With the police, public and government crackdowns on the infamous rave tourism scene in and around Anjuna, parties have almost stopped. Local families are struggling to redefine their village in order to keep attracting ordinary tourists. Instead of re-organizing the rave scene in an ecologically sustainable way, the crackdowns have exacerbated Anjuna’s problems. Now commercialisation, excessive competition and a growing influx of wealthy urbanites will further homogenize what is on offer for tourists in Goa. Critique of tourism should focus on the economics, therefore, and not on he erosion of a past imagined to be pure from external influence.
Dr. Arun Saldanha is Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota since 2004. He received his Ph. D from the Open University, UK, and studied Media Studies in Brussels. Dr Saldanha is author of Psychedelic White: Goa Trance and the Viscosity of Race (2007). He is currently working on a project relating to the beginnings of Dutch colonialism.
P.C. dur.ac.in
