Month: April 2017

Discussions, Interventions

R. Benedito Ferrão at the SISAAS Colloquium

The SISAAS Colloquium – Scholars at the Intersection of South Asian and Africana Studies – will include a talk by R. Benedito Ferrão, Ph. D., of the College of William and Mary, VA, USA and the Al-Zulaij Collective, Goa. At this symposium, which is centered on scholarship of the Black presence in Asia and the South Asian diaspora in Africa, Dr.Ferrão’s presentation will address the need to rethink the history of slavery outside of the Black Atlantic in a paper titled “The Other Black Ocean: White Affectivity and Indo-Portuguese Slavery in Margaret Mascarenhas’ Skin.” Further information about the colloquium, which takes place on 8 April, 2017 at Howard University, Washington DC, USA, may be found here: https://sisaas.wordpress.com/sisaas-program/

Popular Essays

Racism: Theory and Practice

By AMITA KANEKAR

 

How can we forget Atithee devo bhava (the guest is god), that pillar of Indian culture? Such was the lament from some sections of the Indian media following the latest murderous attacks on Africans, this time in Noida and triggered by the death of a local teenager. Five Nigerian students in the neighbourhood were arrested after being accused by locals of everything from drugging the boy to eating him, following which mobs began to search for and beat up other Africans, grievously injuring four men who were cornered in a mall. Except for arresting the Nigerians on charges of murder (they were later released for lack of evidence), and thus adding credence to the wild rumours going around, the police did nothing.

 

(more…)

Popular Essays

The Ambiguous Aid of the Goan taxista

By JASON KEITH FERNANDES

Ever so often public ire in Goa turns against the Goan taxi-drivers who are seen, at least by certain dominant sections, as the single group that is upsetting the order in Goa. The taxistas, and in particular the taxistas of Salcete, have been accused of refusing to accede to a regime of digital meters and proper fare charts, charging exorbitant amounts in the absence of these standards. Additionally, if the clients ask for details of the fare calculation, they are allegedly often abused or threatened. These men are seen as uncouth, unreasonable, prone to violent protest.  A number of concerned voices were recently raised when the taxi drivers blocked the entry of the transportation network companies, like Uber and Ola, into the local market. These voices pointed out that such behaviour was in fact enforcing a monopoly, and thanks to the uncouth and violent behaviour of the taxistas would in fact result that a tourist’s first impression of Goa was a negative one. This could only result in the decline of tourists to Goa and the killing of one of the most lucrative industries that the state enjoys.

(more…)