Michele Foucault has spatialized the dispositives of power like bodies , discourses , techniques of government, and peoples struggle. By geographizing them, he is enabled to historize power relations and is able to grasp them in their transformation. This means a cartography of power situates historical analysis within the economy of knowledge/ power dynamics. Space is not innocent and neutral signifier. It is very much part of power dynamics. Space is always in the making. It comes out of a play of a configuration of power and resistance. Therefore it is naïve to think that space is just a starting point where history begins. It is itself a product of a power play and is very much in motion in the power dynamics that shapes our history. Thus, space is a subject of and subject to the field of power relations that make our histories. Our history is a history through and of spaces.
The understanding of the constituent role of space in the very making of history has to be understand alongside, Foucault’s thesis that history is a history of the present. We in India and Goa need this understanding very much. Histories of our country and Goa did not simply occur on the surface of the territories that we call India and Goa. In fact, what we know as India and Goa emerged as a products of the circuits of powerplay that occurred on these special spaces. We have to agree like other spaces, they were sites of power that produced them. This is why we are subjected to them. The power of these spaces has a very constitutive role in our becoming and is being used to produce politics both in our country and Goa.
Neither India nor Goa was a tabula rasa or blank space where all history happened from a zero point. Both Goa and India were born as a result of the play of what we may call the spaces of power. There was no ground zero starting point. As a result, they are produced, reproduced and are deconstructed by the power relations that were enacted from time to time with them. By regarding Goa or India as a tabula rasa and forgetting their special dynamism of power in making of our history, the power-elite has laid his/her claims over our lands, cultures and faiths. This is why the singularization of India as simply a Hindu place first, which then went through traumatic histories of invasions and colonization seems to disregard the role that space played in the power dynamics in the shaping of the histories of our country.
By forgetting the role of space in the shaping of histories of Goa and India , we have produced them as spaces of power. Power is always inscribed in space and they produce the dynamism of borders, and disciplining mechanisms and regimes of differentiation. Thus, we as Indians as well as Goans do mark our boundaries. They are ritual, religious , regional, national etc. These boundaries cross each other and produce disciplining mechanisms and regimes of differentiation to maintain their purity. Our politics is profoundly shaped by these boundaries, disciplinary mechanisms and regimes of differentiation. The politics of nationalism and antinationalism or even the politics of Goans and non-Goans is one of boundaries, disciplinary mechanisms and regimes of differentiation.
Foucault teaches the boundaries that we have discussed do not really coincide with the boundaries of our nations and states. They are profoundly dynamic and they are continuously produced, reproduced and contested by the kind of configuration of power/ knowledge that operates within them. The power/ knowledge regimes that are operating today shape the dynamism of these boundaries. We can see how Hindutva is a kind of power/knowledge configuration which produces boundaries that deal with the ritual, religious and fidelity to our nation. This means the power of space evokes also ‘the other space’ which can be demonized like we might be doing with Pakistan. The demonization of ‘ the other space’ results in the alienation of the other. We in Goa are seeing a communal politics of othering of the minorities and non-Goans to some extent.
The way power relations shape our spaces, it also shapes our subjectivities. Being a Goan or Indian is produced by spacial power relations that operate there. The power relations that produce both Goa and India all the time also produce us as Goans and Indians respectively. But Goa and India co-constitute us Goans. The way power relations organize as a result of the configurations of knowledge/ power dynamics also generate our politics which both maintains and contest the reigning regimes of power/knowledge. We do have several geographies of power operating dynamically and simultaneously in our country. We are living in polymorphic spaces of power.
History of Goa and India are intertwined with the historical engagement of our spaces or territories that we know as Goa and India. We are not are aterritorial. We territorialize, de-territorialize ourselves or others. It is through our relations with space that we make our identities and convert the space we dwell in to a lived place. We can see how insider/ outsider or inclusion/ exclusion that inhabits our politics is a result of politicizing of our space. This way of thinking history alongside space and time and their several intertwining enables us to question the linear progressive view of history. Bringing space into our analytics does enable us to understand not just how space played its role in the past, but also enables us to see how space belongs to the power dynamics that are at play in India and Goa and work to produce our critical and emancipative response.