About w’am gyal

In Guyana “w’am gyal” is a greeting, an affirmation, a casual acknowledgement in passing or a deep intentional inquiry. The two words translate to ‘what’s up, girl?’ or ‘what is happening or what is going on with you, friend?’ w’am to yuh? As in, what has happened or is happening to you? 

w’am gyal is project rooted in a decolonial, transnational feminist framework. It is an open access, submissions based online network which centres and explores Caribbean feminisms, and experience-based storytelling from within the Caribbean region and connected diasporas. 

w’am gyal is inspired by Indigenous and Black feminisms. 
Maria Lugones, who was an Argentine feminist, philopsher and activist, presents decolonial feminism as a method for challenging the hierarchical, dichotomous categorisations produced by the colonial project rooted in extractivism, racial capitalism and white supremacy. Lugones suggests that the move toward a decolonial feminism as a practice, is a coalitionist project of resistance.

“It is movement toward coalition that impels us to know each other as selves that are thick, in relation, in alternative socialites, and grounded in tense, creative inhabitations of colonial difference.”