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Podcast: New Books in South Asian Studies
Episode: Ângela Barreto Xavier, "Religion and Empire in Portuguese India: Conversion, Resistance, and the Making of Goa" (SUNY Press, 2022)
Description: How did the colonization of Goa in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries take place? How was it related to projects for the conversion of Goan colonial subjects to Catholicism? In Religion and Empire in Portuguese India: Conversion, Resistance, and the Making of Goa (SUNY Press, 2022), Ângela Barreto Xavier examines these questions through a reading of the relevant secular and missionary archives and texts. She shows how the twin drives of conversion and colonization in Portuguese India resulted in a variety of outcomes, ranging from negotiation to passive resistance to moments of extreme violence. Focusing on the rural hinte...