I've just finished my M.A. thesis in Cultural / Social Anthropology at the University of Cologne. Its title is (translated) "Discourse and Performance of the "Party Subculture" in North-Goa (India) in Context of Indigeneous Conflicts about Regional Identity". After being a frequent guest in Anjuna and Arambol since the late 1980s and after a decision to change my live and to study Anthropology, History and Philosophy it was quite clear that the Goan people and their culture(s), society, history and encounters with different kinds of "outsiders" would be the focus of my interests. This will not change in future, because I'm planning to write my PhD-thesis as soon as possible. I don't know exactly what will be the theme, but the region will be definitely Goa and it will be "something" about identity formation and intracultural differences. Maybe tourism will be important too. The latter not as much as a direct "change agent" but as an object used in the intracultural struggles about change or conservation of what is defined in the dominant discourse as "Goan" or "traditional values" - just like I've experienced the "role" of the neohippies and partypeople for the different parts of population in Anjuna and Arambol. Well, whatever the future brings, it will have something to do with Goa and hopefully and sooner or later with an "official" research project. To be a member of goa-research-net could give me the possibility to get "connected" and to exchange experiences and more or less proofed facts about what is going on in the "state of mind" as Goa is called by so many different people. (I found the trope of "Goa ist not a place. It is a state of mind. You take it with you when you leave" not only in statements from "Hippies" but also, using the same words, in statements of many Goans from different classes/castes who used to be "outside" for a while. No wonder. The first sentence is not only the title of a well known old postcard which has travelled all over the world and reached many minds, the whole trope is also a description of a feeling which is simply real and which reflects a kind of strange nostalgia and homesickness even for those who just have been "visitors" like me.)
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