Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses the role of granular matter in the (un)making of the coastal commons in Goa. Through an inquiry into siltation of rivers and shifting forms of land use, it explores instability of value, regimes of ownership and shifty material process on a rapidly urbanising shorefront.

Paper long abstract:

Recent influx of capital to Goa as a sprawling site for “second-homes”, work-from-home destination and tourism centre, poses many socio-ecological risks to the rapidly urbanising shorelines. Based on initial phase of ethnographic fieldwork, this paper examines how sand and silt materialises access rights to valued ecosystems in the context. I examine Goa’s khazan lands — marshy spaces reclaimed from the sea to increase the surface of cultivable land — as “traditional” engineered artefacts which hold tidal waters out. While these systems are on the decline due to private land acquisitions or pseudo-legal forms of changing land categories, they are crucial to understanding colonial demarcations of space and future capacities transformation.  

In this paper, I bring attention to shifty granular material processes which can unsettle boundaries of common pool resources that straddle realms of public and private; land and sea. Through an analysis of silt accumulation in rivers, I highlight the tension between practices of coastal governance, valuation of ecosystems and material properties. I argue that this analytical tension allows for conceptualising beyond a polarisation of private property and state intervention (Harvey, 2009:68) and takes seriously the notion of social practice which dictate regimes of value. Goa’s vibrant history of environmental activism and advocacy for land and resource use for all, continues to guide the scope of coastal transformation. Ethnographic attention to changing material forms and the use of khazan lands, can help grapple with its ever-shifting urban waterfronts.