Book review: Brian C. Wilson,City of Façades: Archaeology,History and Urbanism in Velha Goa

In this book, we see Brian C. Wilson, one of our clearest-eyed archaeologists and historical anthropologists, embarking on a journey to understand the past of the early modern city of Old Goa by weaving together archaeological data with past narratives and so providing fresh insights. This book skilfully navigates a theme where archival and other sources are quite fragmented and dispersed; it also brings out the meanings of the urbanity of Goa, whose historical representations have been often dominated by elitist narratives and a spirit of colonialism. Critiquing the dominant narratives received from the past and questioning the epistemologies upon which these narratives are built, Brian studies urban space not as a ‘product’ but as a ‘process’. Written with precision and much analytical depth, the narrative delves into the ways the production of spaces happened in the city—with varying degrees and scales of ‘tensions between underlying elite conceptions of space and actual spatial practices’, particularly of those outside the ranks of elites.

At the heart of Brian’s volume is his profound understanding of the life of the Portuguese in Asia. A mastery of sources, both historical and archaeological, allows him to capture the subtle nuances and complexities of urban life in Goa and offer arguments with a rare degree of precision.

The volume in six chapters maps the urban landscapes of the city of Old Goa, which was the capital seat of the viceroy of the Estado da India and the ecclesiastical seat of the Catholic Church in Asia. The city maps of Goa are used as representations of space or an object that existed separate from its rural hinterland. The maps reveal urban space as providing a seat of ecclesiastical and administrative power symbolically condensed in the form of monumental edifices and street patterns. In fact, there was in the past an intentional effort to colonise the existing landscapes by taming wild and unproductive natural environments to make them more ‘European’, disciplined and ordered, compared with the untamed indigenous landscapes outside the European part of the city.

The author analyses the archaeological data of the long outer fortification around the city of Velha Goa and argues that it was an expression of the spatial ideology that used to ‘hold the rural and urban separate’ and was used not just for protection from political enemies but also for controlling and disciplining the colony’s own subjects and controlling circulation between the city and its rural hinterland.

The work also describes the period of the city’s decline by re-examining the archaeological information and contextualising alternative ‘histories’. While meticulously discussing the theme, the author argues that in time it was the European and Europeanised population and their formally built stone structures that were ruined, and, in their stead, a more pronounced ephemeral agricultural and labouring community persisted in the colonial capital, with increasing non-elite space production in the city by those coming in from the rural world.

The book is enriched by many maps, pictures, tables and an extensive bibliography. Brian’s skilful storytelling brings history to life, making the Goan world feel vivid and immediate. With its diligent research, engaging narrative and nuanced analysis, this book is sure to become a definitive work on the city of Goa for years to come.