Digital Story Proposal
According to the Indian embassy in Portugal, the Indian diaspora is mostly concentrated in the greater Lisbon area, in Porto (the second largest city), and in the Algarve region (southern Portugal). I am spending three weeks of my time here in the Algarve region and a few days in Lisbon on either end of my trip. I am in Tavira, which is about one hour east of Lagos, 30 minutes northeast of Faro, and about 30 minutes from the Spanish border. Tavira is a small, quiet town with a population of 25,000 people in the greater area. Within the first ten minutes that I was in Tavira, I noticed that almost every other restaurant in the town center was an Indian restaurant. This puzzled me, I thought to myself “how can they stay open, they have so much competition, this doesn’t add up.” One street is entirely compromised of Indian restaurants, with many others scattered throughout the area. When people think of the Algarve, they do not typically think of Indian food. Some restaurants combine Portuguese and Indian cuisine, advertising dishes such as octopus curry. This made me wonder what other methods restaurant owners use to attract their customers.
By the second day I was here, I noticed the huge amount of British people, whether they have summer homes here or are just tourists. There are many tourists in Tavira, from what I have noticed the number one group is British people, followed by Spaniards and Americans. This made me wonder if the amount of Indian restaurants could be to cater to the amount of tourists that Tavira gets? My curiosity has continued to grow in four days that I have been here.
I had been struggling to come up with and settle on an idea for my digital story. A few things had interested me, but nothing was gripping my attention and keeping it. Today, I had a lightbulb moment. I thought to myself, I wonder what the exact reason is that so many Indians have settled in this small town, and why so many seem to resort to owning a restaurant when the competition is so great. So, I googled it. There were almost no search results about Tavira specifically. The only one I could find was a blog post from eight years ago on TripAdvisor. A woman was saying she had visited Tavira and was fascinated by the number of Indian restaurants and was asking if anyone knew more. There was no discriminatory attitude to her post, simply curiosity. A few people answered saying they were surprised by this, while others answered saying they had visited and found the same thing to be interesting. But no one knew why exactly this was.
So, for my digital story I would like to do a deep dive into this subject. My plan is to talk to locals in Tavira to gain a better understanding of why they chose this sleepy town to migrate to, and to open a business in. I am hoping to talk to a few different people and explain to them that I am a student who is interested in the subject of migration to Portugal and the Indian diaspora in Portugal. My goal is to empower the community and give them a voice, along with providing some insight to tourists about the migrant communities here, hopefully creating an understanding of their path. My intended audience will mostly be for tourists and those who are interested in the Indian diaspora. It will also be for those who are interested in Portugal’s climbing immigration rates, which has been catching a lot of media attention in the last couple of years.
On YouTube, I searched “digital story Indian diaspora in Portugal.” A ton of videos came up, mostly Indian vloggers explaining the visa process, cost of living, and sharing other information for those who may want to follow in their footsteps. There was a wide range of search results outside of these videos, ranging from street food tours in the Indian community in Lisbon to explaining the differences between Portuguese and Indian culture. When searching “digital story Indian diaspora in Tavira,” the only results were tourists explaining what to do in Tavira. There was no mention of the Indian diaspora. There are however, various scholarly articles revolved around Indians in Portugal, such as - From Goans to Gujaratis:A study of the Indian Community in Portugal by Inês Lourenço. There are also articles such as “How Portugal Quietly Became a Migration Hub” by Ajay Makan, explaining what has been happening in regards of migration in Portugal in recent years. There is also an interesting YouTube video by “The Indian Croy,” titled “How to Find Work in Portugal, Indian in Portugal,” which provides some interesting insight.
I am planning on talking to a few employees at a handful of the Indian restaurants in different parts of town and hopefully taking their photos (all with their permission of course). I will also include some photos of Tavira and the outside of some of the Indian restaurants so that viewers can have a proper visual. As of right now, I am unsure about the soundtrack. I am hoping that I will find some inspiration after talking to the restaurant employees. I am here until the third week of April, so the timing of everything should work out perfectly. I will be done conducting my research by the time I leave, and from there will have the resources to create my digital story.
Sources:
“Immigrant Population in Portugal Increases to 750,000.” Portugal.com, 17 Jan. 2023, https://www.portugal.com/news/immigrant-population-in-portugal-increases-to-750000/.
The Indian Croy. “How to Find Work in Portugal | Indian in Portugal.” YouTube, YouTube, 3 Oct. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJN4zosSTus.
Lourenço, Inês. European University InstituteRobert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, 2013, pp. 1–26, From Goans to Gujaratis:A Study of the Indian Community in Portugal.
Makan, Ajay. “How Portugal Quietly Became a Migration Hub.” Foreign Policy, 21 May 2022, https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/21/portugal-europe-migration-undocumented-work-residency-citizenship-south-asia/.