Psychedelic White: Goa Trance and the Viscosity of Race

252 Pages·2007·3.26 MB·English

by  Arun Saldanha

Psychedelic White
This page intentionally left blank
Psychedelic White
Goa Trance and the Viscosity of Race
Arun Saldanha
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis • London
Portions of chapters 8–11 were published in ACME: An International E-Journal
for Critical Geographies4, no. 2 (2005).
All photographs in the book were taken by the author, with the exception of the
two photographs in chapter 15, which were taken by Stijn Spittaels and used
with permission.
Maps in the book were created by Jonathan Schroeder, with the exception of the
sketch maps, which were drawn by the author.
Copyright 2007 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
aretrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Saldanha, Arun.
Psychedelic white : Goa trance and the viscosity of race / Arun Saldanha.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN13:978-0-8166-4993-8 (hc : alk. paper) — ISBN 13: 978-0-8166-4994-5
(pb : alk. paper)
ISBN10:0-8166-4993-6 (hc : alk. paper) — ISBN 10: 0-8166-4994-4 (pb :
alk. paper)
1. Cultural geography—India—Anjuna. 2. Whites—Race identity—
India—Anjuna. 3. Tourists—Social networks—India—Anjuna.
4. Counterculture—India—Anjuna. 5. Hallucinogenic drugs—Social
aspects—India—Anjuna. 6. Trance (Underground dance music)—
Social aspects—India—Anjuna. I. Title.
GP662.A35S25 2007
305.800954'78—dc22 2007007629
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
12 11 10 09 08 07 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This is no field for the faint of heart. You are venturing out (like
the Portuguese sailors, like the astronauts) on the uncharted
margins. But be reassured—it’s an old human custom. It’s an
old living-organism custom. We’re here today because certain
adventurous proteins, certain far-out experimenting cells, certain
hippy amphibia, certain brave men pushed out and exposed
themselves to new forms of energy.
—Timothy Leary, about his Harvard LSD experiments
When a number of bodies of the same or of different magnitudes
are pressed together by others, so that they lie one upon the
other, or if they are in motion with the same or with different
degrees of speed, so that they communicate their motion to
one another in a certain fixed proportion, these bodies are said
to be mutually united, and taken together they are said to
compose one body or individual, which is distinguished from
other bodies by this union of bodies.
—Spinoza
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Preface ix
ethnography as thought 1
1. Psychedelic Whiteness 11
2. What Materialism? 21
3. Tripping on India 28
the researcher’s body 44
viscosity 49
4. Goa Freaks 53
5. Drugs and Difference 58
6. Trance, Dance, and the Trance-Dance 70
7. The Psychopathology of Travel 79
the trials of transcendence 88
8. Visual Economy 91
9. Faces of Goa 100
10. Zombie Beach 110
11. Sunlight and Judgment 123
purity as machinic effect 129
12. The Politics of Location 132
13. Cliques 144
14. Noise, Narcotics, Law and Order 153
15. Dealing with the Third World 167
when the music’s over 177
16. A Machinic Geography of Phenotype 182
17. Freaking Whiteness 193
the molecular revolution 206
Appendix: Field/Work 215
Notes 223
Index 235
Preface
B
odies are different. Finally, this is coming to bear on theory. Fem-
inism has led the way in stressing the irrefutability of bodily differences.
But for a host of reasons, the bodily differences we call race have been
relegated to the discursive realm. Race is a cultural construct, full stop,
with no basis in the material world of flesh, phenotype, and the physical
landscape. This book tries to suggest a new ontology of race, and asks
throughout: but what is race? It asks how racial difference emerges not
because people think or write “such and such is white,” “so-and-so is
Indian,” and neither because a dominant discourse “others” certain minori-
ties. Racial difference emerges as many bodies in the real world align and
comport themselves in certain ways, in certain places. Taking the embodi-
ment of race seriously is not a mere addition to existing poststructuralist
approaches. It calls for quite a radical shift in thinking, and I know it is
tricky. Most theories of race are still very much steeped in an antirealist,
psychoanalytic, dialectical framework. I’ve come to believe, however, that
a shift toward materialism in the conceptualization of race is nigh, and it
won’t be just this book arguing for it. Race is simply far too important a
force to prevent such shifts to happen.
Without the precise, dedicated, and insightful criticisms of Doreen
Massey and Jenny Robinson, I would never have managed to focus my
thinking. I am deeply grateful to a host of others, in no particular order:
Nigel Clark and Susan J. Smith, examiners of my thesis; Jan Teurlings
in Amsterdam, for our lifelong dialectical effort at escaping the dialectic;
IX