Drama of Democracy: Political Representation in Mumbai

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Synopsis
The performative arts of political communication and representation in Mumbai In an era of global political passions, many have wondered whether some sort of natural affinity exists between political style and substance. Does liberal democracy speak the language of rationality and sincerity while political emotion, imagery, and embodiment properly belong to authoritarianism? Taking an ethnographic approach to the relationship between political form and political content, Drama of Democracy explores the material substance of representations (things like heady crowds and rousing images) together with language-based forms of political communication, such as public oration and community meetings. Drawing on a decade of research in the city of Mumbai, Lisa Björkman shows that embodied performance is the very site and substance of representation and demonstrates how Mumbaikars evaluate performative bids to represent. The ethnographic accounts demonstrate the extraordinary fluency in this evaluative work in Mumbai, where people from all walks of life are remarkably astute at navigating and assessing political signs and representations, endlessly discussing and debating possible meanings of the city&’s dense material-semiotic ecologies—whether words or images, cash or crowds, flyers or flowers. In Mumbai, Björkman argues, the evaluative criterion of representation is not whether something is sign or substance, or even whether people are deemed to utter truths or falsehoods. Rather, what matters is whether and how a performance activates and actuates the social relations and political subjectivities that it professes to display. Drama of Democracy highlights Mumbaikars&’ communicative fluency and theatrical acumen to offer a conceptual toolbox through which contemporary political churnings around the globe might be understood.
Copyright:
2025

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:
9781452973586
Related ISBNs:
9781517918941
Publisher:
University of Minnesota Press
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
the Regents of the University of Minnesota.
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
Nonfiction, Social Studies, Politics and Government
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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