Ketaki Chowkhani

Viewership and Production of the Spectacle: Social Status and Power in the Context of the Bride Procession in Pondicherry Ketaki Chowkhani

This book looks at the practice of bride procession in Pondicherry, a town in South India, as a spectacle. It examines the viewership and production of the procession as a spectacle on the streets and in the video format to look at the function of contemporary marriage practices. Since the marriage practice is conceptualized as a spectacle, examining the viewership and production of the procession tells us something of the significations, meanings and economics of the spectacle while also reconfiguring the conceptual category of the spectacle. Borrowing Bourdieu?s concept of the symbolic capital, the study sees how the viewership of the procession on the streets and in the video format looks for signs of social status which are conceptualized as symbolic capital. Doing a content analysis of the visual and oral aspects of the procession, the study argues that the decorated processional car and the changes that it has undergone over the last few decades are symptomatic of a changing landscape of small businesses and every economic practices. The study also examines the issues of community, religion, region to place the study of the bride procession in its context.