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.
