chapter 3
encounters with space
In the chapter Encounters with Space, I introduce space as a significant dimension in both my participants’ lives and the context of my research, analysing Mr Baker, a café located in the heart of Panjim, as a lieu de mémoire by serving as a mechanism for anchoring memories in the present, representing a safe place for remembering the past and discussing everyday life, and offering another tool akin to nostalgia for coping with contemporary changes in Goa. Extending this argument, I further explore embodiment at Mr Baker.
MR BAKER AS A LIEU DE MÉMOIRE, as the title suggests, builds on Pierre Nora’s (1989) concept of lieu de mémoire to offer a detailed description of Mr Baker, the everyday gathering place of my participants, and of myself during fieldwork, as a space where memory was evoked, debated, and made tangible
A meeting at Mr Baker. Still from a video by the author.
In SPACE EMBODIMENT AT MR BAKER, I critically engage with Nora’s theory to examine how Mr Baker, contrary to the author’s predictions, emerges as a site of memory. Drawing on Richardson (1982) and Low (2003, 2009), I state that Mr Baker ultimately becomes a lieu de mémoire when my participants transition from merely occupying the place to “being-in-theworld” (Richardson 1982, 421) by embodying the space around them. Adopting a phenomenological perspective, I portray their daily routines at the coffee shop, suggesting that the experience of place is rooted in “its smell, feel, colour, and other sensory dimensions” (Low 2003, 5). I conclude with a reflection on my own entanglement in the embodied experience of Mr Baker.
Finally, MR BAKER AND ITS SURROUNDINGS, situates the café within the broader geographical context of Panjim, examining its interaction with the surrounding spaces and proposing that, together, they constitute an extended site of memory.
Christopher introducing the surroundings of Mr Baker. Still from a video by the author.
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