Cultural Models for Negotiating Guyanese Identity as Illustrated in Jan Lowe Shinebourne’s Chinese Women and Other Fiction
Cultural Models for Negotiating Guyanese Identity as Illustrated in Jan Lowe Shinebourne’s Chinese Women and Other Fiction

Summary/Abstract: Guyanese elementary level pupils are often introduced to the formal sociological study of their country with the expression ‘the land of six peoples’ – an axiom that can encourage defining self through separatism. Though this expression serves as a concrete Social Studies introduction to children who cannot yet think abstractly, adherence to this fixed and segmenting model as the main measure of conceptualising self and others can become limiting and problematic in a society that is already struggling with defining individual and national identities in a more fluid manner. In her fictional works collectively, Jan Lowe Shinebourne moves towards locating models more suited to the flexible negotiation of the Guyanese identity. To examine how she does so, this paper firstly considers some limitations of the multicultural model and shows how the author introduces her interrogation of this model in her first two novels and in her second novel introduces her exploration of the crosscultural model, then experiments with this model more extensively in her third novel Chinese Women. Finally, the paper briefly highlights how Lowe Shinebourne explores the use of the intercultural model in her fourth novel and the transnational model in her collection of short stories. Ultimately, Lowe Shinebourne manages to elevate the validity of engaging with other models of understanding self, rather than remaining steadfast to the problematic old local multicultural lens.

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