Abstract

FERREIRA, José Miguel Moura. “Goa is a Paradise”: Forests, Colonialism and Modernity in Portuguese India (1851-1910). Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais [online]. 2018, n.115, pp.137-158. ISSN 2182-7435.  https://doi.org/10.4000/rccs.7031.

In the early-20^th century, Goa was a remote and economically fragile colony surrounded by the vast territory of the British Raj. Located on the periphery of an empire focused on its African colonies, Goa has therefore occupied a marginal place in the historiographical discussion of Portuguese colonialism in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. This article aims to question this image through an analysis of the debates over the modernization of the colony. By looking into the projects of forest administration and natural resource control put in place by the colonial authorities, the following pages argue that Goa is a privileged location to consider the colonial dynamics of the “long-19^th century” and to rethink the links between colonialism, science, politics and modernity.

Keywords : colonial history; environmental history; forest resources management; Goa; modernity.

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