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Accepted Paper:

Goa, an internal 'exotic' in South Asia: discourses of colonialism and tourism  
Pamila Gupta (University of the Free State)

Paper short abstract:

This paper takes the concept of the 'exotic' and situates it within overlapping discourses of colonialism and tourism, and in relation to the production of 'Goa' as a subaltern place within (the imagination of) the postcolonial Indian nation-state.

Paper long abstract:

This paper takes the concept of the 'exotic' and situates it within overlapping discourses of colonialism and tourism, and in relation to the production of 'Goa' as a subaltern place within (the imagination of) the postcolonial Indian nation-state. I complicate studies of the 'exotic' by suggesting that it is not applicable to the West or non-West as simply an a-historical static category, but rather that it effectively has been utilized, for Goa, to create a space of exoticism, one that is premised on its "Western-ness," located inside the non-West, a process enabled by this former Portuguese colony's distinct history and culture. Here 'South Asia' is re-conceptualized as a shifting site wherein tropes of the exotic play a defining role in its development. 'Goa' as an object of analysis is first exoticized through its historical difference from the rest of India, a premise explored through its distinct (Portuguese) colonial and Catholic missionary history (1510-1961). Secondly, 'Goa' is exoticized through its cultural difference from India, a premise explored through its production as a site of heritage and charter tourism in the postcolonial context (1961-2004). Nor are these differences—historical and cultural—mutually exclusive. Instead, it is their imbrication through space and time that constitutes Goa today. The Goan case illuminates the multilayered and historic dynamic of difference with regard to both object (Goa) and subject (South Asia), points to lesser known discourses of internalized 'exotics' which are required for sustaining postcoloniality, and helps to understand the politics of othering and subalternity more generally.

Panel P05
The empire at the margins: subaltern voices from Portuguese colonialism in India
  Session 1