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Series consists of records created and accumulated by Silverman as a result of field research conducted in Ecuador in 1978, part of her first sabbatical project as a professor at York University, to investigate class formation and economic differentiation amongst banana producers in coastal Ecuador. These records document the early stages of a long-term research project and provide a broad overview of production in Ecuador’s banana export sector in the 1960s and 1970s. These records are primarily government documents and Silverman’s field notes, worksheets and coding forms. Included are Ministry of Agriculture statistics about banana producers, including their names, locations, hectarages and quantity of exports, as well as agricultural census materials from 1954, 1968 and 1976, a list of banana co-operatives in Ecuador, and correspondence and other documents pertaining to the Coop Paraiso banana co-operative.

Series consists of records created and accumulated by Silverman in Guyana in 1966 while working on her MA thesis, entitled “Deviance and conformity in a Caribbean mining town”, which explored male juvenile delinquency in the bauxite mining town of Mackenzie (now Linden). These records document Silverman’s research methods and the aggregation of data acquired. Records include police and probation records, field and interview notes, reports, completed questionnaires, card indices, crime and employment statistics, an aerial photograph of Mackenzie, a research proposal, copies of Silverman’s completed thesis, and audio recordings of interviews.

Series consists of records created and accumulated by Silverman primarily between 1969 and 1970, when she conducted field research in Bush Lot, Guyana, for her PhD thesis entitled “Resource change and village factionalism in an East Indian community, Guyana”. The results of this research were also published in her book, Rich people and rice: factional politics in rural Guyana, 1900-1970. This ethnographic and historical research examined local-level politics and the effect of economic resources on politics in Bush Lot, an East Indian rice-farming community on the coast of Guyana. These records document Silverman’s approach to research, which included casual conversation, participant observation, attendance at political events, formal interviews, primary source research and household surveys, and her process of aggregating the resulting data, as well as providing a comprehensive history of the village of Bush Lot and its inhabitants in the early- to mid-20th century. The records in this series are notes, copies of village council minutes and letter books, court documents, surveys and household questionnaires, government reports, census records, audio recordings, interview transcripts and notes, card indices and computer printouts, research reports, maps of Bush Lot and greater Guyana, correspondence, and a copy of Silverman’s PhD dissertation.