Abstract

The implementation of protected areas legitimized by participant conservation approaches and consumer industries such as ecotourism represents one of the main strategies of natural heritage protection at a global level. India is not an exception. Nevertheless, there is still an evident lack of academic production in the social sciences focused on this topic in Goa. This research explores the relationships established between a social disadvantage and low caste fishermen population, located in two south Goa coastal villages, and the conservation projects and environmental regulations implemented in their territories; from the way these populations constitute themselves as an active part of an accelerated reconfiguration of their social spaces, where local and global processes converge. In this way, this research intends to explore the material and social implications of the natural heritage processes present in the areas privileged on the investigation and how these processes redefine, reorganize and assign value to the territory and its resources. This heritage activation is here understood as an arena in which multiple actors actively participate from a set of constantly negotiated practices which should be examined against more broad political, socioeconomic and cultural dimensions. This research aims to contribute to the anthropological production on Goa and to natural heritage projects based on participatory conservation approaches through an ethnographic analysis that will highlight the complexities inherent to the forms of adaptation and social resistance and to new ways of integrating knowledge on Issues of global relevance.

Team