ABSTRACT
Waterways constitute the lifeline of Panaji, a city situated at the confluence of the River Mandovi and the Arabian Sea in Goa, India. During Portuguese colonial rule, waterways facilitated a variety of social, economic and religious interactions with other parts of the Lusophone Indian Ocean, which intimately shaped the design and cosmopolitan outlook of Goa. The Mandovi River now accommodates fishing boats and trawlers, tourist boats, passenger ferries and most conspicuously, water-based “offshore” casinos. Introduced to Goa in the 1990s, over the past few years a number of casinos have come to occupy the city’s waterways. This chapter examines how water-based “offshore” casinos become sites that highlight emerging and evolving transregional networks while simultaneously disrupting and remaking quotidian urban practices in Panaji. By exploring these intersecting frames of spatial practice, this chapter illustrates the multifaceted relationship between urban landscapes and oceanic imaginaries in the contemporary Indian Ocean.
