test The ‘C’ Word: Testimony and Trauma in Gaiutra Bahadur’s Coolie Woman: |Dia-noesis: A Journal of Philosophy

The ‘C’ Word: Testimony and Trauma in Gaiutra Bahadur’s Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture

PDF
Published: Nov 23, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/dia.43467
Keywords:
displacement gender identity postcolonialism testimonial writing trauma
Sathya Pramode
Assistant Professor of English T John Group of Institutions, Gottigere, Bengaluru
Namrata Mohan
Ph.D. Assistant professor of English Jyoti Nivas College Autonomous
Abstract

Gaiutra Bahadur in Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture has chronicled the stories of indentured ‘coolie women’ who suffered severe domestic abuse, bodily mutilations, and even murder. Bahadur's quest for unearthing her great-grandmother Sujaria’s story becomes an exercise in bringing the history of a quarter million other ‘coolie’ women into the light. By employing an interdisciplinary lens, the paper aims to unravel the experiences of such oppressed women in the Caribbean context during the period of colonization. The paper additionally aspires to scrutinize the text as a testimonial writing that accentuates the voices of the voiceless through the author. This will be achieved by analyzing the primary sources and employing a theoretical framework associated with gender, diaspora, and postcolonialism. Not only does the research disclose various marginalized aspects of history, but it also offers valuable perspectives to enable contemporary discussions associated with gender and social injustice.

Article Details
  • Section
  • Articles
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
References
Ashcroft, Bill and Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, Postcolonial Studies: The Key Concepts, 3rd Edition. Routledge Key Guides, 2013.
Bahadur, Gaiutra, Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture. Hachette India, 2015.
Behar, Ruth, The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart, Beacon Press, 1996.
Caruth, Cathy, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
Clifford, James, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art, Harvard University Press, 1988.
Fanon, Frantz, The Wretched of the Earth, Translated by Constance Farrington, Gove Press, 1963.
Felman, Shoshana, and Dori Laub, Testimony: Crisis of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History, Routledge, 1992.
Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures, Basic Books, 1973.
Halley, Coya and Stephen Cowden, “Reconciling a Broken Heritage: Develop-ing Mental Health Social Work in Guyana”, International Journal of Envi-ronmental Research and Public Health, 2023. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20206931.
Higman, Barry William, A Concise History of the Caribbean, Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 2011.
Hirsch, Marianne, Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and the Postmemory, Harvard University Press, 1997.
Janssen, J. “Ethics as a Means to Power”, Dia-noesis, 15, 2024, pp. 59-80, https://doi.org/10.12681/dia.38166.
Kakoliris, G. “Judith Butler on Gender Performativity”, Dianoesis, 17, 2025, pp. 57-74, https://doi.org/10.12681/dia.41735.
LaCapra, Dominick, Writing History, Writing Trauma, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
Mehta, Brenda J., “The Colonial Curriculum and the Construction of "Coolieness" in Lakshmi Persaud's "Sastra" and "Butterfly in The Wind" (Trini-dad) and Jan Shinebourne's "The Last English Plantation"(Guyana)”. JSTOR, Journal of Caribbean Literatures, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp 111-28.
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,” Boundary 2, vol. 12, no. 3, 1984, pp. 333-58.
Paul, Annie, “A Coolie Woman’s Work is Never Done: On Coolie Woman by Gaiutra Bahadur.” Asian American Writer’s Workshop, 20 Sept. 2018, https://aaww.org/coolie-womans-work-gaiutra-bahadur/?utm_source
Prasad, Murarai, and Binod K. Jha, “Indian Diasporic Formations in Guyana: Reading Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture.” Asiatic, vol. 10, no. 2, Dec. 2016, pp. 230-46. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d751/c9a1ada7ec328482ffe1e1185df342d8d5d1.pdf?utm_source
Pratt, Mary Louise, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. Routledge, 1992.
Puri, Shalini, “Race, Rape and Representation: Indo- Caribbean Women and Cultural Nationalism”. JSTOR, Cultural Critique, No. 36, pp 119-163.
Reddock, Rhoda, “Indian Women and Indentureship in Trinidad and Tobago 1845-1917: Freedom Denied”, JSTOR, Caribbean Quarterly, Vol 54, No: 4, pp 41-68.
Rose, Kate, ed. Displaced: Literature of Indigeneity, Migration and Trauma. Routledge, 2020.
Rupčić Kelam, D., “Militarization of Everyday Life: Girls in Armed Conflicts”, Conatus - Journal of Philosophy, 8: 2, 2023, pp. 487-519, https://doi.org/10.12681/cjp.35119.
Rushdie, Salman, Imaginary Homelands, Penguin Books, 1992.
Said, Edward W., Culture and Imperialism, Vintage Books, 1994.
Satterthwaite, Orlaith. “Ethnography, Memory, and the Archive: Reading Gaiutra Bahadur’s Coolie Woman”, Postcolonial Text, vol. 13, no. 2, 2018, pp. 1-15.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present, Harvard University Press, 1999.
Visweswaran, Kamala, Fictions of Feminist Ethnography, University of Minnesota Press, 1994.