Worlding Miss World,Bangalore, 1996 |
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Authors: | William Mazzarella |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, 1126 E 59 St, Chicago, IL 60637, United Statesmazzarel@uchicago.edu |
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Abstract: | 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. |
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Keywords: | publicity sovereignty sponsorship policing liberalisation India |
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