My Umbilical Cord to Goa: Food, Colonialism and Transnational Goan Life Experiences

Goa represents a unique instance of Portuguese colonial history. In contrast to what has happened in other parts of the world (Africa and South America), Portuguese colonial policy in this territory favoured, from the beginning, religious interests at the expense of economic ones. The establishment of Goa as "capital of a Christian Empire" (Thomaz 1998: 253) subjected its people, perhaps as in no other case of Portuguese colonialism, to a strict process of religious conversion. Carried out by the Jesuits, this particular policy contributed powerfully to the implementation of a "Portuguese way of being" that was necessarily adapted to local idiosyncrasies, and which persists to this day. The main goal of this article is to explore how food can contribute to unfolding/revealing some of the unique aspects of the cultural identity that resulted from this colonization strategy in the framework of a long history of transnational migration.

Read the full journal article at Taylor & Francis Online

Written by Marta Vilar Rosales