from small. When dey get here, it’s what our forefathers teach we grandparents, and what our grandparents teach we. Nah matter you turn Christian or marry Muslim, yuh never forget what yuh first learn’. When I ask about indentured that journeyed as Muslims, he replies emphasizing: ‘Muslim grow-up beside Hindu, they musn’t know one another?’  Pandit Thakoor  on his of perception of Indo Caribbean manhood and womanhood 26 July 2015  Masculinity is shaped in response to ‘a socially constructed set of practices determined particularly by a specific social, cultural, and historical setting’ (Montes, 2013:473; Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005). From our conversations, Pandit Thakoor connects notions of what it means to be a contemporary Indo Caribbean man and woman, as rooted in enduring Indian philosophical teachings that survived the indenture voyage and period. In contemporary Guyana, Christianity and Hinduism remain the most widely practiced, understood, and visible religions. However, the physical proximity between Hindus and Muslims during their indentured periods allowed for syncretic redevelopment and cross-pollination of religious norms (Vertovec, 2000; Rocklin, 2015, 2019). This has prompted Gopeesing to describe the relationship between Guyanese Muslims and Guyanese Hindus as, ‘Muslim Guyanese are both self and Other to Hindu Guyanese: self along the lines of ethnicity and Other along the lines of religion’ (2011:195). Indeed, after their conversion to Christianity, traditional practices remained ever-present in the indentured household; as Kanhai, reiterates, ‘many Indo Caribbean Christians retained some Hindu- or Muslim- 201      derived practices and were effectively bi-religious, blurring the boundaries between religion and culture’ (2011:3). Despite the compulsion to convert to Christianity for access to education and job opportunities (as previously mentioned), ‘ethics and habits drawn from their ancestry were maintained within the home’ (Kanhai, 2011:10). Pandit Thakoor attributes this particularly to the Hindu teaching of Grihastha, a recurring intention appearing throughout the various philosophical and religious texts. Grihastha places the family at the core of leading a moral and righteous life. In this view, upholding and preserving the family becomes paramount, positioning the family as the central focal point in the lives of Indo Guyanese. Expectations and responsibilities of gendered behaviors are relayed to children through these literary philosophies and mythologies (Roopnarine, D. 2013:49). Pandit Thakoor’s explanation is supported by Darshini Roopnarine, who argues,  ‘the foundations, literary philosophies and mythologies contained within Hinduism govern many sectors of Indo Caribbean family life including gender identity/roles, parenting, marriage, appropriate behavior, motherhood and fatherhood… the internal working models about manhood and womanhood, as well as morally and socially appropriate behaviors for men and women’.  (2013:49-50)   Pandit Thakoor argues that Indo Caribbean children are socialised from childhood to understand their gendered expectations and responsibilities as they mature. He explains the concept of Grihastha, as formative to how families in the Indo community shapes ideas of expectation and responsibility in young minds. He says that following Grihastha is interconnected with dharma – the duties each Hindu works towards to attain Moksha, or ‘spiritual perfection’ (Khan, 2013:24). Thus, children see their commitment to family as tied to their dharmic duty.  Actions to promote and ensure the wellbeing of one’s family, such as self-sacrifice and enduring hardship (emulating the attributes of the protagonists in the major texts of the Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana, Mahabharata) are viewed as not only fulfilling inherent dharmic duty (pertinent to Hindus) but achieving what it means to be a man or woman in Indo Caribbean society, which crosscuts religious affiliation (Roopnarine, D., 2013:49-50). According to Pandit Thakoor, boys learn to ‘run house’, while girls learn to ‘keep house’. For women, ‘keep house’ entails bearing children and rearing duties, while managing domestic responsibilities, and maintaining order over household duties, which prepares them ‘for their future roles as wives, mothers and daughters-in-law’ (Roopnarine, D., 2013:53). For men, ‘run house’ refers to the man being ‘the head of the household, the 202      breadwinner and decision-maker’, maintaining ‘financial control and strong ties to family members, particularly other males’ (Roopnarine, D., 2013:53). In most instances, ‘he is the primary breadwinner, also serving as a bridge to the outside world’ (Roopnarine, D., 2013:21-22).  ‘I is deh man’, a phrase repeatedly echoed by male participants, goes beyond patriarchal implications that place the man above all in the house, and the socialised behaviors which accompany it. The term refers to notions of the responsibility to be both the figurative and literal strength of the family. Men provide essential and sustaining necessities – home, shelter, food – and maintain representation of the household in social and community affairs. The phrase emphasises the link between provider and manhood and is closely related to gainful employment.         The issue of job security and job retention was a major concern for all participants but was a matter not just of pride, but of necessity for men. While females looked to jobs to fulfill a need, men looked to jobs as a means of assigning worth to themselves, in relation to their family. A man’s ability to provide for his family was inextricably linked to his family’s respect for him, as well as an avenue for their family to maintain or elevate their status in their community. Thus, a male who is jobless finds it difficult to claim to be a man. As one male respondent bluntly states, ‘If me ain’t get work, wha me den? Mek meh children shame me, meh wife laff me? I is deh man’. If I don’t have work, who am I then? Make my children ashamed of me, my wife laugh and ridicule me? I am the man.    Being responsible for family and loved ones is tied to manhood in the Indo Guyanese mindset, and work and working is seen as the avenue to achieve that goal. Therefore, providing for, and supporting loved ones is the main tenet and backbone of being an Indo Caribbean man. When this tenet goes unfulfilled, Indo men are unable to make sense of their manhood and have trouble finding meaning in themselves. Barry Chevannes has noted of the Indo family structure, ‘As the head and supreme authority, the male’s main responsibility is to provide for his wife and children. His duty is to bring in the money…His authority extends over his sons and their families as well. When he dies, his eldest son becomes head of the family (2001:70). Chevannes highlights the generational nature of not only authority, but also responsibility, in the Indo Guyanese family structure. In the male mind-set, the two are synonymous.      203      As Baldwin and Mortley (2016) have noted, male domestic duties are often minimised to allow for their role as provider. As female migrants are expected to uphold domestic care, male migrants are expected to uphold financial care. Female migrants, however, often assume both roles, becoming the primary earner in the family unit, while maintaining a dominant role in domestic responsibilities in Barbados. The double-burden of work and domestic responsibilities females encounter is clear, and there is increasing tensions which erupt as female migrants challenge gendered expectations of domestic labour (as will be explored later in this chapter through the narrative of Lalita). However, all male participants in this research were financially responsible for several family members and loved ones back home (excluding elderly participant, Charlie, who in his late 60s-early 70s, was still earning as a coconut water vendor), while not all female participants were remitting. This included the husbands of two female participants who were remitting on behalf of their wives to their families in Guyana, while the wives were able to retain their earnings, or not work. Remittances from male participants were also expected to be continuous and substantial enough to be spread across relatively more beneficiaries, in comparison to female participants. As it is considered shameful and unmanly to depend on a woman for money (i.e., a brother relying on a sister’s remittance, or a husband relying on a wife’s remittance), the financial contribution of male migrants towards the maintenance of loved ones back home is assumed.   In the instances where female respondents were the primary earner, this was in the absence of an immediate male family member to adequately fulfill that role. Veronica’s father is elderly and has sustained injuries working in the ‘backdam’ (undeveloped farmland), rendering him with limited mobility. Although Sham is younger than his sister, he was the primary earner in the family, until 2014, when he was deported from Barbados. Unable to find steady sustained job work in Guyana, Sham became ‘unmotivated and lazy’, according to his sister. She regards Sham as a failure. And like multiple participants (both male and female) who associate men out of work with shame, Sham’s reliance on his sister’s remittances is viewed as equally shameful and embarrassing to the family:  ‘Its like, he get back, and you know, Guyana ain’t really got good, steady job. He get frustrated, angry. He deh in Barbados so long… he have he own business here, he friends, everything. He gone back, and it’s like he spite everything. Just sit home all day, sport [lime] all night. He get no direction. In a way, I does understand. Guyana hard. Its ain’t easy for work, das why everybody gone. But I wonder how the boy nah shame? Sit down whole day, and he get he wife and child fuh take care.’ 14 December 2015 204      It is through this prism of fear and shame that male migrants operate; failure to carry out their duty to their family and fear of being labeled as shameful to the family – socialised pressures not immediately or intensely present for female migrants (in this context). It is this fear and shame that increases pressure on undocumented male participants to engage in more risky endeavors for employment. This adds to their vulnerability of bodily harm through taking on manual labor jobs without adequate training, exploitation by employers through underpayment or missed payments, working in unsafe environments, working under duress due to threat of status disclosure by employers, pursuing informal employment and engaging in illegal activities for income. All of these increases their likelihood of exposure to immigration officials and criminal prosecution. Male participants have stated it is easier for female migrants to find and retain work, as most of their jobs are indoors in private homes. Women’s gendered work makes them less visible to immigration and police officers. And as stated earlier, while female participants do take jobs in agriculture to supplement income when out of work, migrant men are less likely to search for jobs socially understood as women’s work, i.e., in the domestic realm. Clearly, part of being ‘deh man’ entails working, although not all work is desirable.  Migration is multi-purpose for Indo Guyanese males; while it acts as deferred satisfaction ‘to endure’ for the improvement of their loved-one’s wellbeing, it counts towards personal delayed satisfaction and their (hopeful) upward socioeconomic mobility upon return. As stated by Donaldson and Howson regarding migrant men taking jobs otherwise seen as demeaning ‘…for the sake of one’s family, that gives meaning to the paid work that men undertake. There is honour in self-sacrifice for the family’ (2009:212). Male Indo Guyanese participants use migration as a channel to enable the economic aspects of masculinity, and by proxy, to exert markers of manhood. Similar to previous wider research on migrant men; Donaldson and Howson have stated, ‘The men’s [perceived] responsibility as the breadwinners or key providers for the family household is tied to their sense of self and masculinity’ (2009:212). However, as participant narratives suggest through their emulation of Grihastha, which directs a man’s socialised duties, these are realised as acts of care and love. As Boccagni and Baldassar suggest, ‘the remittances they [migrants] send home embody their love’ (2015:77). This pivot describes men’s experience of migration as interconnected with emotions not only of fear and shame, but also of love and care.   205      HOW INDO GUYANESE MIGRANT MEN CARE  As Van Sluytman and Vakalahi state ‘Love, in essence, is at the core’ of being a carer, ‘whether it is caring for a child, spouse, parent, grandparent, friend or relative’ (2017:14). The question is how Indo Guyanese men express and show care for their loved ones, and how we have been socialised to understand and frame care. Dumitru (2014) and Locke (2017) have suggested that women in migration research have been largely presented as the ‘carers’ in the family structure. Indeed, Baldwin and Mortley (2016) argue for care and love to be explored as a foundational component Caribbean women’s migrant experience. This has excluded the role of men in such positions. Dumitru views this assumption as a form of ‘methodological sexism’ that devalues care (2014:206). As emphasised by the work of Kanhai (2011), the notions of caring for others and of delayed self-satisfaction are linked to Caribbean females (including Indo Caribbean females) and are explained as socialised aspects of their upbringing. There is a failure to explore men’s understanding of their duties to the family as fathers, sons, brothers, etc., and how men make migration meaningful by understanding it as an act of care. I use the arguments made by Baldwin and Mortley (2016) in their defense of love and care as drivers of Caribbean female migration, and amend it, in my argument to extend and include male migration: ‘framing migration as a method women men use to care for those they love, as well as a method of self-care…Caribbean families who are socialised to care for their families and loved ones, migrate as a means of providing such care’ (2016:166).  In the previous chapter, the narrative of Kapoor touched on his brother’s suicide and the guilt and grief he endures in the absence of performing the final religious rites for him. Kapoor’s means of absolution and coping is through ensuring the financial care of his family. How male participants understand care/caring and imparting their love through their migration is the focus of this section. The intersections of religion, gender, legal and socioeconomic status inform how Indo Guyanese male and female migrants ‘do’ care (Locke, 2017). Indo Guyanese men’s motivation, intention, and experience of migration are deeply rooted in socialised notions of care, opening the discourse of migration to explore their lived realities beyond a solely economic framing. By linking the notion of care to its underlying emotional base; instead of separating economic motives of migration from care and love, the section argues that there is a need to see these as emotionally coupled.  Keeping in mind that ‘migration as a strategy to cope with underemployment in one’s own country or region involves not only a physical separation from one’s family and friendship 206      networks, but it also can dissolve some of these relations’ (Vlase, 2018:198). For male migrants, this separation is felt particularly strongly, as they often operate more autonomously than their female migrant counterparts. Female participants live with family or close relations from Guyana for the duration of their time in Barbados (with the notable exception of Aisha, the corporate lawyer, referenced in ch.6). Many female participants continue to work and find jobs through these family networks. Single male participants, however, were more likely to live in a shared accommodation with other male Caribbean migrants, despite having family connections on the island, the exception being nuclear family connections. Male migrants prefer to find their own work; only relying on family connections for work and housing when they first arrive to the island and during extended times out of work. Finding one’s own work and housing is a two-fold issue. Male participants expressed their unwillingness to stay with family members, because they did not want to be perceived as a ‘burden’, it is also a matter of pride to find one’s own work. Practically speaking, in the instance that immigration officers raid a work site or employers report undocumented to police officers, fewer family members are at risk of losing their job and subsequently being deported if they are not living together.   As discussed, analysis of male migration can benefit from looking beyond an economic frame. I’ve argued that an emotional reading of their remittances be viewed as a tangible and direct form of care for loved ones (i.e., money can be used to improve the quality of life for their family back home, as seen with Buddy). Yet, the emotional component of sacrifice and duty associated with moving away from the household remains a complex issue in male experiences of migration. The remainder of this chapter explores this nexus in the case study context.    AS A FATHER Vince has been in Barbados for five years. He is a practicing orthopedic surgeon and is in his final term of medical school. Vince shows me a picture of his 5-year-old son, Aaron, on his mobile phone. For the last three years Aaron, despite being Barbados-born, has lived with his maternal grandparents in St. Vincent. Vince has just returned from Guyana, where he took his son to celebrate Old Year’s with the rest of his family. Such group paternal family visits are rare; with luck, occurring yearly. In a few months, Vince will travel to St. Vincent to ‘collect’ his son for the Easter school break, if his mother agrees. Vince sees Aaron roughly a dozen times a year, for not more than a week each time. After Aaron’s 207      birth in 2010, and the couple’s subsequent split, both parents decided Aaron would live with his grandparents, in order for the parents to pursue their separate career ambitions. Vince stayed in Barbados, while Aaron’s mother, a nurse, relocated to the Bahamas. As the Bahamas is part of CARICOM, but not the common market (CSME), dependents are not automatically granted entry. In the case of Vince, his medical scholarship requires that he remain in Barbados and his demanding schedule means that he would be unable to care for Aaron by himself, as his entire family is ‘back home’ in Guyana.  ‘I know I’m a father, but it’s hard to feel like a father. When I’m with him [Aaron], I feel like his dad…but that’s for only a short time. The rest of the time, it’s work, work, work. My life is just: hospital ward, operating room, school, back to the hospital…It’s lonely and tiring…I’m always exhausted…I feel like I don’t get a chance to catch my breath... And when I do, he’s already a year older. You can’t even ask me what he enjoys, I’d have to ask his grandparents. I know I’m missing out. But hopefully he understands when he’s older…that all this sacrifice is for him – so he can have a good life, so that nobody can tell him nothing, that he can be proud of his dad, and what his dad has made for him.’ 5 January 2016  Vince was raised in a town on the outskirts of Georgetown, the youngest of nine siblings. He recalls his strict upbringing, including the necessity to be high achieving. Vince says the pressure to excel academically was impressed by his father, who remained the disciplinarian over all his siblings. He won a competitive government scholarship for medical school, motivated by the desire to please his father. Vince hopes to impress upon his son the importance of education, like his father did with him. Vince equates his own career fulfillment as a part of being a positive role model for his son. He believes his own dedication to education and career will inspire Aaron to do the same. Vince sees the physical distance, and the resultant emotional distance, from his son as a sacrifice towards the betterment of Aaron’s future. Vince’s sacrifice of physical and emotional closeness to his son will be redeemed as Aaron achieves and attains in his own right. In the case of Vince, while his migration fulfills his role as provider and positive role-model for his son, it raises very personal questions of adequacy and closeness as a parent and as a father.   Continuity of wellbeing and welfare of the family becomes paramount to male migrants in their narratives. Participants (even those unmarried or without children) emphasised the desire and intent to purchase valued goods that could be bequeathed to children and family members upon their death. As Ramsaran and Lewis note, Indo Guyanese men are viewed as ‘overly thrifty, sacrificing even their own health in the pursuit of land, other property, 208      or economic enterprise’ (2018:111). Land, property, and an economic enterprise (like a shop) are highly valued within the community, as they can be willed and gifted to family members. Such emotional drivers are not unique to Indo Guyanese. Prothmann observed of the Pikine men in Senegal, ‘The value of a man stands and falls with his ability to build a house and the quality of life which he can provide through material support for his wife, his children, his parents, and his in-laws’ (2017:99). Participants share an almost identical understanding of the breadth and extent of Indo Guyanese men’s care and responsibility, which includes the literal building of a house. In many cases, this involved the upgrading of an existing home from a traditional, cheaper structure made of wood, to a modern cement dwelling. All participants spoke of their financial contribution (or intent) to purchase land in Guyana and build a home for their parents and themselves. In some cases, participants also contributed to building homes for siblings to start their own families – gifted after the sibling’s wedding, or after the birth of a child (as described in Kapoor’s narrative with his remittances financing two homes in Guyana, one for his parents and the other as a wedding gift for his younger brother). Ensuring that family and loved ones are cared for intergenerationally, while provisions are ensured for future generations, therefore becomes a priority.   This deferment of happiness and self-satisfaction, done to ensure the continuity of the family unit for male Indo Caribbean migrants, adds to the complexity of the Intimate Cultural Love Power framework put forth by Baldwin and Mortley (2016). They assert that pivoting discourse away from economic incentives provides a space for a holistic approach to understanding Caribbean female migration. Specifically, they suggest that ‘love and the power love has are drivers that influence women’s migration decisions, and by framing migration as a method women use to care for those they love, as well as a method of self-care’ better encapsulates the motives and experiences of female Caribbean migrants (2016:166). I argue that framing migration as a method men use to care for those they love, better captures the motives and experiences of Indo Guyanese male migrants. Vince expresses and shows love by his willingness to work to the point of exhaustion, sacrificing close personal relationships, even with his son, in order to ‘ensure and build’ a future for Aaron. The detachment and estrangement Vince experiences due to his separation from Aaron are offset by his understanding of his duties and responsibility as a father. This rationalization shows how he channels migration as an act of love, and a means to provide care.  209      ‘VULNERABILITY OF THE PATRIARCHY’  VIOLENCE IN THE INDO GUYANESE MIGRANT COMMUNITY This section of the chapter explores what University of Guyana sociologist Rishee Thakur calls the ‘vulnerability of the patriarchy’ (Ramsaran and Lewis, 2018:114). It unpacks behaviours and sentiments surrounding alcohol-related domestic violence and suicide amongst the Indo Guyanese migrant community in Barbados. I do not justify or condone Indo Guyanese men’s actions or involvement with alcoholism, domestic violence, and suicide, rather I use this section to attempt to comprehend and make sense of the prevalence of these behaviors. In this research, I position violence, alcohol-related domestic violence and suicide (as suicide is defined as a self-inflicted form of violence) as an extreme expression of emotions such as anger and fear. In this section, I analyse the ways these forms of violence impact  Indo Guyanese migrant communities and the varying ways these actions intersect with participant’s understanding of care and love.    ALCOHOL RELATED DOMESTIC VIOLENCE Since the period of indenture (1838-1917), ‘domestic violence, in particular alcohol-related domestic violence, has plagued the Indo Caribbean community’ (Kanhai, 2012:7). While the indentured system enabled the arrival of Indian women to the region, women were recruited in a ratio of 1:4 men, as planters preferred a ‘young, male labour force’ (Roopnarine, 2015:176). During this time, many women who left India ‘were expressly seeking their freedom’ (Youssef, 2011:123). The single women recruited often constituted the socially invisible in the Indian subcontinent (i.e., widows, prostitutes, runaways). The lure of indentureship offered them an escape from an inevitable lifetime of disenfranchisement (Youssef, 2011:123; Bahadur, 2013). Indenture contracts allowed women economic and social agency (for many women, this meant that for the first time in their lives they became wage-earners, likewise due to their limited numbers, women were able to exercise freedom in choosing partners) (Klein, 2018:5). Nevertheless, once on the plantations, these women became targets of rampant sexual and physical violence both in the home and workplace (Kanhai, 2011; 2012:7; Bahadur, 2013; Reddock, 2016; Singh, 2020).   Indentured life was underlined by violence and physical brutality (Bahadur, 2013; Singh, 2020). Workers were frequently disfigured in the fields by machinery and tools, subject to harsh beatings and discipline from overseers (Angrosino, 2003:108; Kennedy, 2016; 210      Kempadoo, 2017), succumbing to tropical disease and overwork, while murders, suicide, and violent attacks (machete hackings) were commonplace (Bahadur, 2013; Rocklin, 2019; Singh, 2020). Indentured women were ‘given’ to indentured men in domestic arrangements by British overseers, in cases to reward them for their work, but also as an attempt to ease the maladies of men who displayed violence towards others in the plantations (Bahadur, 2013). Violence was ‘a major plank’ indentured men used in the process of ‘Indian cultural reconstruction’ to reestablish the family unit once contracts ended (Youssef, 2011:123). Indo Guyanese males used violence to limit and control women’s behavior, relegating them back into the domestic sphere and into the conscribed roles of mother and wives (Mohammed, 2004; Youssef, 2011; Klein, 2018).  Cannabis indica (ganja) was brought to the Caribbean by East Indians and used by the indentured to ‘make bearable the harsh conditions on plantations’ (Angrosino, 2003; Bahadur, 2013:203). Beyond its place in Hindu spirituality, ganja was used by indentured to form social connections, and ‘redefine loyalties and networks of cooperation…that had been disrupted by the “crossing of the dark water” ’(Angrosino, 2003:112-113). The use of ganja was initially tolerated by plantation overseers as an ‘enhancer’ and ‘motivator’ of indenture labor, however colonial authorities adopted a prohibitionist stance once it became apparent that indentured laborers earned money outside of their official contracts by cultivating and selling the product (Angrosino, 2003:102-108). Crippling fines and heavy taxes were placed on growing and selling marijuana, as rum (produced from sugar cultivation on the plantations) was promoted as the local replacement. Plantation owners sold rum to indentured workers in order to recirculate wages back into the plantation (Angrosino, 2003:107). Rum was dispensed to the indentured as medicine, included in their daily food rations, and sold on location for workers to purchase through the creation of ‘rum shops’ (Angrosino, 2003). Rum became the ‘narcotic of choice’ for indentured workers (Angrosino, 2003:113). They attached the spiritual-social connections of ganja to rum, using it to ‘reaffirm bonds of the group’ (across the Caribbean in Kali-Ma worship, rum remains a commonly used offering to deities, see Angrosino, 2003:113-115). As an extension, rum shops would come to symbolise this space of male socialising, bonding, and community (Sidnell, 2000, 2003a, 2003b). Despite colonial inquiries which noted alcohol use and the increase of violence amongst the Caribbean indentured workers, promotion of rum continued unabated as the economic returns for planters outweighed 211      the social costs, and as long as violence remained within the indentured community (Angrosino, 2003:108-109).   Alcohol related domestic violence in the Anglophone Caribbean remains a pressing issue today, including the phenomenon of murder-suicide in Guyana and Trinidad, primarily when men kill their partners or spouses, sometimes their children, and then die by suicide (Kanhai, 2011; Bahadur, 2013; Reddock, 2016:275; Despot, 2016). As Bahadur argues, ‘…it was the plantation, as an institution built on the backs of a whipped workforce, that created “a culture of violence” in Guyana, and the country’s most basic social institutions, marriage and the family, still bear the scars’ (2013:204-205). Although the subject remains generally under-researched in Guyana (Bahadur, 2013:205), intimate partner violence (IPV) dominates analysis, while the influence of domestic violence on the family remains a less-explored topic (Peake and Trotz, 1999; Trotz, 2003, 2004; Reddock 2004, 2016; Kanhai, 2011; Hosein and Outar, 2016).   Notable efforts in Guyana have been made by organisations such as Red Thread Women’s Development Programme which contribute to academic literature and national support efforts for victims of violence. In the Indo Guyanese diaspora, IPV, domestic violence and murder-suicides are noted (Baboolal, 2016; Despot, 2016), and grass-roots organizations have been created to combat these forms of violence in these communities (NGOs like Jahajee Sisters, Boat Sisters, was founded in response to the gender-based oppression of women in the Indo Caribbean diaspora in NY). However, the impact of violence among the Indo Guyanese migrant community within the Caribbean remain notably absent from the literature (and differing forms of violence, as Halstead’s 2018 research considers the concept of ‘power’ and the intersections of migration, structural, and physical violence in Guyana).   This section analyses how alcohol and domestic violence shapes Indo Guyanese migrants understanding of care and their interpretation of sacrifice and duty to loved ones. The following narrative from Steven illustrates these intersections, as he discusses how physical violence in his childhood home dictates his current experience as a migrant in Barbados. This excerpt was expressed over various meetings with Steven over the duration of the fieldwork. Notable quotes were lifted from longer conversations related to his personal stories:    212      ‘Meh daddy always drink bad. Since [I was] small, he come home and ready fuh act the fool, meh muddah always send we [siblings] next-door.’ 4 October 2015  ‘One night, he come home, high [heavily intoxicated] as ever. He lass he job. He cuss down the house, and he start pun meh muddah… But the way he beatin she… I think she woulda dead. The man on top of she, cuffing and kicking like he catch demon [The man is on top of her, punching and kicking her like he’s possessed by a demon]… I always scared meh faddah, since young. I never think to play big with he... I don’t know what come over me… I catch he by he neck and pelt he across the room one-time. He shock. Fuh tell you deh truth, I shock, too… But since den, he nah beat she. He does still drink, but he nah beat she.’ 4 October 2015  ‘He my faddah, no matter how much I hate he ways. I must show he respect. I de man son…Meh muddah nah gone lef he, das her husband.’ ‘[He is my father, no matter how much I hate his ways. I must show him respect. I am the man’s son…My mother won’t leave him, that’s her husband]’ 25 September 2016  ‘All meh sista and brudda dem leff the house as soon as they able. But I stay back fuh mi muddah. I only lef because things hard in Guyana… But it catch in my mind everyday…what gon’ happen if he drink and lose he’self again?…No one there to stop him.’ 17 January 2016  Steven explains that after his sister got married and his brother relocated to Georgetown to work at an uncle’s jewellery shop, his father was soon out of work.  During this time, his father’s drinking intensified, and belligerent behavior worsened. This hastened Steven’s decision to find work on Barbados, despite his irregular status, where he used his network to find work at a bar operated by a Guyanese owner. Steven insists that his remittances ease a financial strain on the household yet contributes to his own emotional strain, as he remains perpetually concerned about the wellbeing of his parents. Steven recognises that while he and his brother contribute to the financial care of the family, the inability of his father to do the same exacerbates his drinking. Furthermore, they cannot stop him from spending the remittances on alcohol, ‘My faddah done drink-out all the money we send back. Cussing how he pickney mind he like he wan invalid’. Steven’s father refers to himself as an invalid because his children support him; these are the exceptions to when a man can accept care from others, when he is elderly or critically ill (suffers a stroke, becomes disabled, etc.). Steven’s father bemoans that although able-bodied, he relies on money from his children, increasing his drinking.  213      Nonetheless, Steven, who works in a rum shop, reasons that moderate alcohol consumption prevents violence in the home, ‘it keep he busy, and happy. He outta de house, so he na keep fight [argue] with Ma’ (similar sentiments are expressed in Sidnell’s 2003 research). Comparable views were voiced by several respondents regarding their understanding that moderate alcohol consumption prevented domestic violence. Based on Steven’s dialogue, it is possible to piece together the complex family relationship he navigates and intergenerational trauma he endures. Steven displays his love and care for both his parents, through his role as a son. Steven and his siblings endured regular and severe beatings from their father as children. Although Steven and his brother could physically overpower their father in their late teens, they never used bodily force against him (barring the one-time Steven feared for his mother’s life). For Steven, raising his hand to his parents is inexcusable. He still recalls the shame and embarrassment he felt over two years on, when he intervened and used force against his father, possibly saving his mother’s life. It is not Steven’s place to make or influence decisions between his parents, thus his parent’s union remains, at his mother’s behest, who does not wish to ‘tear the family’.   The normalization of IPV has resulted in community stigma surrounding divorce in the Indo Guyanese community with women expected to endure their situation and ‘keep loyal’ to their husband, making divorce an act of disloyalty. This corroborates country data from 2018, whereby ‘half of all women who experienced IPV in Guyana never sought help’ (UN Women Guyana, 2018:9). Steven acknowledges his respect for his father, knowing his place in the family hierarchy. When recalling instances of violence, Steven does not express anger or disdain towards his father, he views his father’s actions as a lack of understanding and patience. Likewise, Steven stresses his duty to provide unconditional care for his father in response to these difficult times:   ‘Everyone mek mistake. But yuh parents raise yuh from small…feed yuh when dem-self [they, themselves] starve…Yuh must sacrifice and tek care when yuh time come, nah turn yuh back and abandon ‘em, yeh.’  25 September 2015   Instead of placing blame on his father, Steven stresses his obligation to care, as tied to his parents’ sacrifice and care of him when he was a child. At 24 years old, unmarried with no children, Steven’s familial responsibility is solely focused on his parents and siblings. Rooted in his understanding of Grihastha, Steven believes it is his duty to care for his family by managing his father’s behavior and shielding his father from inflicting violence on his 214      family members. Steven is strained by this expectation. He regularly expresses anxiety and nervousness, worrying that while he is in Barbados, his father’s excessive drinking will likely result in the escalation of violence in the family home in Guyana. Steven indicates that since moving to Barbados less than a year ago, he finds it difficult to sleep and has undergone significant weight and hair-loss, due to his stress over his family situation ‘back home’22. As a son, Steven’s responsibility goes beyond the financial care of the family. His responsibility encompasses the emotional and physical wellbeing of his family, to the detriment of his own. Because Steven and Vince live alone, and without roommates or housemates (Steven stays in a room attached to the back of the rum shop he works in, and Vince rents a house), they largely face into these emotions alone. As Vince says in a conversation, ‘It’s not easy to make friends here’ (3 March 2016). He insists there is no support system close-by to rely on, at least none that he feels comfortable sharing his feelings about Aaron with. Likewise, Steven insists he doesn’t want to ‘bother’ people with his ‘problems’. Both Vince and Steven decide that it is better not to discuss their issues with others, while leading largely solitary social lives.         As Locke has stated, ‘what is understood as “care” (just as what is understood by “love”) is not only strongly gendered but is also gendered in ways that are culturally and historically specific’ (2017:281). In the Indo Guyanese context, as explored through the philosophical understanding of Grihastha, expectations of male care and love are viewed as a primarily (but not entirely) economic. The gendered way love and care are interpreted reflects differences in what Indo Guyanese men and women consider to be acceptable, socially constructed forms of love/ing and care/ing, and the negotiation of these acts. For example, married female participants often voiced their willingness to remain passive towards certain ‘bad’ behaviors (drinking and infidelity) commonly associated with Indo Guyanese men, once financial needs of the household have been met. Although female participants equate ensuring financial stability with male acts of love and care, they speak of men’s cheating, drinking, and violence towards them as ‘unfortunate situations’ that women may find themselves in. As participant, Sonya, speaks on the reality of her female cousin, Anita:  ‘Look, she nah say she like it, but de man don’t beat she, and he always make sure dem kids have schoolbooks, uniform. The house always have food, them bills always pay, she [immigration] papers always fix, the man does send money fuh she  22 Throughout the duration of the fieldwork, Steven has noticeably missing patches of hair from his head, has dark circles under his sunken eyes, and is visibly underweight for his height. 215      parents back home… And yes, they say he get a Bajan woman, and he does drink, but I tell you, he never touch she, or cuss she, and she don’t have to slave outside an’ look fuh work.’ 2 March 2016  As Sonya’s reasoning highlights, cheating and drinking are not necessarily viewed as acts of uncaring or unloving behavior. Rather, they are tolerated by Anita, as her husband ensures more important acts of care and love (household finances, immigration status, and welfare of her children and parents) are met. This compromise is bolstered heavily by the lack of violence inflicted on Anita and the children. Indeed, it is the absence of violence in the home that is directly viewed by both Sonya and Anita as an act of care and love. This speaks directly to the commonplace of IPV, and violence towards women in the Indo Caribbean community.   VIGNETTE: TULSI ‘I tell he I leavin’ he. He gan’ fetch electric cord and strangle [me], till I faint away - seven months pregnant, meh belly big so-so,” Tulsi holds her hands out around her midsection, to mimic the size of a pregnant belly. “Grab meh hair and drag me out di house. Throw cold water pun me and start lash me with wild cane all over. All pun me head, leg, back. Watch di mark meh still have.’ She lets loose her bun and parts her hair back from the right side of her head. When she separates the hair, a deep flesh-toned horizontal scar is revealed, where no hair has regrown. “My skin buss-up with sore all over. Put meh out de house, tell me if I behave like stray dag [dog], that don’t have home, he mussa treat me like one…I never open meh mouth bout leaving again. But when all meh children reach age, I gan… I lef dat man…Meh get one friend, she nephew work mine in de bush. I owe meh life to dat boy, he get me out, tek me ah Suriname.’ 13 November 2015  Over 20 years ago, when she was in her early 20s, Tulsi fled Guyana, leaving behind her three young children (aged seven, four, and three at the time). Married at age 16, she was 13 years younger than her husband, a widower. Her husband was an alcoholic and a gambler, and Tulsi was subjected to regular physical and emotional abuse. According to Tulsi, because of her husband’s drinking and gambling, household finances were always strained. As the years went on, with family debt mounting, the beatings became more intense, and she often feared for her life. The decision not to leave her children is what kept her in the marriage for years. Tulsi made the painful decision to leave Guyana, even though she did not have the resources to take her children with her. With the help of friends and her sister, she was able to exit Guyana before her husband could stop her. She 216      spent the first two years in Suriname, working in the ‘bush’, the heavily forested interior of the country. Using her sister’s passport, she entered Barbados, after hearing that her husband was looking for her in Suriname. Through Guyanese friends that previously migrated, she was able to find work and places to live on the island. She still hears threats that her husband’s family are looking for her.   Throughout the years, Tulsi has been able to piece together a life which she is satisfied with. She attributes the high standard of living in Barbados to an improved quality of life she would most likely be unable to reproduce elsewhere in the Caribbean. She is content to stay in Barbados and has no immediate intention of relocating, barring forced removal. As Uekusa and Lee stress of migrants who use this ‘strategic invisibilization’, ‘some…decide to invisibilize themselves for specific reasons in specific contexts’ (2018:10). For Tulsi, not being identified by Bajan immigration officers, is potentially a matter of life and death. While her status makes her vulnerable to the Bajan authorities, being undocumented allows her a veil of invisibility, which she equates to safety. To ensure her continued invisibility, she remains discreet and highly limited in her everyday life in Barbados. Her voluntary irregularity on the island is contingent on her subsequent social invisibilization; she is rarely out beyond sunset, does not lime publicly, and has a very limited social and support network. She has experienced exploitation from employers, who refused to pay her, subsequently threatening to expose her to immigration officials. However, she claims that ‘years of hard-learned lessons’ has given her wisdom to sense disingenuous people. She has worked as a domestic for her current employer for over seven years. Although the family has offered to sponsor her amnesty application in order to regularise her status, Tulsi refuses.   Tulsi retains a sense of individuality in her ability to decide and choose her continuing irregularity and invisibility. Migrants ‘may experience exacerbated social vulnerability and remarkable resilience simultaneously’ (Uekusa and Lee 2018:5-6). Tulsi’s reality is representative of this complex and ongoing negotiation of concurrent vulnerability and resilience. While Tulsi was open to share her story with me, she remained adamant that I do not report her husband to authorities (an option I discussed with her). She feared this would expose her to immigration authorities and make her whereabouts known to him and his family members still searching for her.  217      The occurrence of domestic violence has promoted an image of the prototypical Indo Guyanese female and male migrant. All female Bajan respondents spoke of domestic violence as a symptom of Guyanese migration, particularly among the Indian population. One female Bajan respondent expands, ‘Bajans aren’t used to that kind of way. Wife-murders didn’t exist here before dey [Guyanese] started coming. You read in the newspapers so often, “woman murdered by husband”, and each and every time, it’s the Indians.’ This perception is echoed with a female Barbados-based Trinidadian participant, Karol, who states:   ‘It’s their [Indo Guyanese] way ah life; how they does do things, nah. It’s the same in Trinidad. The women stay in de house, mind the children. Now, it’s not all of dem…just the village-type people, yuh? But when yuh know somebody kill dey wife, it’s always happenin’ South-side’. 21 July 2015  The southern area of Trinidad is predominantly Indo Trinidadian populated, so the assumption is that the violence is within the Indo community. By stating, ‘how they do things’, and that Bajans, ‘aren’t used to that kind of way’, is to suggest violence against women is a way of life for Indo Guyanese women, an accepted and unchanging status. This thinking not only suggests permanence and inevitability for Indo Caribbeans, but additionally suggests only Indo Caribbean women are victims and only Indo Caribbean men are perpetrators. The belief that this is a transferable practice stigmatises both male Indo Guyanese as violent aggressors against women, and female Indo Guyanese as complacent in their victimisation (DeShong, 2018). The experience of Tulsi is important to counter these one-dimensional narratives, where Indo Guyanese women not only resist their subjugation, but are able to reclaim a sense of independence and individuality through their migration. Nonetheless, female participants who used migration as a means to exit situations of domestic violence remain limited. Leaving produces its own set of emotional challenges. Tulsi remains burdened by the guilt of leaving her children behind and feels shame for acting ‘selfishly’ by ‘abandoning’ her marriage and children.  In participant narratives, excessive alcohol consumption often goes unchallenged. Similarly, alcohol consumption is excused when it does not lead to domestic violence – despite the reality that alcohol use is considered a ‘statistically significant factor related to IPV’ in Guyana; where ‘40% of women whose current or most recent partners drink alcohol more than once a week reported experiencing physical and/or sexual violence from that partner, compared with only 11% whose partners did not drink’ (UN Women Guyana, 218      2018:39). Alcohol consumption remains entrenched in the Caribbean social landscape, where ‘rum shop culture’ (Bahadur, 2013:203) is normalised to the point that participants view moderate alcohol consumption as a strategy to mitigate domestic violence.   Barring events specifically at places of worship, the presence of alcohol is standard among Guyanese social events, including casual limes, and religious centered events. For example, during the fieldwork, although a Guyanese Pentecostal family did not drink alcohol, they purchased alcohol for their home when the matriarch passed away so those who came to ‘keep wake’ would ‘enjoy themselves’. These scars of alcohol consumption and domestic violence are so prevalent Guyanese participants casually speak of both, citing overt condemnation of the actions only when they perceive the action ‘go too far’ (i.e., results in prolonged hospitalization, murder of the victim, or a murder-suicide). Four female participants openly spoke of violence in their past intimate relationships, and over half of the participants mentioned domestic violence at some point in their life; either as regularly receiving the violence from at least one parent or guardian, or regularly witnessing the violence of a parent or guardian, by another parent or partner. And yet, Tulsi was one of only two female respondents whose migration was a direct result of leaving a domestic abuse situation. The graphic narratives of Steven and Tulsi illustrate how the impacts of violence reach far beyond the confines of the home itself. Violence is part of the way in which migration is connected to discussion of care and love for Indo Guyanese migrants in this study. For Anita and Sonya, the absence of violence in the household is viewed as care and love; for Steven the way he cares is by actively preventing his father from committing acts of violence against other loved ones. The emotional weight of past violence experienced in the family home, for those who live(d) it, continues to powerfully sway Indo Guyanese participant’s migratory journeys.   SUICIDE For almost two decades (2000-2019) Guyana has had one of the highest suicide rates in the world according to the Pan American Health Organization (based on 5-year reports, with yearly updates) (PAHO, 2021a/b). Guyana had the world’s highest suicide rate during the 2014 study, and according to 2017 data, has been ranked second with a rate of 30.33 deaths per 100,000 people. In 2014, the nation had a peak suicide rate of 44.2 per 100,000 people, five times higher than the world average of 11.4 suicides per 100,000 (Groh et al., 219      2018). Despite becoming a point of national concern, Guyana continues to struggle with the epidemic. Young males of Indian descent remain the main victims, with an overall 3.2 male suicides recorded for every 1 female suicide (Edwards, 2016a, 2016b; Groh et al, 2018; Shako, 2020). It was estimated in 2012, that up to 80% of suicides were committed by Indo Guyanese males ‘who lived in rural and farming areas and villages, the sites…on which their near ancestors were indentured’ (Khan, 2021). Regionally, Suriname and Trinidad follow for the second and third highest rates of suicide. In 2018, Suriname was ranked 5th in the world (27.8 deaths per 100,000 people), and Trinidad was ranked 39th in the world (13.0 deaths per 100,000 people) (PAHO, 2021a; 2021b). These nations represent the largest regional concentrations of Indo Caribbeans; and like Guyana, the Indian populations account for the majority of suicides across all countries (Khan, 2021). Paradoxically, the Caribbean region reports the lowest suicide rates globally. Barbados, along with the Bahamas, Jamaica, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are presented in the top 10 nations of the lowest worldwide suicide rates. There is evidence which also suggests Indo Caribbeans of the diaspora (second and third generation in the United Kingdom and New York City area) have noticeably higher rates of suicide than their Afro Caribbean counterparts, as well as their white, black, and Latino peers (Sandy, 2014).  Despite the global and regional awareness raised following these reported statistics (and the resultant national campaigns working towards suicide prevention), contextualising this complex occurrence outside of mental health fields remains sparse. As of 2018, there remained only one psychiatric hospital in country, with two out-patient mental health facilities, and monthly satellite clinics offered in ten locations (Groh et al., 2018:470). While attempts are being made to better understand this multi layered phenomenon, to date, research has taken primarily a descriptive approach, making a retrospective analysis of completed suicides (see Shaw et al., 2022; Harry et al., 2016), or equating higher suicide rates among the Indo community as directly related to their cultural practices (see Graafsma et al.; 2006; and Edwards, 2016a, 2016b). While the lack of psychologists and mental health professionals in Guyana contributes to the problem, the taboo surrounding mental illness in the Caribbean and the stigma attached to an individual and a family suffering from mental illness, or psychosis, continues to be met with shame and embarrassment (Groh et al., 2018).   220      This section of the chapter addresses the question raised by Brown et al. (2017:7) and asks ‘whether the impact of ethnicity on depression/suicidal behaviour is grounded in deep cultural customs or perhaps social disparities woven into ethnic status’ in Guyana? Edwards makes the argument that because Indo Guyanese ‘both marry at a relatively younger age and lack the cultural values which trivialize sexual and marital infidelity’, they have high rates of suicide (2016a:10-11). He claims that early marriage and the inability of Indo Guyanese to cope with sexual infidelity are cultural traits which inevitably lead to increased suicide rates (Edwards, 2016a:10-11). He further states about Afro Guyanese, ‘members of this groups [sic] would be more opened to have loose sexual relationships and therefore reacts differently when cheated upon by their partners’ (Edwards, 2016a:10-11). Edwards concludes that these social and cultural factors result in the high rate of suicide among Indo Guyanese (2016a, 2016b).   Rather than following the reductionist reasoning that pervades the literature like (Edwards, 2016 and Graafsma et al., 2006) which uses statistical data to emphasise ‘ethno-cultural difference’, I emphasize that there are multiple compounding factors including: historical, geographical, religious, socioeconomic, and emotional components, which have worked together to result in the higher rates of Indo Guyanese suicide. In this section, I unpack how an emotional geographical reading presents a holistic alternative in approaching suicide discourse in the Indo Guyanese migrant context. This shows the value of taking an interdisciplinary approach to emotional geography analysis. The section provides evidence of how being a migrant and a survivor of familial suicide adds to the complexity of the chapter’s broader ambition to add depth to our understanding of the intersections of emotions and masculinity in the Indo Guyanese migrant context.  Suicide among Indians during the period of indentureship was well documented, across the colonies (Fiji, Mauritius, Natal, West Indies) (Lal, 1985; Roopnarine, 2003; DuBois, 2015; Boedjarath, 2017). The highest recorded rates were in Fiji and Mauritius, the latter now memorializing their infamous ‘Suicide Hill’, the location where indentured completed the act (DuBois, 2015; Boedjarath, 2017). Clandestine methods of ‘luring’ indentured laborers were regularly used to supplement voluntary participation. This included kidnapping, drugging, beating, and misrepresenting the service and the contract, as means to ensure ships bound for the colonies were carrying an adequate number of laborers (Ramsarran, 2008; Roopnarine, 2014, 2015, 2018; Rocklin, 2019). Confined to the 221      plantations and facing similar living conditions as the slaves before them, ‘the threatened absence of the family in the lives of the deeply depressed young individuals, together with all the disorganization that emigration and indenture caused, probably aggravated the sense of anomie and alienation, both conducive to suicide’ (Boedjarath, 2017:126; Roopnarine, 2018). Because of the circumstances of their new reality, many indentured laborers died by suicide with the highest rates recorded within the first six months of arrival, throughout the colonies (Chatterjee, 1997; Boedjarath, 2017).   As mentioned many times, the clear majority of Indian indentured laborers to the Caribbean were Hindu (Younger, 2010:76; Chickrie and Khanam, 2017). Indentured interpreted their removal from the sacred land of Hindustan as a loss and rupturing of identity (Vertovec, 2000; Bahadur, 2013; Bass, 2013; Rocklin, 2013, 2015, 2019). Hindustan is the earthly place of the Hindu faith, which represents the spiritual and physical home of gods and goddesses and is viewed as a sacred space at the core of the Hindu faith. For example, Mount Kailash is the home of Lord Shiva, by which the river goddess, Ganga, flows from his head (Bahadur, 2013). According to Vedic Law, suicide is forbidden (Vijayakumar and John, 2018). It is believed the action is an unnatural disruption to the cycle of rebirths, negatively affecting one’s karma and dharma. While there remained ‘allowable suicides’ in ancient India, i.e., the practices of Sati (self-immolation of a widow during her husband’s funeral), and Prayopavesa (fasting to death, usually practiced by the elderly and terminally ill), they remain controversial and socially unacceptable (Vijayakumar and John, 2018). Theologian, Alexander Rocklin, has suggested that ‘ideas about death and the afterlife were being reformulated across the dark water’, and suicide became an option in the imagination of the Hindu indentured, as they may have believed through death, their rebirth would return them to their spiritual homeland23 (2013, 2019:116). In an attempt to escape the ‘context of harsh and violent life on plantations’, according to Rocklin, ‘at least some Hindus may have imagined that…in being reincarnated they would be reborn… in India’ (Rocklin, 2013:9; 2019). Due to frequency of suicide completions during indenture, this reasoning has worked ‘to (re)formulate the afterlife imaginaries of Indians’ in the  23 Due to lack of narratives from the indentured themselves, Rocklin’s assertion is largely based off the few accounts interpreted and retold through a European lens, which suggest this line of thinking. For example, he cites the Trinidadian newspaper, The Port of Spain Gazette (1865) which reported on the hanging of an indentured for the murder of his wife, whereby he stated he ‘was going back to his own country’ as his final words (POSG, July 8, 1865 in Rocklin, 2013:9; 2019:114-118). Rocklin (2019:116) notes the phrase ‘gettum Calcutta-side’ among indentured in Trinidad referencing a ‘return to Calcutta’, suggesting suicide.       222      Caribbean, who are descendant from the indentured population (Rocklin, 2013:9-10; 2019).   In our conversation, Pūjari Rampersad notes that traditional Hindu practice dictates that funeral rites are not performed on those who commit the act (October 2017). Nonetheless, over generations, he asserts that the practice of conducting prayers as a form of final rites on behalf of Hindu family members has become regularised in the Caribbean. While not conducting the Antyesti (which translates to ‘last sacrifice’) of the deceased, Pūjari Rampersad stresses that the pandit performs prayers to comfort the family. He notes that these ritual prayers performed by surviving family members are viewed as dharmic duty, as expressed by Kapoor in his understanding of his obligation to perform his brother’s dead work. By allowing a form of final rites to be observed, what began as reimagining physical rebirth as an attempt to reconciliate the ‘rupturing’ of identity with the migrant indentured, has endured and been remoulded translating to a ‘religious ambivalence’ towards suicide in the perception of Hindu Indo Guyanese (Vijayakumar and John, 2018).  Suicide rates among Indo Guyanese are closely related to the economic position of the community and in particular its dependence on agriculture. As mentioned, due to the enduring legacy tied to their inherited land, the Indo Guyanese population today, remains generally rural, and dominates Guyana’s agricultural and agrarian economy (Rodney, 1981; Hinds, 2011; Richards-Greaves, 2013). Outside of Guyana, farmer suicide has been noted as a global issue. A 2016 report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention notes that from a comparison of 17 states in the U.S., farming, fishing, and forestry held the highest suicide rates, at 84.5 per 100,000 (McIntosh et.al., 2016:643). The report further cites chronic exposure to pesticides as affecting the neurological system towards depressive symptoms, the social isolation of farmers, the sector’s potential for financial losses, and barriers to accessing and unwillingness to seek mental health services, as factors increasing suicide rates (McIntosh et.al., 2016:643-4). While this example reflects issues in the developed world, parallels can be made to the modern-day agrarian crisis in India.  Commonalities among independent small-scale farmers have been identified: they are perpetually in a state of precarious financial security, dependent on a highly competitive economic market, and susceptible to variable environmental factors. Since independence, Guyanese farmers have faced a range of market concerns and setbacks. Farms were nationalised during the ‘radical period’ of the Burnham era (1970-1985) (Brotherson, 223      1989:9), up to the most recent aftermath of UK and EU abandonment of preferential trade agreements with Commonwealth nations in 2007. For Guyana, this marked the end of the Sugar Protocol of the Lome Convention, signed in 1975 (Richardson and Richardson Ngwenya, 2013). Farmers in Guyana remain individually impacted by these far-removed governmental decisions.   They are also increasingly vulnerable to widening effects of a changing climate. This was seen in 2005, as the country experienced flooding which caused $465 million USD in damage, 59% of the Guyana’s GDP at the time (Lakenarine et.al., 2020). 80% of Guyana’s population lives in the low-lying coastal region, which currently rests between 0.5 meter to 1 meter below sea level, with the coastal plain home to almost all of the country’s agricultural production. With the flooding, Guyana’s crops were decimated. These extreme flooding events are expected to recur, as sea level off Guyana rises roughly six times the global average (Guyana National Climate Committee, 2002.).  National data shows the agricultural sector as Guyana’s main area of employment, comprising 17.8% of total jobs in the country as of 2017; when combined with hunting and forestry, accounts for roughly 25% of the working population (Bureau of Statistics: Guyana, 2019). However as one respondent states, ‘can’t nobody mek money and support a family in Guyana by farming, alone’. The economic instability and insecurity of farming in Guyana has prompted seasonal, short and long-term migration of many participants in the research. In turn, as noted earlier, respondents have found a seamless move into the agricultural sector in Barbados (and the wider Caribbean).  According to the Guyana Labour Force Survey (Bureau of Statistics: Guyana, 2019), the unemployment rate in 2017 was 12.2%, where the rural unemployed represented roughly 72.9% of the total unemployed population. Between 48-53% of the employed labour-force work informally, with more men (57.6%) than women (44.8%) in this status. Indo Guyanese men are poised to be particularly affected by fluctuations and instabilities in the job market, as they represent the largest share of the working-age population (39.1%)24, are primarily located in rural areas, and have high representation in the agricultural sector. Their easy access to agricultural products means that ingestion of pesticides and herbicides is the most common method of suicide (Groh, 2018:470; Harry et al., 2016).   24With the African/Black population representing 26.7%, Mixed population 24%, Amerindian 9.7% (Bureau of Statistics: Guyana, 2019). 224      Poverty, compounded by joblessness and lack of viable socioeconomic opportunities (associated factors which heighten both alcohol consumption and instances of domestic and IPV, see Guyana Ministry of Social Protection and UNICEF, 2019:8), is the reality for rural, primarily Indo Guyanese.  These hardships contribute to a feeling of hopelessness, expressed by many of the Indo male participants, most of whom come from rural, modest, secondary-educated backgrounds. University of Guyana sociologist Rishee Thakur developed what he describes as the ‘vulnerability of the patriarchy’ to describe Indo Guyanese masculinities (Ramsaran and Lewis, 2018:114). In this reasoning, the pressure to uphold the roles set out for Indo Guyanese men coupled with the desire to maintain ultimate control, has ultimately disabled this group by making them vulnerable when they fail. This contributes to their inability to cope with any reality that challenges the foundation of their perceived image of ideal ‘manhood’ (whether this threat is understood through unemployment and inability to provide for the family, having a wife leave, having a wife with a job while the man remains jobless, etc.). This ‘vulnerability of the patriarchy’, manifests as Indo Guyanese men perform these variations of violence (domestic violence, alcoholism, and suicide) on loved ones and themselves.  As highlighted in the Guyana Ministry of Social Protection and UNICEF joint report, ‘frustration caused by poverty and lack of employment also contributes at the individual level, along with factors such as…gender…and the levels of isolation felt by the individual contributes to domestic violence including suicide’ (2019:59). Indo Guyanese males remain the main perpetrators of these acts. Out of participants who spoke of IPV and domestic violence, the acts were all carried out by males. Out of participants who spoke of loved ones who have died by suicide, there were 3 males and 1 female. Male participants often expressed their loneliness and anxiety. Anxiety to keep a job, to be paid adequately, to not be ‘caught’ or found-out by immigration and police, to not be deported, etc. Their anxiety contributed to their loneliness. They found it hard to trust anyone, including other migrants, who may report them to immigration (fearing that if there was a ‘falling-out’ between them, the other person would work with police to prevent their own deportation, or to collect the 100BBD bounty). This prevented them from pursuing deep and genuine friendships and relationships with other migrants and locals. Unlike female respondents whose living and working arrangements allowed direct connection to supportive networks, males found it difficult to maintain their connection to family and friends back home. Many male interviewees repeatedly conveyed feelings of despondency. As mentioned previously, ethnic minorities have higher rates of suicide compared to the dominant host 225      population along with migrants, as worry for their family back home, and separation from family also count as risk factors (Forte et al., 2018). Without establishing a sense of belonging or community in Barbados, Indo Guyanese male migrants remain emotionally disconnected and physically distanced from support networks. In their efforts to provide for loved ones, Indo Guyanese male migrants remain in this emotionally vulnerable space.  Those who experience the suicide of a loved one display ‘complicated grief’ and themselves have higher rates of mental disorders (Groh et al., 2018:473). Migrants who have survived the suicide of a loved one face the fall-out of that loss alongside navigating stressors in their everyday lives (Forte et al., 2018). This is exemplified through the narrative of participant Junior. Junior first came to Barbados at the age of 24 and has been residing on the island intermittently over ten years. Junior often speaks of his late cousin, Suraj. Junior and Suraj were born just weeks apart, two houses away from each other. Their mothers are sisters, and the two were raised as siblings. They spent most of their time in the care of their grandmother, who lived in-between the two. Suraj committed suicide in Guyana by ingesting pesticide (same as Kapoor’s brother). Junior finds it difficult to cope with Suraj’s death, even three years after the event,  ‘He small daughter gan fuh play with she friend and find he body in canal…We mek plans, man. He supposed to follow me here…That does trouble me, even up to now…He mussa feel like something missing. Like he [life] nah get meaning. Like he nah get friend - someone who understand he, or care ‘bout he. I know dat feeling…[Junior pauses and takes a breath murmuring to himself before continuing] But he get me. Right? He always get me. And he gan, just so [waves his hand in the air]…I nah shame fuh say how I does still cry…Let me tell yuh, it’s a pain in yuh heart...[long pause] that never ease-up, yuh hear? It feel like it could crush yuh. And yuh living with it. [sucks his teeth cursing to himself] And it one nasty bitch, yeah...Sometimes it get me so vexed, I does curse this here life… But what good that do?’   4 December 2015    Junior cycles through periods of (ir)regularity, depending on whether an employer chooses to sponsor his work permit for the duration of the project. He endures his cousin’s passing removed from his typical social support networks; networks which otherwise provide emotional comfort and solace. Like Kapoor, Junior’s everyday reality is complicated by his legal status. His identity marks him out not only as an ethnic minority, but as an undesirable Guyanese. He struggles to form meaningful and lasting connections with other migrants and locals, often remaining socially isolated. Similar to Kapoor, he suffers internally from survivor’s guilt directly linked to his migration to Barbados, asserting that if he were in 226      Guyana, or if Suraj had joined him in Barbados sooner, Suraj would not have died by suicide. In his narrative, Junior expresses the crushing emotional weight he carries, periodically causing him to view his life and time in Barbados as a ‘curse’; his loss of Suraj is magnified by the loneliness and emptiness he experiences on the island, yet he remains for the opportunities to provide and care for his loved ones back home. This echoes the ‘fundamental ungluing’ Crocker describes in her 2015 research. As Crocker notes, emotional hardship and emotional stress are compounded by the socioeconomic disparities faced by migrants (2015). Indo Guyanese male participants particularly expressed the hardships faced in their daily migrant lives, describing how this led to feelings of hopelessness, loneliness, and anxiety. However, as stated in the introduction, the economic reality in Guyana is changing rapidly due to oil production. Further research is needed to understand how this sector will impact rural lives regarding job opportunities.  Picture 8.1. Junior (left) shares the last picture he took with his cousin, Suraj (right), roughly a year before Suraj’s suicide  Source: Photo shared with me during the fieldwork; verbal consent given by Junior to use photo in this thesis.  Photo taken: 2012; shared during the fieldwork: 2 March 2016 227      With the exception of one (Charlie, who is elderly and moved to the island as a child), all Indo Guyanese male participants cited the need to be ‘productive’, ‘achieve’, and ‘have purpose’ as drivers for their migration. Male participants have indicated the duality of achievement. On the one hand, establishing their own family is a marker of success; a goal single-male migrants work towards. Once attained, wives and children become the physical manifestation of the perpetual ‘responsibility’ male migrants are tasked with providing for. In times of hardship, however, family is not viewed as a responsibility, but rather a burden. Likewise, men who are unable to fulfill their role as provider, view themselves as the burden who are ‘bringing shame’ to themselves and the family. Male participants frequently speak of their shame, and embarrassment of not being able to ensure the wellbeing of their family. Their frustration is emasculating, leaving male participants to question their use to the family, often using the word ‘worthless’ to describe how they view themselves. Brown et al., observe that within the Indian mindset, suicide is ‘often glorified as courageous and a means to avoid shame and disgrace’ (2017:7). This is reiterated as respondent, Bones, plainly states when in conversation regarding his ten-year irregular status and the risk of being caught and deported from Barbados, ‘If meh get deport, a few weeks, few months - ah coming back… Meh na’ get no use if meh na’ able provide fa family [I have no use if I’m not able to provide for my family]. Better I lay down an’ dead.’ In Bones’s view, his worth and value are directly linked to his ability to provide and care for his family. Bones will risk the threat of repeated deportations and face possible criminal charges in Barbados, in order to provide for his loved ones. To him, death is better than being ‘worthless’ or being perceived as a burden to the family. This view is substantiated in Ramsaran and Lewis’s research, where male Indo Caribbean participants view their self-worth in relation to the family (2018:105). The risk of being ‘without papers’ in the country, but having the potential for work, outweighs the alternative of being in Guyana, unemployed, and in Bones’ understanding, shameful and ultimately worthless to his family.   In Guyana, a country grappling with the devastation of suicide, the critical importance of post crisis care remain absent, as preventative strategies are prioritised (Groh et al., 2018:473). An area for future research is to understand how these links between suicide and suicide ideation are expressed across Guyanese migrant communities. Forte et al., describe migrants and ethnic minorities as having higher rates of suicide completion as compared to host populations (2018). Migrant worry for their family back home, and separation from family are counted as risk factors (Forte et al., 2018). In their efforts to 228      provide for loved ones, it is questionable if and in what ways male migrants remain vulnerable to heightened risk of suicide ideation. The instances of Junior and Kapoor express the hardships of surviving the death of a loved one and juggling the emotional fallout of that loss. However, further research is needed to document and unpack the relationship of suicide in the Guyanese migrant and regional Caribbean context.   While the first section of this chapter was largely used to discuss the self-reflections of male participants in their understanding of their migration journeys, I use the remainder of this chapter to discuss gendered relationships between Indo Guyanese migrants. The following section addresses the shifting nature of gender roles within the migrant community. I assess how gender relations between Indo Guyanese male and female participants is impacted by these shifts in gender roles.       (RE)NEGOTIATING GENDER RELATIONS AND GENDER ROLES POLITICS OF LIMING IN A RUM SHOP In both popular and academic accounts, male migration is often related to economic elements and treats men primarily as ‘breadwinners’ (McKay, 2011; Lam and Yeoh, 2018a, 2018b). Maintaining these roles in the Caribbean context has become a source of conflict as women enter the formal workforce and assert themselves as primary earners, challenging patriarchal trends (Lewis, 2007:13). This is particularly significant in the Indo communities (Roopnarine, 2016; Ramsaran and Lewis, 2018). Ramsaran and Lewis have noted in their research Indo Caribbean men’s reluctance, but growing recognition, that Indo women are pursing higher education and careers to rival their male counterparts (2018:128-131). Male participants recognise and accept the inevitability of females entering the work force, and actively encourage female family members to seek various forms of employment and education. One male respondent with a primary school education was very proud to tell me that both of his daughters were well educated and had ‘good-good’ jobs, one as a teacher, and the other working in Georgetown’s main post-office. The reality, however, is that many of these roles are an extension of women’s domestic capacity. Nonetheless, while female respondents were often settled in female dominated positions like domestic cleaners, and cooks, they displayed flexibility in taking roles more associated with males (working in agricultural fields, for example), particularly during their first arrival to the island and periods of no work. As mentioned, this was unlike male respondents, who were 229      less likely to occupy female dominated positions. As a growing number of Indo Guyanese women continue their educational and professional pursuits, there is a common understanding among participants that women cannot be relegated to the house. However, this shift has been a source of conflict for some male participants, as they have expressed discomfort with the expanding social-public presence of women.  The work of Mohammed (1998, 2004), Reddock (2014a), Hosein and Outar (2012, 2016), Roopnarine, L. (2016), and Hosein (2019), detail Indo Caribbean male attitudes and behaviors regarding assumed control and guardianship over Indo Caribbean female bodies. In the work done by Ramsaran and Lewis, Indo Caribbean men view females as ‘the embodiment of Indian culture’, and the assumed control over female bodies is rationalised by men as safeguarding and protecting tradition (2018:104). Safeguarding ‘the embodiment of Indian culture’ therefore not only has patriarchal connotations, but also racialized connotations, which speaks to the desire of Indo men to physically keep Indo women separated and apart from Afro creole practices and bodies. Ramsaran and Lewis attribute this desire to maintain guardianship over Indo female bodies as a result of a competitive and comparative view Indo Guyanese men have with their Afro Guyanese counterparts (2018:104;116). The preoccupation Indo Guyanese men have with comparisons to Afro Caribbean men primarily relate to their competition over female partners and spouses, and ideas of what makes a desirable spouse or partner (Mohamed, 2018:104-106).   Patricia Mohamed has written extensively on how this view of competition and Indo Caribbean male insecurity was borne through the gender disparity during indenture, where 1 woman was enlisted for every 4 men. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, due to their limited numbers, women initially had a level of sexual freedom in the Caribbean, previously unknown to them in India; the ability to have multiple partners without stigma, the freedom to leave or end a union, etc. (Mohamed, 2018). This reasoning has been transferred through migration from Guyana to Barbados. Guyanese male respondents regularly expressed concern over what they view as the vulnerability of female Indo Guyanese migrants. Participants indicated that an unaccompanied female migrant without a male relation on the island, may ‘tek Bajan man’, and further made it a point to reveal which Indo Guyanese women they knew ‘get Bajan man’. From the male perspective, Indo female bodies are in need of guarding and protecting. In the absence of a male Indo Guyanese relation, she is vulnerable, and more likely open to finding an Afro Bajan man 230      to fulfil this role of guardian and protector. In many Indo male respondents’ view, an Indo woman will choose a Bajan or Afro partner either in the absence of a suitable Indo Caribbean partner, or after her negative experience (IPV, alcoholism, or infidelity) with a previous Indo partner. Hence, Indo women are more likely to be stigmatized for choosing an Afro partner by the Indo community. This standard is not the same for Indo Guyanese men, who can be expected to be in unions or domestic partnerships with females of varying nationalities and ethnicities (Ramsaran and Lewis, 2018:104-105).     In the case of the Indo Guyanese community in Barbados, migrant women are held to moral standards defined by their male counterparts. Male participants expressed their expectations of Indo female migrants: moral standards that can promote national ties and emphasise their ethnic allegiances. Women are expected to uphold ‘customary’ Indo Guyanese values, beliefs and practices, which should guide her behavior in Barbados. Women are viewed as the curators of religious spirituality, gatekeepers of tradition, and guardians of ethnic morality (Ramsaran and Lewis, 2018). They are also burdened with the expectation of a socially restrictive lifestyle that ensures limited visibility in the public space, and as mentioned, continuation of domestic and child-rearing duties (Kanhai, 2011,2013).   These issues discussed with Indo Guyanese females regarding changing gendered norms and generational expectations are comparable to the research of Nicola Constable with Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong (2007, 2014). As Filipina migrants have transitioned into breadwinners, they still face the complexity of managing their gendered role in the domestic sphere as mothers, wives, and daughters (Constable, 2014). Constable’s research shows that Filipinas face bias from the community back home due to their migration; women who migrate are often disparaged as selfish who abandon their families for their own desires (2007, 2014). Likewise, now that female emigration has eclipsed male emigration in the Philippines, there is the growing concern about the erosion the family unit and fear for what is believed, an eventual collapse of the nation-state (2007, 2014). Despite the challenges Filipinas face, they continue to migrate, with the hope to eventually fulfill the expectation to be ‘good women’, being both a provider and a good wife, a good mother, or a good daughter. In the following section, similar challenges and views are discussed in relation to the Indo Guyanese gendered migration experiences, through the narratives of participants Lalita, Ram, and Buddy.  231      Through their migration to Barbados, some female Indo Guyanese participants have transitioned from financial contributors to breadwinners for their families in Guyana. As contributors, they may have been previously farming and selling produce, providing meals, baking, tailoring, and providing other services from their home. This does not take into account the many informal jobs taken-on as children for both female and male participants. Both groups spoke of earning when younger, but in an unofficial and sporadic capacity (although their contributions assisted with household finances), roughly commencing between ages 14-16 (a common timeframe among participants to end school). But now, as breadwinners, or sole earners, these female participants have expressed that their families have come to rely on and expect their income.     In some cases, this new financial freedom in Barbados has resulted in Indo Guyanese females redefining social expectations set by their male counterparts and previous generations. This redefinition often results in gendered and generational conflicts between the groups. Men’s redefined expectations will allow women to make a financial contribution to the household but will still seek to uphold more ‘traditional’ expectations, for instance limiting her social and recreational visibility in gendered spaces like the rum shop (Chevannes 2001; Ramsaran and Lewis, 2018).   In Guyana, rum shops are considered a male-dominated public space, and are synonymous with gaffing and liming (Sidnell, 2003a, 2003b). Revisiting the gaff between me and Veronica (on pg.79), when I told her that a Guyanese-owned rum shop serves fish from Guyana, she replies, ‘Rum shop? how you know dem thing?’ Her question (albeit, jokingly) implied that as another female, particularly of Indo Guyanese heritage, I should not be acquainted with or regular rum shops. Veronica herself is ignorant about what is served in rum shops, because she does not regular them. When she enquired about the fish at the rum shop, she sent her husband, as opposed to going herself, or even joining him. While not completely unheard of, it is uncommon to find Indo Guyanese females sharing this space either independently, or in pairs or groups (the exception being barmaids and female family members that operate the shop) (Sidnell, 2003b). Female participants who provide for their families back home, however, feel they have gained a right to access these traditionally male spaces. Respondent Lalita is aged 36 and has been in Barbados intermittently over 10 years. She explains (while she and I are being closely and begrudgingly watched by a nearby table of men at an Indo Guyanese owned rum shop): 232       ‘Let dem keep watch! These coolie man, all dey want is woman in deh house, to cook, clean, an’ raise pickney [raise children] all day. When women start mek money, how dey mad – watch how dey vexed.’ She looks over and points to the table of men, as she continues, ‘Before, they call yuh a burden, and now watch how they face skin-up when dey see yuh have yuh own, eh.’ 26 February 2016  As discussed, Indo Guyanese have been socialised to place men as the primary earners of the household. However, when men refer to women as a [financial] ‘burden’ and minimise the contribution women makes, they not only justify their dominance, but also reveal their wider frustration with ownership of that role (see Hosein, 2019 on the myth of male marginalisation in the Caribbean). This frustration is projected not only onto their female partners, but extends beyond the home, to all Indo Guyanese females. For both participant groups, the loss of financial dominance of Indo Guyanese male migrants over the family, and the increasing economic independence of female migrants, represents a site of contention.   Lalita sees her financial independence, as in defiance of male expectations. In response to her ‘audacity’ (according to male participants), traditional gender roles are blurred, causing disapproval by male Indo Guyanese migrants. According to Lalita, it is because of her resistance to uphold ‘old-time ways’, that men react scornfully. Lalita feels that she has literally earned her way to lime in a rum shop, but male respondents like Ravi are bothered by the presence of Indo Guyanese women in these areas. Ravi sees this act as reflective of a larger issue – the degrading of Indo female values; ‘Is nah problem she wan’ one, two, drink – but it’s not proppa she gan rum shop’25 (not referencing Lalita, in particular, but generally, the presence/idea of Indo Guyanese women as social and public drinkers). Indo Guyanese males challenge the change in norms (or as Ravi attributes them, values) which place women in the same public leisure-space customarily for men, openly taking part in male-associated behaviors.   ‘Yuh think if dey in Guyana, dem woulda do this?’ Ravi argues that migration to Barbados has exposed Indo women to what he regards as ‘Bajan ways’, making Indian woman ‘forget themselves’, and that their increased financial independence means they ‘act like big-shot’, and ‘play man’. Indeed, Lalita admits that in Guyana, she does not go to rum shops, and  25 13 August 2015; repeated similar sentiments 14 August 2015; 7 November 2015. 233      that her behavior back home is more firmly grounded in adherence to more traditional gender norms. Ravi goes on to explain that rum shops are a place of social refuge and bonding for Caribbean men, where they can openly display and take part in what are considered manly behaviors (i.e., playing cards, gaffing, liming, ‘getting on bad’ - consuming alcohol, sharing crude jokes and stories, see Sidnell, 2003b). He states that he feels uncomfortable with Indo Guyanese women in the rum shop, as he argues that he must always ‘behave’ and ‘must watch me-self’, suggesting the need to maintain a level of decorum around Indo Guyanese women (not reserved for Afro Caribbean women). For Ravi, the rum shop is a space of belonging, where he is surrounded by the familiar – the familiar music, food, accents, and unspoken rules of back home. As discussed in the previous section, male participants have a relatively lonely experience of migration. For this group who already find it difficult to feel relaxed and make meaningful social connections on the island, the changing gender dynamic in Guyanese rum shops turn what was once a place of belonging and social refuge, into a place of unbelonging, discomfort, and unease.  As an irregular manual laborer, who is frequently out of work, the frustration Ravi feels about his own job security and earning ability goes beyond the rum shop. He is triggered by the presence of Indo Guyanese women like Lalita who comparatively, have benefitted and achieved greater socioeconomic success than he has, through their migration. The following excerpt, from a gaff with participant, Buddy in a rum shop, highlights how male migrants rationalise shifting gender relations with fellow Indo female migrants:  ‘Gyal nowadays nah interest in cook. These Guyanese gyal hea’? All dey does know how fuh mek is macaroni pie and buy Cheffette… Yuh must learn fuh cook some nice Indian food, so yuh feed yuh family, and yuh pickney [children] grow strang, rite? When meh come back Guyana, meh gun’ bring yuh meh sista wan. (He leans back in emphasis and snaps his fingers) She lash-up one bad pholourie.’ 24 July 2015  Buddy reveals his belief that Indo Guyanese women in Barbados choose to overlook or have forgotten their domestic duties. He phrases this in their disinterest in learning to how to cook Indo Guyanese dishes (pholourie), as they would rather cook Bajan foods (macaroni pie, a Bajan staple). He assigns a level of laziness to the young-Indo Guyanese female in Barbados, whom, in his opinion, would rather rely on the convenience of fast-food (Chefette, the largest fast-food chain on the island), than take the time to cook a healthy meal for her children and family. Like Ravi, he sees this as a decline in family values. 234      He links Indo Guyanese cooking to the literal strength of the family, and producing Indo Guyanese meals, as an act to preserve and maintain harmony within the family unit. Male respondents who lived alone often spoke of missing ‘real Indian food’, which is a misnomer, as they are referring to the ‘genuine’ Indo Guyanese dishes cooked by their mothers and wives, sisters and daughters – like Buddy, who references his sister’s pholourie. Buddy and Ravi’s point of view echoes to a larger position taken by male participants in the study. Thie position pointed to several perceptions of Guyanese female behaviours that were interpreted negatively, attributed to living in a city and experiencing an improved quality of living. Buddy, Ravi, and male participants like them, view Indo Guyanese female migrants as adopting ‘ways of Bajan woman’ – rejecting their traditional gendered roles which restricts women to the household and as prime caretakers of the domestic sphere, and relegating males by their increased public-social presence in traditionally male spaces.  Indeed, the location of our gaffing, represented my own privilege as a female outsider that would not have been easily afforded to a Guyanese female or insider, a point expressed by Veronica in our gaff. While rum shops are viewed as a secure, sanctuary-like space for males to relax, socialise, lime and gaff, contrastingly for females in Barbados, it means being easily recognised by other members of the community and building a negative reputation. Lalita was the only female respondent to invite me to lime in a rum shop with other female friends. This occurred once out of the nine months of fieldwork. Contrastingly, male respondents regularly invited me several times a week to lime, gaff, or share a drink or meal in rum shops.   Despite a small number of observed Indo Guyanese female patrons, Guyanese frequented and operated rum shops that I have encountered during the fieldwork remain predominately male spaces, with the female presence primarily consigned to working in the shop.  Lalita, despite her socioeconomic achievements, remains the exception to the rule, and continues to face resistance to increasing her public presence in Guyanese male dominated spaces. This dynamic demonstrates how Indo Guyanese masculinities and femininities are shaped by, in relation to and responsive to, the gendered realities of Indo Guyanese migrants on the island.   235      CONCLUSION This chapter answered the research question which asked what a gendered reading of care can inform us about migrant masculinities. Through the narratives of Vince and Steven, insight is gained into how migration is used by Indo Guyanese men as a form of care for loved ones, at the expense of self-care. Likewise, we see the emotional toll in how their migration is shaped by expectations and responsibility to family and loved ones. The chapter explored the influence expectations and responsibilities have on the emotional vulnerability of Indo Guyanese migrants, as seen with the discussion on alcohol related violence and suicide, and the experiences of Tulsi and Junior. It has also shown how migration creates a space in which Indo Guyanese both manage and redefine traditional gender behaviours. They can rework expected roles, as seen with Lalita accessing male-dominated rum shops for liming, much to the discomfort of some males, like Ravi.  Indo Guyanese men are socialised to follow the philosophical teaching of Grihastha which places them as the financial bearers of the household and family. As such, male participants make sense of their migratory behaviour as a means to realise their care roles as fathers, sons, husbands, brothers. For Indo Guyanese men ‘work is not merely a desirable objective but rather a duty’ (Ramsaran and Lewis, 2018:110), and they migrate as a form of care for those they love, in order fulfil their socialised duty as financial carer. However, as the narratives show and as supported by Thakur’s notion of the ‘vulnerability of the patriarchy’, the development of this rigid patriarchal structure in the Indo community has handicapped men in adapting their roles, and duties. This often leaves males unable to respond to wider global socioeconomic changes as well evolving Indo Guyanese femininities (Ramsaran and Lewis, 2018: 107-110).  This does not mean female migrants do not face hardships. Their reality is also complex. Participant narratives show that some Indo-Guyanese women are redefining traditional gender roles through their migration. Gaining financial independence empowers them to resist abusive marriages or claim visibility in male-dominated spaces like rum shops. However, these changes are contested, and many women still face stigma, harassment, and violence while men maintain patriarchal authority. The narratives show that migration provokes both greater agency and backlash for Indo Guyanese women. Male participant narratives show how this has led to an emotional contradiction; whereby Indo Guyanese males, in an effort to provide care and love, perform variations of violence (domestic violence, alcoholism, and suicide) on loved ones and themselves, indelibly 236      forging their migrant experiences and the migrant experiences of their loved ones. The scar on Tulsi’s head, and Steven’s falling hair and thinning body, is a daily reminder of the weight of their migration. I argue that these acts of violence cannot be fully addressed in the Indo Guyanese and diaspora community until emotional geographies are considered. This chapter has demonstrated how emotions play a critical role in the way masculinities are understood and negotiated with Indo Guyanese participants.   The act of migration works to simultaneously renegotiate yet reinforce ideas of what it means to be an Indo Guyanese man in Barbados. Following from the previous chapters, the experience of male and female participants is intertwined and connected to various aspects of their identity. Ethnoreligious practices and teachings continue to dictate and mold both female and male migrant behaviour. This is understood by contrasting men’s behaviour with that of women, and their metamorphosizing ideas of what it means to be an Indo Guyanese female in Barbados. This chapter analysed how Indo Guyanese men use their migration as an extension of their care for loved ones – in doing so, it challenges the wider literature with its preoccupation with men as economic actors (McKay, 2011; Locke, 2017).   Notions of love and care, drive and motivate Indo Guyanese men in their migration. The existing debate around masculinity needs to attend to these registers more fully (Locke, 2017:277; Pande, 2017; Wojnicka & Pustułka, 2017; Choi, 2019). However, the rigid patriarchal structure that maintains male authority in the Indo community contributes to the social pressure on Indo Guyanese males to provide. By equating work with familial duty, the expectation of Indo Guyanese men to be engaged in gainful employment remains paramount in their migration story. The way care is recognised can benefit from diversifying and expanding understanding to include the varied ways men, and male migrants, see themselves as providers of care, and see themselves as emotionally invested in a caring role. By addressing these two areas, the chapter shows how Indo Guyanese masculinities are informed and shaped by their migration experience.    237      CHAPTER 9 CONCLUSION   KEY POINTS  This thesis joins a larger academic conversation about emotions in Migration Studies, contributing to the existing literature of Svašek and Skrbiš, 2007; Grønseth, 2013; Boccagni and Baldassar, 2015; Crocker, 2015; Askins, 2016; McClinchey, 2016; Bravo, 2017; Katartzi, 2017, 2018; and Mas Giralt, 2015, 2019, 2020. This research unpacked the nature of how Indo Guyanese migrants make meaning through everyday lived realities and how individuals negotiate their relationships in a specific place. Understanding their realities through the lens of emotions provides distinctive insights into the varied ways migrants construct a sense of self and belonging.   The aim of this research was to use an ethnography of the Indo Guyanese community in Barbados to explore the dynamics of migrant belonging, in order to contribute to the debate about the varying ways emotion contributes to migration studies. It was also a way to give a voice to the experiences of a marginalised migrant community within the Anglophone Caribbean context. The first research question asked how the Government of Barbados has promoted the trope of Guyanese undesirability. Chapter 5 focused on this question and presented the material gathered from the ethnography, illustrating how Guyanese migrants have responded to that trope. This research exposed how CARICOM’s Free Movement Policy allows for a conservative national border policy, and the role borders and border crossings play in managing undesirability. The material presented in this chapter illustrated how the DLP uses a strict interpretation of the CARICOM policy of free movement to criminalise and police irregular migrants (Dietrich Jones 2013, 2020). In doing so, the DLP successfully reinforces the narrative that irregular migrants remain a threat to Bajan national security (Brathwaite, 2014), by reasserting the narrative of Guyanese undesirability. Referencing De Genova (2013), chapter 5 explored the various ‘scenes of exclusion’ perpetuated by Bajan officials and experienced by Guyanese migrants. These ‘scenes’ are expected to permeate all aspects of everyday living, from the time of arrival in Barbados (expressed through Stacy and Wendy’s account), while sleeping at home in the middle of the night (in Sonya’s experience of a raid), to enveloping interpersonal relationships (how some in the migrant community distance themselves from Darmendra due to the rumor of his involvement in reporting undocumented Guyanese and receiving 238      bounties). These scenes translate to a feeling of emotional exclusion, in which shame, fear and anxiety are repeated experiences for migrants. Narratives show that migrant status in Barbados leads to a profound sense of uncertainty, impermanence, and even danger in the daily lives of Guyanese participants. They live in fear of immigration raids, detention, and deportation. This prevents them from fully integrating into Barbadian society.  As described by Chauvin and Garcés-Mascareñas (2014), there are varying ways Bajan policy has restricted Guyanese migrant’s ‘ability to deserve’ regularity. Both Jenny and Rafia were left waiting for their certificates and university degrees to be validated, prompting Jenny to take out a loan to support herself in Barbados, while Rafia returned to Guyana, fearful of overstaying her free entry period. Participants shared how they are left with the requirement to demonstrate they are desirable in the first instance, rather than the state proving they are undesirable. Likewise, these narratives showed the varying ways the Bajan public normalise and reinforce (un)deservingness of Guyanese migrants. An instance was recounted in Mario’s narrative, when a Guyanese coworker was refused access to medical care by a Bajan receptionist at the hospital. Nonetheless, by exploring how migrants have created spaces of visibility and inclusion in Barbados, there are instances where Guyanese are able to defiantly counter the narrative of Guyanese undesirability, as seen with spaces like Flash Zone.   The second research question focused on how creole belonging is imagined across participants, as addressed in chapter 6. In-line with the region, Barbados and Guyana represent areas where ethnicity and belonging weave an intricate and complex tapestry. This is highlighted in Part II of chapter 2 (beginning on pg.36), which provides background into how Indo-Guyanese view themselves as simultaneously part of and apart from the Caribbean. This context informs their emotional experiences of belonging. Returning to chapter 6, through supporting narratives, Indo Guyanese participants describe how they view themselves as not included in the creolization discourse. The term creole continues in popular culture to be used as an ethno-social signifier, and application remains reserved for Afro Guyanese and Afro Caribbeans. In practical terms, being identified as Indo raises issues of policing and heightened marginalisation for Guyanese migrants. Sandy covers her hair in public, so as to not be identified as Indo, and Ram is singled-out at an immigration check point where only Indo Guyanese are targeted for questioning. As we read with the narratives of Brian, Sean, and Aisha, while creolization is relational, so too are notions of 239      Indianness. For Brian and Sean, who identify as Dougla, their migration has been more inclusive and opened them to a sense of belonging they did not experience in Guyana. To the point that Sean has found his Babu through his migration. Most Guyanese participants in this research, while identifying as Indo, openly noted their mixed heritage (while the remainder immediately dismissed the plausibility of ethnic mixture in their heritage). This recognition of mixture at all poses a space for discussion regarding the multifaceted Indo Caribbean identity. Attitudes regarding mixture and acceptance are becoming more acknowledged in the Indo Guyanese mind-set, which is a positive step towards sparking robust conversation and initiating critical thought into the ever-evolving nature of Indo Caribbean ethnic and cultural identities, laying the foundations for future discussion and analysis. The narratives of participants assert that the Indian presence is deeply rooted and woven into the fabric and lives of the Caribbean people, yet a complete and absolute recognition of Indianness in the region remains contested. The ethnography demonstrates that the regional movement of Indo Guyanese continues to (re)negotiate, (re)shape, and transform Indo creole identity.  The third research question asked what ways religion contributes to or hinders the emotional well-being of migrants. Chapter 7 analyses this bidirectional relationship between religion and the migrant experience. It is interpersonal and moulded by interactions between Indo Guyanese and the Bajan community. The narratives highlighted the varying forms of ‘othering’ and difference emphasized within religious communities (through Kareem’s experience) and between religious communities (illuminated in Joyce and Sunita’s narratives). For participants, religion has become intertwined with not only ethnicity, but also nationality, blurring the lines of belonging and exclusion. Kareem’s insight shows how his socioeconomic standing and nationality works as identifying markers to isolate him from members of the same faith, emphasising his ‘inauthenticity’. His experience illustrates how places of religious worship can become spaces of migrant (un)belonging and exclusion.   For Joyce, the experience with her previous employer has made a lasting impression, as she has not worn sindoor in public since 2010. For Sunita, this translates to her conducting pooja at dawn to avoid public scrutiny, and for those who no longer ‘raise jhandi flag’, their experience has worked toward a visual minimalization of religious variation in Barbados. The chapter has shown how Indo Guyanese are racialized as Hindu in the Caribbean 240      (Vertovec, 2000), reducing a religiously diverse migrant community to a monolith. Despite these religious differences, some Bajans are able to find commonality with Guyanese Hindus, like Keith. He believes understanding migrant traditions and customs is necessary to live harmoniously on the island. The mandir and Flash Zone offer the space to foster these relationships.   Buddy expresses how he uses religion when crossing borders, to ensure spiritual and emotional ease, which he believes aides in his ability to provide for his elderly mother. Buddy’s narrative reveals that he began employing the use of a Reader when his mother faced an immediate health emergency in Guyana while he was living on another island. His creation of a new religious practice has become specifically tied to his migration experience. Kapoor’s narrative reveals the emotions of care, responsibility and guilt that arise from transnational bereavement and separation from family. His story demonstrates how migrants strive to adhere to religious and cultural expectations despite barriers. Kapoor’s unrelenting work and remitting becomes his way of compensating for missed rituals and honoring his status as eldest son. This research has demonstrated that religion profoundly shapes, and is shaped by, the migrant experience and its attendant emotions. Religion provides meaning, guides behavior, and shapes social relationships. But it is also intensely influenced by the interactions between the Indo Guyanese community themselves, and the hosts they encounter in the Bajan community.  The final research question asked what a gendered reading of care can inform us about migrant masculinities. The material gathered in chapter 8 demonstrated how migration creates a space for Indo Guyanese to manage and redefine traditional gender behaviours and rework these expected roles. Narratives illustrate how migration is used by Indo Guyanese men as a form of care for loved ones. Likewise, we see how the expectation of responsibility to family and loved ones shapes the male migrant experience. The evidence collected from participant stories highlight that males continuously grapple with the pressure and expectation to provide, questioning their self-worth, while navigating feelings of hopelessness and confronting the reality of their loneliness as migrants. The narratives show that these expectations and responsibilities exacerbates the emotional vulnerability of Indo Guyanese male migrants, which is explored through a discussion on alcohol related violence and suicide.  241      Men perceive migration as fulfilling the expectation that they financially provide in their roles as fathers, sons, brothers, uncles. Male participants discuss the pressures of breadwinning and the sacrifices made to provide care in their capacity as migrants, pushing them into exhausting work schedules without social outlets, all the while removed from their loved ones. This ethnography revealed that the male experience of migration was a lonely one. While men feel the pressure to be providers, in their absence they forego the comfort of closeness with loved ones left behind. Participant narratives show they sacrifice bonding with their children or being present for the final days of a loved one’s life. Their affective lives are coloured by chronic stress, loneliness, and disconnection. Due to their migration, participants experience unresolved grief and pain, impacting their family dynamics, exacerbated by their separation from support networks in Guyana. These experiences ultimately cast a shadow over their duty to care for loved ones and themselves. Analysing care and caring provides a window into how migration shapes Indo Guyanese masculinities through lived emotional realities, not just economics. For Indo Guyanese women, migration provokes a complex renegotiation of gender roles. Some have found empowerment in gaining independence, resisting abuse, and claiming visibility in traditionally male spaces, but this does not discount the reality that they face ongoing dangers and stigma.  This thesis demonstrated how complicated it is to draw precise distinctions between lack of belonging, not belonging and unbelonging (Healy, 2020). Often these concepts work together to create an inability to belong. If not-belonging constitutes feelings of not being a part of, while unbelonging relates to rights of citizens being curtailed and limited, then Indo Guyanese participants have experienced instances of both. If belonging and comfort are seen as components which comprise quality of life (Fenster, 2005:220), Indo Guyanese migrants continue to grapple with their attempts to be comfortable and be fully recognised through a mutual acknowledgment of their private, legal, and achievement needs (Koefoed and Simonsen, 2012) in their new location of Barbados. This emphasises the point of further research to better unpack the complexities of South-South migration (Saunders et al., 2016), which currently accounts for roughly 37% of global migrant movement; 2% more than South-North migration (estimated at 35%) (IOM/UN, 2020).  The emotional complexities of Indo Guyanese experiences in Barbados is shaped by pressures of their nationality, migration status, ethnicity, religious practice, and gendered 242      expectations of responsibility to family. Their affective lives are characterized by persistent insecurity yet also characterized by negotiations of agency, inclusion, and belonging. The regional movement of Indo Guyanese in Barbados shows how socio-politically constructed notions of desirability and undesirability impact emotional realities of migrant belonging and unbelonging on the island. These emotional belongings and unbelongings continue to be negotiated, renegotiated, shaped, and reshaped oftentimes under uneasy and conflictual circumstances. This stands in sharp contrast to the optimistic vision of the CARICOM free movement policy. Like many in the region, Indo Guyanese rely on migration as a means of subsistence and a basis for resilience in the face of adversity. Since the independence of the nation in 1966, the varying political, economic, and social pressures created the conditions prompting their ‘ethnic emigration’ from Guyana (Vezzoli, 2015). Migration continues to play a formative role in evolving the way Indo Guyanese exist in the region. However, so does their emotional relationships with their loved ones, and the societies in which they continue to move into.   This research has shown that migration is an inherently emotional endeavor, and that migrant life is more completely understood through an emotional outlook. It is hardly new to claim that the essence of Caribbean migration is about mixing, hybridity, creolization, and conviviality. But as Hardwick notes (2010:216), and is evidenced by this research,  emotions can provide both the contours on the map of those movements, and the language within which Caribbean people understand themselves. It is through these crisscrossing routes of their migration that Indo Guyanese (re)shape and (re)establish and (re)create their individual and communal sense of being. It is within this context that their emotional (un)belonging of migrant life is understood and revealed.         243      RETURNING TO THE LITERATURE What have the experiences of Indo Guyanese participants in Barbados contributed to the wider literature regarding migrants’ emotions and (un)belonging? How does movement across space shape an individual’s emotions? How do emotions drive people to move across space and shape their behaviour when they do? This thesis interrogated how ‘migrant life takes place in situations of flux, but also how the individual self is in constant flux as it lives at the intersections of time – past, present and future’ (Grønseth, 2013:18). In order to wholly construct an understanding of how that meaning has been, and continues to be, recreated, Grønseth asserts that the migrant experience is telling of the human condition, demonstrating ‘how the past, present, and future…imagination and improvisation interact...in remembrance of the past and hope for new beginnings’ (2013:3). This thesis has explored the experience of Indo Guyanese participants in their migrant journey towards these new beginnings. It has documented their shared emotions yet distinct experiences of hope and pain, unearthing the varied ways their (un)belonging is felt by instances and periods of both exclusion and inclusion, and how this negotiation continues to shape their sense of who they are (self) and what they want to achieve (being).   The case of the Indo Guyanese community in Barbados expands the literature on emotional geographies of migrant (un)recognition and (un)belonging by considering various ways the emotional past impacts embodied emotions of the present, which works to influence emotional perceptions of the future. This research showed that emotions are not fixed in a static state and that individuals, carrying their past and present experiences, manage conflicting emotions concurrently along their life course as migrants. This negotiation means that individuals make decisions impacting their migration journeys based on emotion. These decisions are deeply personal and sensitive. This comes in the form of Rafi leaving Barbados before her 6-month entry to the island expired (and credentials were confirmed by the BAC), out of worry and panic that she would be blacklisted from the country. Or through Tulsi’s choice to remain without papers and remain socially and legally invisible in Barbados, out of fear of her violent husband, despite the guilt she faces for leaving her children behind in Guyana. In many cases, the testimonies of participants revealed the lengths migrants will go to, often sacrificing their emotional well-being, for those they love and care for. Vince makes this sacrifice as he experiences solitude and fear of estrangement through separation from his son, while Steven experiences chronic worry and anxiety over leaving his mother with his alcoholic father in 244      Guyana. The thesis also explores the heightened emotional vulnerability male migrants encounter when experiencing personal hardships. This struggle is apparent with Kapoor’s waning religious practice and pressure he feels to remit, after the suicide of his brother. This is also expressed by Junior, regarding the loneliness and isolation he feels in Barbados, after the passing of his cousin.         In unpacking the intersections of undesirability, (un)deservingness, and (in)visibility of Indo Guyanese migrants, this thesis considered ‘how these emotions are nurtured or hindered by wider politics of belonging or by the contextual conditions in which particular migrants live’, ultimately influencing their possibility to belong in Barbados (Mas Giralt, 2015:4). This research has shown that emotions are important because they add to the literature on how belonging is felt and realised through constantly redefined boundaries of connectivity and interaction. It is through social and political structures that the boundaries of emotional (un)belonging is articulated. As Anthias argues, ‘feelings or emotions are not innocent of social structures…if this is the case then a clear-cut distinction between belonging and the politics of belonging cannot be convincing anymore’ (2016:177). Within these politics there are external forces participating in ‘contestations about who belongs and who does not or to what degree they do and do not’ ultimately dictating ‘differential belonging’ (Anthias, 2016:177). Politicians and policymakers are just one group of actors influencing wider social structures that shape belonging and unbelonging, inclusion and exclusion. What this research adds to those claims is an empirical exploration of how the politics of belonging is not simply a question of formal state politics and policies, but is also about the politics of ethnic belonging, religious practice, and gendered notions of care and love.  Through these constructs of difference, referencing the work of Anthias (2016:176), this thesis has shown how identity does not constitute a static ‘being’, indeed, it highlights the ‘processes of being’. Belonging is a vital variable in these processes of being (Thrift, 2004), and the related emotional journey of ‘longing to be’ (Probyn, 1996). It is these emotional responses to experiences, which mould individuals’ conscious notions of belonging and being (Dewsbury, 2009). Defining one’s identity through belonging is nonetheless emotionally taxing. The narratives show how participants routinely manage and negotiate conflicting feelings of unbelonging and belonging concurrently in their daily lives.   245      Beyond being inseparable and omnipresent in the everyday of migrant lives, emotions are the avenue through which migrants navigate their understanding of belonging and inclusion in their host nations (Svašek and Skrbiš, 2007; Boccagni and Baldassar, 2015). This research has furthered the discussion on the socio-spatial dimension of emotions in migration studies by looking at how emotion is experienced, and shapes, experiences (see McClinchey, 2016), and how belonging is felt (see Healy, 2020). This thesis has exposed the ways emotions influence migrant and host behaviour. On the one hand, the execution of a politicised agenda to promote the undesirability and unbelonging of migrants becomes successful by playing on the fears, insecurities, and anxieties of the host population. A popularised restrictive migration policy generates a general sense of apprehension and suspicion towards the migrant community, as the ethnography has shown. On the other hand, for the migrant community, their fears, insecurities, and anxieties are bolstered by the response of apprehension and suspicion from the host community.  Anderson and Smith warn that by ignoring the role and influence emotions play in shaping our research on social and personal lives, we risk ‘an incomplete understanding of the world’s workings…that to neglect emotions is to exclude a key set of relations through which lives are lived and societies made’ (2002:7). My findings support this claim. It is through thinking about questions of love and guilt, for example, that we gather a more complete understanding of migrant masculinities and therefore migrant behaviour. These emotions are not mere abstractions, they are written into the bodies of my interviewees: their own diets for example are determined by their duty to send money home to Guyana to pay for food for others. Their hands, arms and backs are shaped by the labour they do for those they love. Emotions are embodied. This is a simple observation, but one that the existing conversation about emotions in migration studies could further develop (see Crocker, 2015).   The emotional dimension of geographical research is essential in exposing less tangible and more delicate qualities of everyday meaning in migrant life beyond the blunt business of economics and subsistence. This case study has demonstrated that migrants navigate emotions along the spectrum concurrently - from managing low-points of loneliness, embarrassment, fear, and anxiety, with high-points of hope, aspiration, and love. Unbelonging is not a fixed state and exists as part of a wider range of complex parallel emotional contradictions.  246      EMOTIONAL GEOGRAPHIES Focusing on emotions takes us in a new direction in migration studies. If emotion is ‘a fundamental aspect of the human experience’ (Thien, 2005:451; Anderson and Smith, 2002:9), and migrancy fulfils a human need (Grønseth, 2013), then charting the emotional geographies of migrants captures the variety of the human experience, the evolving nature of shaping self and identity, and navigating those realities with expectations and hopes to be grounded and established (Gilmartin, 2008). In this discussion of self and identity, the emotional experience of migrant life uncovers the unspoken, often hidden feelings into what it is to be human and what it means to belong (Grønseth, 2013).   Emotions open us up to the intuitive world occupied by others. They contribute to our understanding and interpretation of the opinions and behaviours of others. They allow us a novel point-of-entry from which to approach and interpret ethnographic material and raise methodological challenges as we reflect on projecting our own emotions onto our interviewees. Emotions are interesting because they play out differently and prompt different behaviors, but there are also patterns, similarities that can be identified: across the migration literature love and guilt, anxiety and hope stand out as key emotions in migration studies. Emotions give words to the conscious feelings which drive and motivate migrant behaviour, expressing the desires of participants to researchers. Emotions give participants the vocabulary to describe how recognition, belonging and inclusion is felt and understood. But emotions also tell us about the unconscious drives that may be shaping migrant behaviours without migrant’s knowing it (Page, 2021). Likewise, an analysis of emotions allows us to better interpret the expressions and behaviours of the host population in their understanding of the changes around them. It is through emotions that the real joys, fears, hopes, worries, calm and anxieties of these groups can be fully articulated. The way these emotions are felt, suppressed, and exacerbated prompt remarkable effects for participants through their actions. Taken together, this provides a normative conclusion: we ought to always seek to humanize our research participants and emotions are a good way to do that, because they bring sentiments into the foreground which we can recognise in our own lives and with which we can empathise.  As researchers, considering emotions allows for a more human approach to our ethnography. For ethnographers who apply interpretivist approaches to their research, gaining an empathetic understanding of individual action (Verstehen) balances ‘sophisticated 247      subjectivity to objectively comprehend subjective experience (Erlebnis) in life expressions’ (Ratner, 2002:3). Acknowledging emotions and the role they play in shaping the reality of participants moves researchers towards Verstehen. Emotions matter because they allow us to view how others understand their belonging and make sense of their intersecting social worlds. It allows a more aware and compassionate research framing, challenging the researcher to consider participant subjectivities. Emotions are important because it equips researchers with an expanded lexicon to describe the full range of the migrant experience.   EMOTIONAL RESEARCH WITH GUYANESE PARTICIPANTS If ethnography is an emotional task, exploring emotions in geographical inquiry is an interdisciplinary task. Although my research focus was on migrant life, I did not anticipate participants sharing their in-depth experiences of violence (IPV, domestic violence, suicide, and alcoholism). I recommend geographers who apply an emotional focus to familiarise themselves with psychoanalysis – not just for analysis of ethnographic material, but to inform how they interact with participants and digest the information relayed to them. From a personal standpoint, and as a member of the Indo Guyanese diaspora community, this was impactful in the way I understood and presented participant narratives. An emotional focus exposed me to varying outlooks and opinions from participants I had not previously considered, making me better informed, and allowed me to introspectively reflect on my long-held perspectives and biases. Although seeking psychological services for mental wellbeing are considered taboo in Guyana, I found participants surprisingly willing and open to discuss their emotions. Participants remained candid and open, often initiating conversations regarding their feelings and emotional state (as acknowledged in ‘Reflections from the field’ in the Methods chapter, pgs.75-86). Based on my experience, I believe there is potential for further research with the Indo Guyanese migrant/diaspora community and Bajan community in emotion focused ethnographic research. From a practical standpoint, this would provide insight into the contributing factors and impacts of violence and suicide within the Indo Guyanese community. This information would provide useful to government agencies and NGOs in order to develop relevant intervention strategies and programmes.       248      EPILOGUE WHAT NEXT FOR MIGRATION IN CARICOM?  There is a romanticised notion that regionalism in the Caribbean occurred long before the CSME mandate of free movement as a consequence of the fact that people residing or born on one island are often native or descendant from another island (Girvan, 2012). This speaks to the relative ease of movement preceding the CSME. This research shows that the attempt to formalize a regional policy on free movement has had only a limited impact. Movement itself cannot be superficially likened to belonging – that having heritage from another island equates to an inclusive region. On the contrary, as participant narratives attest, notions of difference and othering remain common. And despite CARICOM efforts to move towards free movement, there is clearly an attempt to restrict and curtail movement in Barbados. The reverberations of the measures and policies enacted by the DLP under the leadership of the former Prime Minister David Thompson and Freundel Stuart continue to be experienced as unbelonging and exclusion in the Indo Guyanese migrant community. Despite the easing of tensions directed at Indo Guyanese migrants, the wider community has become more reserved, and cautious of their difference in Barbados.   The DLP was voted out of power in Barbados in 2018, post-fieldwork, with Mia Mottley leading the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) to secure the Prime Minister’s position, as well as her party winning all 30 seats in the House of Assembly (Barbados Election Centre, 2018). After the election, Guyanese participants I remained in regular contact with expressed concerns over the fragile and sensitive relationship between themselves and political and social acceptance on the island. Migrants of all social categories across migrant statuses were aware that government policy had direct effects on their livelihood in Barbados. Most remained skeptical that a new government would change wider Bajan attitudes. Many participants stressed the danger of ‘getting too comfortable’, citing that the practice of bounties and raids may be resurrected with the slightest shift in political sentiments. Indeed, post-fieldwork (March 2016), two separate Guyanese participants, including their Bajan-born children, were deported. As recent as 18 March 2023, Stabroek News posted an editorial, I just want to know if that Guyana bench is still there?, suggesting attitudes have not changed towards Guyanese migrants.    249      Due to the high increase in the number of Guyanese migrants during the 1990s through the early 2000s, respondents often referred to the children born in Barbados during this time. This group, having either Guyanese parentage, mixed – Guyanese and Caribbean parentage, or Guyanese and Bajan parentage, represent a critical focus for future studies. These Bajan nationals represent the changing demographic of Bajan society. Their views and experiences echo the ‘next generation’ of nationalism in Barbados and regionalism in the wider Caribbean. While not representing the participants in this particular research, the few Bajan participants of mixed parentage offered insightful perspective of their creole upbringing and experience being raised on the ethnically homogeneous island. Despite a multitude of individuals that fit into this category, ethically, I made the decision to abandon this avenue, as the potential participants I met were largely under the age of 16. However, when Guyanese migrants spoke of this group, their descriptive language was telling of a distinction, differentiating between perceived nationality and culture, i.e., ‘she Bajan-born, but she Guyanese’, or [name of person] is a ‘Bajan-born Guyanese’.   This thesis has focused on the Indo Guyanese migrant community in Barbados – but the story in Guyana is rapidly changing. Considering the Guyanese government’s push for the oil industry to transform the nation’s economy, the country is positioning itself to become a destination for regional immigration. What does this mean for the Indo Guyanese community in Barbados? Will they return to Guyana in large numbers or remain in Barbados? Will immigration of Indo Guyanese to Barbados slow considerably or continue relatively unchanged? How will this affect those who have established roots on the island?   The Guyanese government anticipates the return of the regional and transnational Guyanese diaspora, skilled and unskilled, to fulfil the growing needs of the various multinational energy companies (ExxonMobil, Hess, Esso Exploration) operating out of the country. At the time of the fieldwork (June 2015- March 2016), participants remained reluctant to exaggerate the benefits of the oil industry on the local population, as one respondent explained, ‘why should I go back? Oil gonna help who? Guyana gat gold, bauxite, timber, diamonds. Guyana gat de most resources outta all da Caribbean and look de state of Guyana.’ Guyanese participants repeatedly expressed little faith in the capability of the government to properly manage resources for the benefit of the people, citing corruption and mismanagement as main faults. Participants remained wary of returning to Guyana in anticipation of ‘oil money’. Their distrust in the government materialised in 250      Guyana’s 2020 presidential elections, which resulted in a five-month-long dispute over the winner. In that time, as unrest among the population increased; recounts, court proceedings, allegations of voter fraud, and pressure from international electoral observers, culminated with CARICOM intervention (at the behest of the Guyana Election Commission) to create a team to administer an official recount (Barrow-Giles and Yearwood, 2020).   In August 2020, Irfraan Ali of the PPP was sworn-in as Guyana’s 10th president. Considering the ethnopolitical allegiances tied to political parties, it is predicted that the ruling party will be able to allocate the anticipated oil wealth to benefit certain populations (Barrow-Giles & Yearwood, 2020). Although participants in the research remained tepid during the fieldwork in voicing enthusiasm for the discovery of oil, their attitudes towards the subject have drastically changed in recent years (2022-2024). Following COVID-19, some Guyanese participants have returned to take advantage of the emerging economic opportunities in Guyana. They have found work in the array of services supporting the oil development in the nation – i.e., in hospitality, transport, building/construction. Guyana is positioning itself to become the region’s next migration magnet, with the country taking pre-emptive measures to improve migration governance (building new airports, investing in interregional CARICOM air travel, etc.) (IOM, 2020b). The issue of upholding a policy of free movement will be particularly stressed as the rest of the Caribbean, including Barbados, deals with enduring fall-out from the COVID-19 pandemic, border control, and subsequent economic rebuilding. How this governance plays out in the coming years is to be seen, as the Guyanese government responds to increased regional migration, while concurrently managing oil resources and the booming oil economy.           251      APPENDIX BIOGRAPHICAL METADATA OF PARTICIPANTS Guyanese Male Participants (1/3):  NameAge StatusOccupationBuddy48IrregularPainterPrakashearly 50sPermitPandit/TradesmanKapoor29IrregularGardenerKareem26CSME entryGardenerDarmendra48ResidentBusiness owner (construction)Sunilearly 40sResidentBusiness owner (construction)Rammid 50sIrregularAgricultural woker/tradesmanJunior34IrregularTradesmanVishalmid 30sResidentBusiness owner (rum shop)Steven24IrregularBar workerTrevor34Skills CertificateElectrical engineerSeanlate 40/early 50sPermitTradesman/BuilderBrianmid 40sSkills CertificateSportsman/BoxerVince33University Degree (Medicine)Orthopaedic surgeonRavimid 30sIrregularBuilderCharlielate 60s/early 70sResidentRetired fisherman/coconut vendorBoneslate 20sIrregularWaiterMario41PermitMason/BuilderLloydearly30sPermitCarpenter252      APPENDIX BIOGRAPHICAL METADATA OF PARTICIPANTS Guyanese Male Participants (2/3):   NameTime spent in Barbados**Resided in place other than Barbados***Marital StatusChildrenBuddyIntermittently over 25 yearsSurinameDivorced2Prakash~20 yearsN/AMarried §2Kapoor9 yearsN/AN/AN/AKareem<6 monthsN/AN/AN/ADarmendra~15 yearsTrinidadMarried5Sunil>10 yearsVenezuela/Brazil/SurinameDivorced4Ram~20 yearsSt. CroixN/AN/AJuniorIntermittently over 10 yearsN/AN/AN/AVishalIntermittently over 15 yearsN/AMarried1Steven~10 monthsSt. VincentN/AN/ATrevor12 yearsVenezuela/CubaDivorced1Sean<8 yearsSurinameN/A2Brian3 yearsBVIN/A3Vince5 yearsN/AN/A1RaviIntermittently over 15 yearsGrand Cayman, St. Vincent, Greneda Divorced2Charlie50+ yearsAntigua/MartiniqueN/AN/ABones10 yearsSurinameN/A3MarioIntermittently over 9-10 yearsSurinameDivorced3Lloyd>2 yearsDominicaN/AN/A**'Collectively' defined as total time spent over any number of years***'Resided' defined as: lived for more than 6 months (6 months being the FMP entry allotment for CARICOM MN)Married §: Spouse residing outside of Barbados253      APPENDIX BIOGRAPHICAL METADATA OF PARTICIPANTS Guyanese Male Participants (3/3):   Name Ethnic heritageEthnic IdentificationReligious affiliation*BuddyIndoIndianHinduismPrakashIndoIndianHinduismKapoorIndoIndianHinduismKareemIndoIndianIslamDarmendraIndoIndianHinduism (Arya Samaj)SunilIndoIndianHinduismRamIndoIndianHinduism (Kali Ma/Madras)JuniorIndoIndianHinduismVishalIndoIndianHinduismStevenIndo/Afro/AmerindianIndianPentecostalismTrevorIndo/Afro Mixed (Dougla)Hinduism (Kali Ma/Madras)SeanIndo/Afro Mixed (Dougla)Hinduism/CatholicismBrianIndo/Afro Mixed (Dougla)Hinduism/AnglicanVinceIndo/AmerindianIndianIslam/PresbyterianRaviIndo/ChineseIndianHinduism/non-denominational ChristianCharlieIndo/ChineseIndianHinduismBonesIndo/PortugueseIndianAnglicanMarioIndo/Portuguese/Chinese/AfroIndianAnglican/IslamLloydAfro/PortugueseAfro mixedAdventist* not necessarily actively practicing; religion they most closely associate with -  Question asked to participants:Growing up which religious practices were followed in your home?/ Which religious traditions do you follow now, or associate with?**Unless otherwise stated, Hinduism refers to Sanatan Dharma following254      APPENDIX BIOGRAPHICAL METADATA OF PARTICIPANTS Guyanese Female Participants (1/3):  Name Age StatusOccupationJennyearly 30sCVQHousekeepingSonyalate 30sIrregularDomesticTaij20PermitCookJoycemid 30sPermitBusiness owner (fashion accessories )Devimid 60sResidentHomemakerGrannylate 60sResidentHomemakerSunita34Resident Business owner (dessert shop)Lalita36PermitBusiness owner (clothing store)Rafia25CSME EntryHeamatologistAisha32University Degree (Law)Corporate AttorneyWendy39ResidentHouse wifeVeronica27Resident (through marriage)CookSandy22IrregularCookTulsilate 40s/early 50sIrregularDomesticStacyearly 20sIrregularBar maidVerna41PermitSecretaryAyana31University DegreeNGO ResearcherAlishamid/late 50sResidentRetired teacher255      APPENDIX BIOGRAPHICAL METADATA OF PARTICIPANTS Guyanese Female Participants (2/3):  Name Time spent in Barbados**Resided in place other than Barbados***Marital StatusChildrenJenny6 yearsGrand CaymanMarried §1Sonya10+ yearsN/ADivorced2Taij<1 yearN/ADivorcedN/AJoyce>6 yearsBVIMarried §2Devi>40 yearsN/AWidowed7Granny>35 yearsSt. LuciaWidowed6SunitaIntermittently over 30 years/ collectively 20+ yearsN/AMarried §2LalitaIntermittently over 10 yearsMartiniqueN/AN/ARafia<6 monthsIndiaN/AN/AAisha~2.5 yearsAnguillaN/AN/AWendy~12 yearsTrinidadMarried5VeronicaCollectively 8 yearsN/AMarriedPregnantSandyIntermittently over 6 yearsN/AN/A1Tulsi20+ yearsSurinameSeparated/ lives with current partner3StacyIntermittently over 4 yearsTrinidadN/AN/AVerna>5 yearsN/ADivorced1AyanaIntermittently over 5 yearsSt. Lucia/U.S.A. for universityN/AN/AAlisha>30 yearsTrained other teachers throughout regionMarried3**'Collectively' defined as total time spent over any number of years***'Resided' defined as: lived for more than 6 months (6 months being the FMP entry allotment for CARICOM MN)Married §: Spouse residing outside of Barbados256      APPENDIX BIOGRAPHICAL METADATA OF PARTICIPANTS Guyanese Female Participants (3/3):   Name Ethnic heritageEthnic identificationReligious affiliation*JennyIndoIndianHinduism/IslamSonyaIndoIndianHinduismTaijIndoIndianHinduismJoyceIndoIndianHinduismDeviIndoIndianHinduism (Arya Samaj)GrannyIndoIndianHinduismSunitaIndoIndianHinduism/PentecostalismLalitaIndoIndianHinduismRafiaIndoIndianIslam/HinduismAishaIndoIndianIslam/HinduismWendyIndo/AfroIndianHinduismVeronicaIndo/ChineseIndianHinduism/AnglicanSandyIndo/Afro/ChineseIndianPentecostalismTulsiIndo/PortugueseIndianHinduismStacyIndo/Afro/PortugueseIndianAdventistVernaAfro/ChineseAfroBaptistAyanaAfroAfroPentecostalismAlishaAfro/Chinese/IndoAfro mixedJehovah's Witness* not necessarily actively practicing; 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