Claiming the Right to Say No-30 Nov 09-EQUATIONS - Equitable ...

Tourism in Goa: A Narrative Construction of Hosts and Visitors
we can see how a tourism that is build solely on economic principles as a
chief bench mark of development can destroy the very idea of Goa and
Goans. The regional plan 2011 was indeed a good prescription for such
destruction. Hence, a tourism that is exclusionary of the interest of native
community cannot be sustainable.
But we need also the enlightening of the natives and lead them to move
out of Platonic cave of tourism and so that we are saved from killing the
hen that lays a golden egg in our greed. This is not a simple process. We
need to engage in producing a discourse that will manifest the disfigured
face of tourism and compel all the stake holders to refigure and rearticulate
the narrative of Goa that is both sustainable and participative. To achieve
this goal we need to establish many counter-publics, groups that openly
critique and work to produce and alternate narrative that will save Goa
and Goans. Only an eruption of such little narratives can build into a
volcano that will de-narrattivize and thus de-rail the present form of tourism.
The church and other religious authorities, human right activists, tourism
activists, researchers and others have a great task to perform. The
imperative to respond to the scenario of tourism cannot be left unheeded
to. This imperative challenges us to call of the other in the Levinasian
way. It is a challenge to move from the ontological said (narratives of
Goa) to the ethical saying.
Conclusion
Our study attempts to understand the narrative implications on the hosts
and visitors in Goa. The present narrative construction of our state can
lead us to a collective disaster. Hence, a new sustainable and nativecommunity-centred
tourism is a dire need of the hour.
9