Final Report for 2011 Faculty Development Grant
“The Social Significance of Competitive Birdsport among Guyanese Men”
Laura H. Mentore
Project overview:
This project extends from my ongoing research interests in the anthropology of human-animal relations in
Amazonia. It focuses on a unique pastime among coastal Guyanese men known as “birdsport”, which
consists of competitive singing duals between pairs of trained male songbirds and, oftentimes, significant
betting on the competitions. In their accounts of what draws them to birdsport, my informants all stress
the passion of bird song. My present research examines the conceptual and embodied relation between
the passion of bird song and Guyanese notions of masculinity, particularly how men’s participation in the
aural environment of birdsport enhances their social identities as “men of passion” (a pan-Caribbean
cultural concept) and in turn, how such identities provide men with “reputations” in informal social
networks. As I found in my research, having a reputation in such networks provides men with means of
transcending the racial and class barriers that intensively fragment and stratify the formal political
economy of Guyana. My research with birdsport enthusiasts and other key informants suggests that the
capacity for aural passion, because it is valued and sought after by men of all backgrounds, is the vital
thread that links birdsport to masculinity and enables the former to creatively enact the latter.
Project goals/Dissemination of results:
My goal for the funded period was to significantly revise a paper I presented at an interdisciplinary
Wenner-Gren workshop at Cambridge University (UK) in September 2010, and to submit the revised
paper by Fall 2011 for inclusion in an edited volume based on the workshop. The workshop, entitled
“The Social Life of Achievement”, explored cross-cultural notions of achievement, success, failure and
competition in a variety of contexts from education to sports and tournaments. I was invited by the
organizers of the workshop to prepare my paper for inclusion in their planned edited volume. Making
my desired revisions entailed (1) further reviewing the literature on relevant topics, including
Caribbean notions of masculinity and social theories of achievement, gambling, and humananimal relations (2) updating my data set of newspaper articles and online video postings related
to Guyanese birdsport, (3) reframing the theoretical focus of the paper around concepts of
aurality, the transmission of affect, and the counter-hegemonic forms of achievement that are
made possible by the dynamics of reputation in Caribbean societies.
I was successful in meeting these goals.
I submitted the revised paper in August 2011. After an initial review by the editors of the
volume and making their suggested changes (namely reducing the word count and including a
few additional references), the paper underwent two external, double-blind peer reviews. I was
pleased to receive positive feedback from both reviewers, who recommended it for publication
without further revisions.
The volume has since received a publication offer from Berghahn Books. After all contributing
authors have completed any necessary revisions to their chapters, the volume as a whole will be
reviewed for coherency, consistency of quality, overall contribution, etc. Currently the editors
anticipate a publication date of early 2013.
I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to work on this project. Because the bulk of my research
concentrates on the indigenous Amazonian societies, this foray into a unique aspect of coastal
Guyanese culture led me into new theoretical and ethnographic terrains and added new
dimensions to my research expertise. It also led to valuable exchanges with other scholars
(namely Caribbean specialists and the other contributors to the volume) whom I would not have
had cause to engage with otherwise.