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ID: 140462

Different kind of flesh: public obscenity, globalisation and the Mumbai dance bar ban / Mazzarella, William

Mazzarella, William	Article
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Summary/Abstract

Why did Mumbai's famous dance bars have to close in 2005? This paper analyses the ban and its aftermath in terms of (1) a colonial and post-colonial genealogy of the regulation of allegedly obscene public performances in India and (2) the provocative location of the dance bars vis-à-vis the cultural politics of consumerist globalisation. Combining a reading of arguments around the ban with first-hand ethnographic vignettes, the paper is a contribution to a critical analysis of the politics of publicity in India.

Key Words

Globalisation ; Law ; India ; Mumbai ; Performance ; Public Obscenity ;
Dance Bars

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ID: 144169

Worlding miss world, Bangalore, 1996 / Mazzarella, William

Mazzarella, William	Article
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This essay revisits the much-discussed swarm of protests surrounding the 1996 Miss World pageant in Bangalore, India. It suggests that behind the clamour of clashing opinions regarding the content of the pageant lay a deeper crisis, uninterrogated yet constantly palpable: the absence of a performative dispensation within which the then-nascent project of liberalisation could, paradoxically, be experienced as self-grounding. By organising its discussion around interviews with some of the people most directly involved in trying to manage the meaning of the event – through sponsorship, public relations, policing, and protest – the essay shows how a reconsideration of the pageant can help us understand the delicate relation between commercial publicity and sovereign authority in a globalising age.

Key Words

Sovereignty ; Liberalisation ; India ; Publicity ; Policing ; Sponsorship

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