Selma's book about Diaspora Goans should be a great read. Congratulations Selma for your yeomen work.
Reading some comments on the book, it appears it has a lot of stories on individual Diaspora Goans. If true, it shows individual Goans being pioneers and breaking the 'glass ceiling.' This made it much easier for those who followed them. I recollect my job in Hammersmith Hospital in London. At my interview, the chair asked me if I knew of a prior Goan, who worked there and impressed his bosses immensely...... But I digress. In medicine, we call individual patient-story as "anecdotal cases." They are very interesting because these individual cases are rare and their behavior is different from the norm. Yes, they are different from the norm. Hence we cannot / do not rely-on and study the natural history of the disease (or the community) by relying on individual stories, as many sociologists do. I hope in addition to the important individual accounts, the book has abundant statistical information; a fact not often seen in Goa-related books and writings. When we rely on accounts of yester-years (about Goans abroad OR foreigners in Goa), we often refer to the science of ETHNOCENTRISM. Only recently we have realized the science of CULTURAL RELATIVITY. ETHNOCENTRISM is to see one's "way of life" as the only "right way" of living. Ethnocentrism continues to exists in theory and practice by conservative writers and authoritarian governments, both on the left and right of the political spectrum. In its extreme, ethnocentrism leads to bigotry. CULTURAL RELATIVITY (which is still a maturing science) studies customs in the context of culture as a whole and how it works relative to the existing environment and socio-economic patterns of the society. This is obviously a much more nuanced study. Cultural Relativity in a multi-cultural society is theoretically enlightening, but in practice it can lead to social disruption, even in today's world. http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cs_20100724_3946.php I am amazed that many Goans who write about yester-year over-look and do not appreciate the distinction and the time-lag between these two sciences. Sociologists and historians of the ethnocentrism era blundered in their observation and in their conclusions. Hope the present generation of scientists in these fields do not commit similar blunders, as they analyze the past, without separations along the time-line. It is like analyzing medicine of 15th -19th century by today's standards. Then, the standard scientific therapy for most illnesses was blood letting, purges, enemas etc, to "remove the bad poisons / humors". Regards, GL * * * UK STOCKS EXHAUSTED! After a community-supported launch at Croydon, Selma Carvalho's *Into the Diaspora Wilderness* is available at Broadways Book Centre, Panjim [Ph +91-9822488564] Price (in Goa only) Rs 295. Ask a friend to pick up a copy. Details of the book http://selmacarvalho.squarespace.com/ * * *
