Packaging Life: Cultures of the Everyday

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e SAGE Team: Elina Majumdar, Anupam Choudhury, Mathew P.J. and

Trinankur Banerjee

Contents

Preface

vii

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Packaging Life xi

1. Life, the Low-calorie Edition: Cultures of Health

e Medicalization of the Everyday

e Culture of Care and Cure

Managing Health, Promoting Wellness

2. Life, the Deluxe Edition: Cultures of Comfort

e Culture of Comfort

e ‘Stylization of Life’ Itself

e Culture of Luxury

3. Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition: Cultures of Risk

Risk Society

Imagination and the Becoming-real

Information and Risk

‘Emotional Imaging’ and Moral Panics

e Culture of the Expert

Risk

Practices

4. Life, the High-speed Edition: Cultures of Mobility 134
Mobile

Connections

Social Networking and Mobile Subjectivity

Consuming

Mobility

Automobility
Cultural

Mobilities

Cosmopolitanism

Conclusion: Unpacking

190

Bibliography

196

Index

217

About the Author

219

Preface

his book is a study of four aspects of everyday life and the ways
in which these are ‘packaged’ for us.

‘Packaging’ refers to the processes that construct particular

meanings in public culture’s many genres—promotional material, news
reports, advice columns, product literature—and in various media such
as magazines, TV shows, newspapers and cinema. ‘Packaging’ is a method
of constructing meanings, assigning values and building opinions
around a particular issue, commodity, service or condition of life. On
many occasions, these meanings and opinions translate into the sale of
products and services, and thus, become integral to consumer culture.

Packaging Life: Cultures of the Everyday is a study of the cultural poli-

tics of

health, comfort, risk and mobilities. Cultural politics, as this book

sees it, involves the construction of meanings and values through a stra-
tegic use of representations, narrative and rhetoric. Such representations
mask the ideologies behind the meanings of products, events and con-
ditions. In other words, products, services and conditions instantiate
discourses and, therefore, politics.

Packaging Life ‘unpacks’ these ideolo-

gies that insinuate as discourses—discourses of the family, perfectible
bodies, fairness, style and sociability—that inform representations of
risk, comfort, home, old age, lifestyle, disease, connectivity and cosmo-
politanism.

is book explores the ways in which aspects of everyday life such

as health, housing, lifestyles and identities acquire meanings such as
good health, cosmopolitan identities or luxurious lifestyles. Such construc-
tions—or what this book calls

packaging—encourage us to buy partic-

ular commodities, adopt certain lifestyles, assimilate speciﬁ c political
or social beliefs and develop signiﬁ cant anxieties. In other words, dis-
courses morph into consumer cultural practices. To ‘unpack’ a discourse
is to track the ideologically macadamized route a commodity, attitude,
response or behaviour traverses within the informational landscape of
images, rhetoric, narratives and representations.

My rationale for examining the cultures and discourses of

health,

comfort, risk and mobilities is simply that they seemed to me the most

Acknowledgements

revived this book in late 2007 after some hiatus, partly on Elina
Majumdar’s encouragement; and so, I owe her a huge debt because,
contrary to my fears at this revisiting of old haunts (a.k.a book

ideas), I

enjoyed researching and writing it (in between these two pro-

cesses, I also did some thinking!). And, while I was writing about re-
enchantment, taskmaster Elina also convinced me that there would be,
must be,

another soon after. Th

ank you, Elina of SAGE Publications.

My work-in-progress (which sometimes is not progress) is usually

haunted by frequent bouts of exhaustion which, I suspect, worry my
parents and takes away the joy of seeing another of my books (‘one
more’?). But they remain quietly, aﬀ ectionately, prayerfully supportive,
and for this I am very grateful—where else would I go?

Nandini’s enthusiasm for everything popular—FM Radio to Food

Guides—is particularly useful because she directs me to sources I did
not know existed. Her careful attention to product packaging has come
in useful on too many occasions to number. For her unﬂ agging energy
born, no doubt, of a healthier diet than mine (here goes another ‘health-
ism’), aﬀ ection and cheer, and her attempts to clear time and space for
me to write, I am very grateful to N.

Young Pranav’s school projects—with their consequent (weekly)

shopping expeditions for charts, chart-paper, pencils, crayons, match-
sticks, odd-coloured ‘doughs’—and the chortle-interrupted together-
viewing of

Tom and Jerry, the awed together-reading of Th

e Dark Knight

Returns and the guﬀ awed together-consumption of Asterix are neces-
sary distractions for me. Th

ere is also now the added attraction of shar-

ing interests with him—speciﬁ cally the superhero comic book. For his
‘bundling’ presence—thank you, P. (And I

do think ‘General Electric’

is the funniest name in

Asterix, though ‘General Metric’ and his ‘met-

ric system’ of warfare, Cumulonimbus, Makalos [Make-a-loss], Gluteus
Maximus and Inﬁ rmofpurpos come pretty close).

I must also thank my students, S. Vimala, Neeraja Sundaram and

Deepthi Sebastian, for reading some of my chapters and oﬀ ering sug-
gestions and comments. Deepthi, in particular, deserves a special note

Packaging Life

of gratitude for tracking references and serving as a quick information-
retrieval device for journal articles at the university (and delivering them
by email at 7.35 every morning).

I am grateful to the School of Media, Critical and Creative Arts,

Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), the UK, and my friend Colin
Harrison there, for inviting me as Visiting Professor in February–March
2008. I also thank the India Foundation, Indian Council for Cultural
Relations and the Center for International Programmes, University
of Dayton (Ohio, USA), who collaborated in inviting me as Visiting
Professor in 2008. Both visits gave me the much-needed access to librar-
ies and resources that helped shape this book.

My academic friends in India and abroad have been suppliers of ma-

terials and encouraging (if bewildered) witnesses to my erratic course of
work. I must thank, with great pleasure, Colin at LJMU for being one
of my staunchest supporters, and of course Nandana Dutta and Brinda
Bose. More recently, I have been privileged with the friendship of Akhila
Ramnarayan at the University of Dayton and Rita Kothari at the Mudra
Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad. Sophia College’s English
department (the indomitable Shireen Vakil, the persuasive Sr Ananda
Amritamahal and my friend Jihasa Vachcharajani) invited me to a semi-
nar on Gender and Popular Culture in early January 2008 where my
paper on men’s magazines oﬀ ered me the opportunity to think about
‘healthisms’—thank you Sophia (and I am glad that I overcame my re-
luctance to be a ‘conferencee’ and attended the seminar).

Talking popular culture with comrade-colleague Anna—my listen-

ing board, interlocutor, bibliographic researcher, library fellow-traveller
and friend—is to open up several books simultaneously. Th

is book, like

the ones before it, is in irremediable debt to her intellect, reading and
priceless aﬀ ection (and for the gentle hints: ‘No, really Pramod, that
sentence really does

not work’).

Mysore Jagadish of the American Library, Chennai, deserves special

thanks for supplying me journal articles and books at incredible speed.

anks to Anupam and the SAGE team for their editorial expertise

and ﬁ nal sharpening and shaping of this book.

Introduction

Packaging Life

his book deals with the ways in which public culture constructs
meanings around and about particular issues, concepts and
conditions—especially those that constitute the framework

within which we live, socialise, consume and are entertained and in-
formed. It analyses how four select aspects of everyday life—health, risk,
comfort and mobility—are ‘packaged’ in particular ways for us (there
are of course many kinds of mobility, and so ‘mobilities’ might be a
more apposite term). Life itself, this book argues via a scrutiny of these
four components, gets ‘packaged’ through forms of

representations in the

media, in the

rhetoric of ‘experts’ and in the hard-sell narrative of the

manufacturing house.

e book builds on a set of assumptions about cultural practices.

Desires, experiences, ambitions, ideals and opinions in everyday life
are always contaminated by the information, ideologies and images—
representations—circulating around health, luxury or success. Th

ese

representations are situated within larger contexts of enunciation;
contexts that are permeated by relations of power and politics. Th

ese

contexts of representation and enunciation are ‘discourses’.

Discourse, in Hayden White’s terms, ‘constitutes the objects it pre-

tends only to describe realistically and objectively’ (White 1978: 2). Dis-
course, as a dictionary of cultural theory puts it succinctly, ‘is a means
of producing and organizing meaning within a social context’ (Edgar
and Sedgwick 2004: 117). More signiﬁ cantly, discourses are ‘signify-
ing ways of systematically organizing human experience of the social
world in language and thereby constituting modes of knowledge’ (Edgar
and Sedgwick 2004: 117). Th

us, discourse mediates the very experi-

ence of life. Proceeding from this deﬁ nition,

Packaging Life studies the

discourses that enable, hinder and inﬂ uence our experience of and
views on health, comfort, risk and mobilities. It believes that the dis-
courses emanating from the business house, the media and the expert,
represent everyday life to us in speciﬁ c ways, and our experience of these

Packaging Life

xii

conditions, whether of risk or success, is at least partly inﬂ ected by our
consumption of these

representations.

Public culture is the realm of social and cultural expressions in civil

society. It is the space of cinema, advertisements, TV, celebrity culture,
the woman’s magazine, the Indian Premiere League (IPL) and sport-
ing events, autobiographies of public ﬁ gures, websites and webpages of
institutions, tourist guides, museums, comic strips, and so on. It is a
space where meanings are made, fought over, re-done, appropriated and
subverted, and over which no control—state or corporate, to name but
two—is total. It is the cultural ‘space’ of cinema that must be subject to
critical scrutiny in Cultural Studies for the power relations that inform
and mediate meaning-production.

Claims and counter-claims over meanings are invariably debates

about representation (that is, language). And representation is about
narrative and the contexts in which narratives are produced, dissemi-
nated and received. Th

us, the ‘meaning’ of an advert from an insurance

company is produced within multiple discourses of risk, safety, pru-
dence and planning. Th

ese discourses could be further reﬁ ned into sub-

categories of biomedical, educational and ﬁ nancial risks, the rhetoric of
safety for the family and discourses of ‘planning’.

Take a topical example of this multi-layered discourse in public cul-

ture: obesity and health. We are inundated with discourses about health
in this age of ‘healthism’. Newspaper reports about obesity, ads for low-
fat food, medical and scientiﬁ c information from nutrition specialists
reprinted in magazines, advice in health columns in newspapers, insur-
ance against risks and the rhetoric of care in hospitals treating fat-related
cardiac problems are all discourses that ask us to:

• buy a product (use sugar-free sweetener),
• practice a particular regimen (add exercise to everyday sched-

ules),

• alter the lifestyle (delete fast foods) and/or
• obtain a service (seek medical advice).

What I propose to study, in such an instance, is the construction of

obesity as a problem, issue and condition. I am interested in the

mean-

ings—biomedical, ethical, social, economic and aesthetic—constructed

Introduction

xiii

around obesity and obese individuals. Th

is construction of meaning

through various narratives and rhetorical strategies across various genres
is what I am ‘packaging’.

‘Packaging’ is the discursive, representational, rhetorical and nar-

rative dimension of public culture and, as this book demonstrates,
of

consumer culture. Th

is meaning–consumer culture linkage requires

some preliminary comments. Meaning, as theorists of consumer
culture argue, is increasingly ‘provided by corporate entities seeking
greater return on their investments’ and, therefore, they seek to gov-
ern the ‘public mind’—a process that results in ‘a mystical connection
between consumers and purveyors, “consumer goods” and what Tim
Duvall calls the “great chain of consumption”’ (Duvall 2003: 84–85).
While

Packaging Life subscribes to Duvall’s argument about the public

mind and its meaning-making being determined to a great extent by
corporate interests and consumer goods suppliers, I also believe that
‘consumer’ culture involves more than a simple myth-making and its
resultant consumption of goods and services. It involves, for instance,
the development of particular views of the self, the body, success and
health. While many of these views might be the regulating framework
of consumption, it would be reductive to say all views and ideas eventu-
ally lead only to consumption. Th

ese ideas (could) also lead to diﬀ er-

ent forms of socialization and domestic structures, public health policy
and initiatives—and these are

not solely about consumer culture. Th

us,

while it is mostly coterminous with ‘promotional culture’, ‘packaging’
diﬀ ers from it in signiﬁ cant ways. I use the term as shorthand to signal
the process through which meaning is ascribed to an object such as
health or a car, and is accepted as such by the individual or community;
a process that could alter, reinforce and generate forms of behaviour,
social relations and domestic and public arrangements of people, space
and time.

To phrase it diﬀ erently, ‘packaging’ as a term draws attention to

the persuasive ways through which concepts, services, opinions and
products are ‘sold’ to consumers and the audience. By ‘sold’ I do not
mean only the commercial-ﬁ nancial element. ‘Sold’ also implies per-
suading people to have a particular opinion or develop a new value sys-
tem. For the purposes of this book, ‘sold’ is the semantic scope of ‘com-
merce’ itself that is expanded to include cultural, socio-psychological

Packaging Life

xiv

and ideational elements, but always gesturing at the market dimension
as well. What I am suggesting is: ‘Packaging’ partakes of the ﬁ nancial
economy, but also of various other economies—psychological, mythic
and socio-cultural. It is at once about selling a product or service, but
also more than that—it generates values, ideas, beliefs, superstitions,
myths, anxieties and panics that constitute a form of social knowledge
and the contemporary cultural imaginary. ‘Packaging’ is my term for
the narratives of commercially viable products as well as abstract ideas,
of proﬁ t-motivated services as well as social causes, of saleable objects as
well as ‘immaterial’ notions. ‘Packaging’ is the ornamentalized, glam-
ourized or expertise-coated wrapping in which, among others, we:

• encounter ideas about health and risk,
• stare at imminent disasters and possible solutions,
• experience

anxieties,

• evaluate

products,

• execute new forms of sociality and
• conceive plans (and dreams) for political and social change.

‘Packaging’ is a multi-layered process that appropriates in various

degrees and guises the tone, language, style, strategies and politics of
scientism, commerce, social causes and ‘values’.

is meaning-making process, or ‘packaging’, has ideological and po-

litical implications because it encodes particular notions of the family,
the individual or ‘India’ and constructs ‘roles’ for individuals and collec-
tives. Constructions of aged people, promotion of luxury as a desirable
quality or emphasis on material success often call into question, rein-
force or marginalize individuals or groups who do not ﬁ t into accept-
able notions and categories of ‘youth’, ‘successful’ or ‘stylish’, and thus,
construct power relations between people.

Meaning-making that assigns roles, prescribes responsibilities and

generates stereotypes (of men and women, age and leisure, success and
comfort) are exercises in power and therefore of

politics. Th

us, promotion-

al culture, which relies on such constructions of categories and notions,
is a political matter. Further, the very act of constructing such categories
in discourse is an exercise in power, for it catalogues, discerns or discrim-
inates among individuals and groups. In other words, the discourses

Introduction

of promotional culture are always political.

Packaging Life thus unpacks

a bundle consisting of:

1. the commonly circulating

discourses of health, risk or safety,

2. the

material culture of cars, foods or phones,

3. the

consumer culture that is often (but not always) the result of

the ﬁ rst two and

4. the

cultural codes that operate within these discourses so that

they become eﬀ ective.

In earlier works, I had explored how various ‘genres’ of public culture

such as cinema, the comic book, museums, tourism, mobile phones,
housing, property and shopping and celebrity culture constructed
particular kinds of meaning (Nayar 2006, 2008b, 2009b).

Packaging

Life extends these earlier works, examining the discursive constructions
of health and illness, beauty and ﬁ tness, comfort and luxury, risk and
moral threats, connectivity and cosmopolitanism within contemporary
Indian (metropolitan) public culture and continually links them with a
consumer culture.

Packaging Life is alert to the cultural rhetorics of consumer culture

where particular meanings often lead to, or induce a desire for, a par-
ticular product or action. Cultural rhetorics is the process of meaning-
making through a highly strategic use of representations, and is more
than a simple linguistic act, often referencing cultural contexts and ap-
pealing to and also ‘tweaking’ already circulating sentiments, beliefs,
cultural norms and codes, value systems and traditions. Cultural codes,
of course, are political, for they rely on speciﬁ c notions of family, gender,
class or leisure in order to reinforce, subvert or reject power relations
between genders, classes, groups or communities.

Public culture in this book is closely aligned with material and con-

sumer culture, but is

not restricted to either. Packaging Life is informed

by the assumption that public culture depends mainly on narratives and
discourses that generate meaning. A central component of public cul-
ture is the machinery that produces meaning in order to sell products
and services. Th

is is the structure of

consumer culture, a feature of the

public culture in most cultures across the world. Th

e terms ‘consumer

culture’ and ‘consumer society’ require a quick elaboration here.

Packaging Life

xvi

In the world of consumer culture, meaning and desire are cultivated

in the consumer

preliminary to the selling of a product or service. By

consumer culture I mean the culture of commodities and commercial-
ized services that we live with and in today. Consumer culture as a term
is used to ‘emphasize that the world of goods and their principles of
structuration are central to the understanding of contemporary society’
(Featherstone 1991: 84). Th

is means paying attention to the cultural

dimension of economy as well as the economic dimensions of cultural
goods. Th

us, we need to explore the ways in which ﬁ lms, soap operas,

advertising and advice columns promote products whose sales are di-
rectly linked to economic proﬁ ts. It also means that we study the proﬁ ts
garnered through the sale of ﬁ lms, albums, TV serial rights and sport-
ing events. Consumption now plays a ‘systemic role,’ as David Clarke
calls it (2003: 2), where it inﬂ uences ways of thinking, political beliefs,
religion, education, ideologies of emancipation, clothing and fashion,
social groups and alliances—in short, practically all that constitutes a
social order. Th

ings—objects of consumption, from food to housing—

of course signify and construct a sense of the self for the individual
user. Objects become the means, in other words, of diﬀ erentiating the
individuals. But they also serve as modes of social integration because,
as Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton point out, ‘Th

e cultivation of

individuality serves a larger goal of integration because the intention to
diﬀ erentiate oneself from others still needs other people to give it mean-
ing’ (1981: 33). To borrow Jean Baudrillard’s example, choosing one car
over another may be an act of ‘personalization’ (or distinction), but ‘the
most important thing about the fact of choosing is that it assigns you a
place in the overall economic order’ (2008: 152).

We have consumption as a basis for a social system of mutual recog-

nition, aﬃ

liation and alliances. To cite David Clarke once more, ‘In a

fully ﬂ edged consumer society, consumption performs a role that keeps
the entire social system ticking over.… A consumer society…sees this
common, everyday activity elevated to new heights’ (2003: 13). It is such
a ‘social order’—and ‘social order’ signiﬁ es power and politics—of con-
sumption that this book assumes is characteristic of urban India today.

Consumption is

political because it is, of course, about proﬁ ts for the

manufacturer. But it is also political for the ways in which it shapes an in-
dividual’s identity, social relations and group aﬃ

liations. Consumption

Introduction

xvii

becomes political because it is one way (anti-consumerism activists will
say, ‘only’) of interfacing with the world. Jonathan Friedman captures
the political dimension of consumption when he writes:

[Consumption] expresses a romantic longing to become an
other in an existential situation where whatever one becomes must
eventually be disenchanted by the knowledge that all identity is an ar-
rangement of man-made [

sic] products, thus an artiﬁ ce. No authentic

identity is possible, so consumption must go on in quest of a fulﬁ ll-
ment that can never be attained. (Friedman 1991: 158; Lee 1993)

us, consumption is related to the sense of self and identity, which

in turn inﬂ uences social interaction, and is therefore a political matter.

Consumer culture constructs both the subject and the object of

consumption—the buyer-user and the commodity, respectively. As
Roberta Sassatelli points out, historically, numerous actors and insti-
tutions have helped construct the consumer as a ‘social persona’, and
to ‘consolidate the consumer culture as a culture both for consumers
and of consumers: both a set of commodities for people to consume
in certain ways, and a set of representations of people as consumers’
(Sassatelli 2007: 41). Th

e ‘subject of consumption’ is ‘the individual who

is imagined and acted upon by the imperative to consume’ (Miller and
Rose 1997: 1). Th

e ‘imperative’ that Miller and Rose identify is what

this book unravels—or unpacks—as the ideological-political subtext of
consumer culture. Take the home and its ‘packaging’, for instance.

Homes are spaces of domestic consumption, and therefore, invoke

questions of commerce and economics as much as the world of bazaar
or the mall. Th

e economies of the home involving food and cloth-

ing, women and labour, household technologies and the very idea of
‘home’—that subsume

ideologies of gender, the family, parenting and

consumption—constitute a realm of the political (for an excellent rep-
resentative volume dealing with the ‘economies’ and politics of domes-
tic consumption, see Jackson and Moores 1995; also see Nayar 2008b,
Chapter 5). Th

us, the number of advertisements showing the woman

taking decision to change the cooking oil for the health of her family
encodes a cultural politics of domestic consumption where gender roles
are constructed and reinforced.

Packaging Life

xviii

Consumer culture’s aim is to ‘use images, signs and symbolic goods

which summon up dreams, desires and fantasies,’ which it then proceeds
to fulﬁ l by providing goods and services (Featherstone 1991: 27). It is
this aspect—the ‘use [of ] images, signs and symbolic goods’—the present
book is interested in. I am interested in the ways in which a diverse varie-
ty of goods, services, opinions, behaviour and attitudes are ‘packaged’ for
us to desire, acquire, imitate and use. Th

at is, I am interested in the sales

pitch, the rhetorical strategies and the informational culture embedding
products, brands, aesthetics and services: from insurance to water ﬁ lters,
from Cartier watches to social networking, from clothing accessories to
six-pack abs.

Packaging Life is also interested in non-consumer (that is,

non-proﬁ teering) discourses in public culture where values, concerns
and advice are oﬀ ered on looks, ﬁ tness and safety.

How does an Armani jacket, a Spanish villa or a Roman artefact be-

come associated with luxury and, therefore, wealth, success and power?
How is global warming marketed as a matter of risk and, therefore,
of common concern? How does a youth rave party become iconic, for
some, of the ‘collapse of Indian values’? How does a low-carb diet get
projected as the best thing for men’s health? How is the texture of sham-
pooed hair promoted as a desirable quality in teens? And since when
did social mobility become associated with cosmopolitan tastes in food
and fashion? How does the structural nature of consumer culture—
shopping, manufacturing, advertising—become political? How does
consumerism get embedded in politics, debates about morality, a social
panic or the theme of ‘family values’? How does the purely ‘formal’ con-
sumption of goods connect with more abstract notions of morality or
values? And, conversely, how are these ‘values’—what I term ‘cultural
rhetorics’—deployed to sell us products and services?

ese are the kinds of questions that inform this book. Th

e book is

interested less in context-speciﬁ c empirical work of consumption (such
as shopper surveys, proﬁ ts and manufacturing). Its interest lies in the
discourses surrounding matters such as health, risk, mobility and com-
fort rather than in particular brand marketing strategies.

While this runs the risk of homogenizing several discourses—some

of them not overtly ‘consumerist’, such as alternative and ethical con-
sumerisms in the

Ethical Consumer magazine, or public-interest ads—

into one, it also enables me to map a larger terrain. It helps me to see

Introduction

xix

how notions such as cosmopolitanism or health have become associated
not only with commodities, but also with attitudes and lifestyles. It fa-
cilitates a reading of a variety of social phenomena, from moral panics
in society about youth culture alongside the culture of ﬁ tness as

(a) the

process of generating signiﬁ cant meanings, and

(b) the propagation of

particular ideologies within public culture.

e methodology used here is almost exclusively discourse studies

from within the Cultural Studies approach. Th

e project is not to discov-

er or trace moments of origin or cause–eﬀ ect sequences within discourse
or material culture. My interest lies in ‘resonances’. I seek commonali-
ties, overlaps, intersections and multiplicities in themes, ﬁ gures, images
and ideas. I want to see how images and themes in genres as diverse and
as speciﬁ c (in terms of their technologies of representation) advertising,
ﬁ lms, TV serials, magazine cultures, brochures, promotional material,
oﬃ

cial documentation resonate with each other. Th

us, the focus is less

on tracing origins of these discourses or material objects than on in-
tersecting, overlapping and even conﬂ icting cultural processes and dis-
courses that construct images of say, health or risk and safety.

My intention is to read representational strategies, rhetorical styles

and discourses that serve up gadgets, services, views in particular ways
in order to maximize impact and consumption. Th

us,

Packaging Life is

an example of a Cultural Studies that is more interested in language,
representation and rhetoric and treats them and the meanings they con-
struct as political.

Cultural Studies, especially the strand inﬂ uenced by poststructural-

ism, believes that language and narrative—discourse—are signifying
practices that construct meanings and identities for people, products,
events and things. Discourse is the context in which material objects,
people and events acquire meaning. It is the language and narrative
shared amongst the manufacturer of the product, the producer of the
advert and the potential buyer that constructs the meaning of that com-
modity. It is the narrative act of communication between the medical
practitioner about the symptom and the ill-feeling patient that constructs
the individual as ‘diseased’. Discourse, in short, is the mode through
which we understand, interpret and share the world, as I have already
emphasized in the inaugural moments of this introduction. Medicine
constructs the sick/healthy body, the law the criminal or victim body.

Packaging Life

Religion fetishizes sin as a concept and practice and fashions an iden-
tity of the ‘sinner’. Th

e marketer treats the individual as the buyer. All

these are discourses with their own rhetorical and narrative modes.
My ‘texts’, in keeping with the approach, are many and multi-modal—
advertisements, TV, brochures, cinema, product literature, advise col-
umns, magazines, newspapers, oﬃ

cial documents and websites. Th

does run the risk of ignoring the conventions of every form—the use of
audio or voice-over and the reduction of everything to the verbal—but,
I believe, it facilitates the tracing of a map of the discourse in all its vari-
ations, undulations and blind-ends.

Packaging Life is the study of four such discourses that are central to

our lives today: health, risk, comfort and mobility. ‘Packaging’, from
‘pack’, is etymologically linked to both ‘bundle’ and ‘deliver’. I use the
term in all its semantic dimensions. I use it to refer, therefore, to the
bundling together of ideas and products into one rhetorical form, a nar-
rative ‘bundle’ where ideologies of consumerism are entwined with those
of self-care, where notions of fashion cosmopolitanism co-exist—share
discursive and representational space—with a sense of local pride. I use
it also to speak of the transportation—‘delivering’ of ideas and meanings
through images in multiple media forms to the consumer, citizen, com-
munity and individual. ‘Packaging’ is a term I use to describe an act of
communication—or narration—as the vehicle of meaning-production,
delivery and reception where multiple ideologies, purposes, eﬀ ects are
bundled together. It also references, quite self-consciously, the ‘packag-
ing’ of products for consumption.

Adapting theories of consumer societies based on empirical studies of

Euro-American cultures in order to ‘read’ Indian public culture runs the
risk of an inappropriate ‘application’ without due attention to historical
and other speciﬁ cities. Th

is is true despite the fact that India is now one

of the largest consumer markets in the world (since 2006, it has topped
the AT Kearney Global Retail Development Index, showing a 25 to
30 per cent growth rate in retailing),

and its metropolitan cultures ex-

hibit several of the hallmarks of First World consumer cultures—from
malls to the dominance of brand cultures.

But one of the several advantages ‘theory’ has, especially in Cultural

Studies, is that it

can work across geographical locations. Reading dis-

courses, rhetorical strategies or representations for ideological subtexts

Introduction

xxi

of gender or class often demands an attention to language. Studies of
representation are ‘theoretical’, but are, I believe, adaptable for reading
cultural practices across diﬀ erent social and geographical contexts.

is book locates consumer culture and its many representational

modes within ‘political’ themes of class, gender and the new urbanisms.
‘Politics’, as this book sees it, is essentially about power, ideology and the
control over people, ideas and behaviour, where ideology works mainly
through suggestion, advice and opinion. In the case of consumer cul-
tures, the sense of ‘politics’ leans towards signiﬁ cation and the power
promotional materials (essentially,

narratives) have over people’s be-

haviour, the inﬂ uence they exert over attitudes and beliefs, the ways in
which meanings are constructed so as to sell products and services, and
the eﬀ ective languages of persuasion. It foregrounds the power of sell-
ing, just as it emphasizes the power of purchasing,

where purchase and

consumption represent not simply a matter of appropriate sartorial codes or
aesthetics but the very basis of identity. It gestures at the gendered ideology
of domesticity and the family that inform the rhetoric of insurance ads
or health products’ promotion. It sees mobility, success and ‘careerism’
as a near-prescriptive ideology that seeks to present particular goals and
desires for the ‘new’ India.

Like all Cultural Studies, this one is selective too—both in terms of

its ‘sites’ as well as approaches. Th

e study’s scope remains the metro-

politan settings of shopping malls, corporate hospitals, glossy (and ex-
pensive) magazines and predominantly English-language promotional
materials. It ignores, therefore, rural marketing and the semi-urban sec-
tor. I am aware that this circumscribes the study of consumer packaging
in India, but makes no claims of doing anything more. Moreover, it
should be clear that I am interested in the consumer- or user-end of the
consumption process, not with the production end. Th

is is not to deny

the importance of productive labour, economic policy and industrial
capitalism in consumer cultures. But my focus is however on how these
processes manifest.

****

My ﬁ rst case study is the discourse of health in contemporary
Indian public culture. ‘Packaging health’ is the process through which a

Packaging Life

xxii

low-calorie body signifying health becomes a product, an event, a desir-
able entity, a condition of life and an element of consumer culture. Th

‘packaging’ of health in contemporary public culture generates, I argue,
an ideology of ‘healthism’ and a

culture of care and cure. Health is pack-

aged, among other things, as a desirable and acquirable state of wellness,
and one that is acquirable through the purchase and use of particular
commodities and services—what I am calling a low-calorie edition of
life itself.

With this aim in mind, I look at discourses that medicalize everyday

lives through an informational culture of disease and health and the
ideologically potent narratives of healthism. I explore the culture of care
and cure that manifests in myths, ideas and advice about the perfectible
body and an ideology of ‘care of the self ’. Finally, I look at the business
of managing health today. We live in a culture where wellness is the con-
cern of, and therefore promoted by, insurance companies, biomedical
research organizations, the medical fraternity, gyms and ﬁ tness centres,
and even the state. In this age of managing wellness, we can see an in-
creasing technologization of health in the form of scans, digital projects
of medical research and even art forms that are located at the intersec-
tion of biomedicine, technology and arts. Managing health is also the
concern of the state, and this often modulates into a condition where
programmes, projects and campaigns acquire a distinct militaristic tone.
Th

e ‘biomilitary state’, as I term this, is an important element in the

discourse of health today, and is studied in some detail here. Finally, I
turn to social marketing where products and services seek to serve the
purpose of social advocacy. Th

is includes the creation of medical spec-

tacles (including scandals) and even medical horror ﬁ lms that serve an
important function in popularizing medical conditions and solutions.

In the second chapter, I look at a more consumer-oriented and con-

sumerist aspect of public culture: comfort and the ‘deluxe edition’ of life.
Th

e chapter analyzes a major shift—from comfort to luxury—within

consumer culture in the late 20th century. I explore, ﬁ rst, the culture
of comfort. Comfort is linked, in contemporary culture, with con-
sumption. Products and services are, therefore, increasingly promoted
as objects that add to one’s physical, emotional and mental comfort.
Th

e packaging of comfort has two components. Th

e culture of comfort,

Introduction

xxiii

I argue, relies on a rhetoric of ‘Utility Plus’, or a culture of the sup-
plement where something extra is needed to make a necessity a com-
fort. Th

is supplement is both a necessary completion and an excess that

renders the object comfort. Comfort, in other words, is the consequence
of the supplement in consumer culture’s discourses.

I then turn to matters of styling, arguing that the ‘stylization of life’

(Featherstone 1991: 97) is an index of comfort and a mix of brand biog-
raphy and self-branding. It is in stylization that the shift from comfort to
luxury ﬁ rst makes its appearance. In the section on the culture of luxury,
I ﬁ rst deal with the ‘de-moralization of luxury’, where indulgence is no
more seen as immoral, but rather as an earned marker of success. I then
move on to two particular modes of packaging luxury—as ornamental-
ism and re-enchantment. Under re-enchantment, I discuss speciﬁ c fea-
tures grouped under ‘sacralization’ wherein products and services—and
their users—are ‘sacralized’, rendered special, unique and luxurious.

e third chapter turns to the packaging of risk in contemporary

culture and its role in constructing a bubble-wrapped edition of life. I
propose that risk-packaging demands an act of

imagination, oﬀ ering us

scenarios of disaster and threat. Risk culture depends on the availability
of information about such impending, probable threats, and dissemi-
nates this information within a language of risk that de-mythiﬁ es risk.

Risk cultures demand an emotional response from us, and ‘emotional

imaging’ is a constituent of this packaging. Moral panics, the most vis-
ible outcome of this emotional response, are a commonplace condition,
I argue, even as I study the ‘structure’ of a moral panic. Th

e packaging

of risk also includes expert cultures, where the solution to the imminent
risk is provided by the expert. Finally, I turn to risk practices, modes
of preventing and alleviating the conditions and events of risk—which
include apportioning blame and risk aversion.

In the last chapter,

Packaging Life addresses a dominant form of pub-

lic culture: the culture of mobility, or the high-speed edition of life. Mo-
bility is repurposed as a signiﬁ cant trope and metaphor

in addition to the

physical act of transportation in the late 20th century. Th

e chapter opens

with a survey of the most prominent mode of mobility—connectivity. It
explores, ﬁ rst, mobile phones and its resultant multiple mobilities, and
second, social networking and mobile subjectivity.

Packaging Life

xxiv

I then go on to consumption as a mode and condition of mobility,

addressing the acts of mobile consumption—shopping—and the global
circulation of consumer goods. Th

e following section takes up ‘auto-

mobility’, where the purpose is not to examine automobiles as much
as the discourses of automobility—from car ads to the convergence of
automobility with entertainment. In the section on cultural mobilities,
I address a crucial form of mobilities visible in cosmopolitan, globalized
cities today—food cultures. Th

e cultural rhetorics here, I argue, take re-

course to the image of the global citizen. Th

e last section deals with what

I take to be the most spectacular form of mobility—cosmopolitanism.
Cosmopolitanism is now a much-desired dream of the metropolitan
shopper, and constitutes a concrete ‘consumer orientation’ according to
consumer research (Caldwell et al. 2006). Here, I locate a cosmopolitan
ideal of products, services and experiences as instantiating a culture of
mobility.

****

Several other discourses and cultural phenomena, of course, need to be
studied, which this book has left out. Sexuality, the sacred, sentiment,
death and romance are proximate aspects of everyday life that come
packaged to us in diﬀ erent ways. Th

ese discourses ﬁ nd expression in

adverts, reportage, popular and mass cultural forms such as TV shows
and magazines, and are presented to us in diﬀ erent ways, some in order
to sell products or services, but often as mythic, imaginative or rhetori-
cal forms.

Packaging Life is an exercise in ‘unpacking’. It oﬀ ers an interpretive

scheme to decode four of the dominant discourses in contemporary
Indian public culture by prising open the cultural politics embedded
in consumer rhetoric, commentary, advice and expert talk. It thus
shows the way to read obvious, legitimized and legitimizing, ‘natural-
ized’ discourses that control social relations and encode power. With
this ‘unpacking’ it performs, hopefully, the anterior moment of political
or dissident readings by showing how these discourses conceal power,
and therefore, can be subverted or resisted from within through an alert
reading practice.

Chapter 1

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

Cultures of Health

e live in an age when health is in fashion. Even our every-
day metaphors seem to have appropriated health as their
motif. Th

e economy sometimes (though not recently) ex-

hibits ‘healthy trends’ and factories are frequently termed ‘sick units’.
Aphorisms like ‘health is wealth’ and ‘no pain, no gain’ are constants in
routine conversations. Marginalized people are historically imaged as ‘lep-
ers’, a nomenclatural practice that dates back to the ancient times when
leprosy was considered the worst possible scourge. Low-cal editions are
the newest versions of socially desirable, risk-free, feel-good life forms.

Healthy bodies, ﬁ t bodies—the great six-pack made popular by the

toned bodies of male ﬁ lm stars and the size zero of the heroines—are the
new cool. According to a survey, 58 per cent of Indians had made this
their New Year resolution for 2008: lose weight and become ﬁ tter (AC
Nielsen 2007). Everywhere around us health is aligned with happiness,
wealth, peace and pleasure. Everyday life is ﬁ lled with images, news re-
ports and descriptions of SRK’s (Shah Rukh Khan’s) six-pack, the Aamir
Khan’s

Ghajini-body, cholesterol-free oil, Dr Batra’s ‘positive health’

campaign, the then health minister Dr Ramadoss’ eﬀ orts to ban smoking
on screen, massive VLCC adverts, news of horriﬁ c viruses like the Ebola
and health-advice columns that deal in all these. Health is ‘packaged’
in brochures for products, advertisements, product information (calo-
ries), the advice column on the beneﬁ ts of yoga, governmental initiatives
against dengue fever, World Health Organization (WHO) reports in the
media, doctor-advice shows on TV or online (such as DoctorNDTV,
http://www.doctorndtv.com/home/),

ﬁ ction dealing with outbreaks of

disease (the best-selling work of Robin Cook,

Outbreak, 1988), non-

ﬁ ction, popular and bestseller books on genetics (Matt Ridley’s

Genome,

2000, and Richard Dawkins’

e Selﬁ sh Gene, 1976) or disease (Richard

Packaging Life

Preston’s

e Hot Zone on Ebola, 1995) and several others. Studies have

explored the popularization of scientiﬁ c developments, arguing that in
cases of technologies like cloning, science seems to fulﬁ l the prophecies
and potential outlined by laypersons and popular science

ﬁ ction. Th

is, medical developments seem to partake of imaginative narratives in
popular culture and scientiﬁ c events.

‘Packaging health’ is the process through which health becomes a

product, an event, a desirable entity and state of being and a consumer
ideology. It includes a wide variety of related themes and issues: health
risks, healthcare technologies (hospitals, hospital management) and bio-
warfare

threats. Th

is ‘packaging’ generates an ideology of ‘healthism’

within what I call a

culture of care and cure. Health is not simply a state

of wellness, but an active intervention in life processes, a product that
can be acquired (or bought), a system of self-care that can help regulate
one’s life, a state of being that the medical profession (from research labs
to hospitals) creates through its eﬀ orts. Health is packaged in multiple
ways, and constitutes the subject of this chapter. ‘Health’ is deﬁ ned and
described—represented—for us everyday in expert advice, adverts and
health columns. Health is discursively constructed for us in such images
and narratives that organize our ways of understanding the very idea
and meaning of a ‘healthy’ body. Our knowledge of what is right and
wrong about bodies comes to us through such discourses. Th

us, dis-

courses and representations—what I am calling ‘packaging’ throughout
the book—of medicine, obesity, health, sickness and recovery mediate
our experience of the hospital, clinic, health column and medical news
reports. Illness and its ‘packaging’ in the form of medical information
and knowledge (about illness) make us aware of all the things that are
(or could go) wrong within us. Th

is heightened awareness of the physi-

ological, pathological and anatomical states of our body is what I term
‘hyper-pathologization’, and is linked to increased information avail-
ability about medical conditions.

‘Packaging’ health is thus the construction of particular meanings

about the body, its anatomy, physiology, pathology, appearance and psy-
chology in brochures, news items, columns and adverts—meanings that
are often a composite of biomedical, ethical, social, economic, aesthetic
narratives about bodies, conditions and medical care. Life is now, prefer-
ably, a low-cal edition.

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

Health might be

feeling good or being able to perform several activi-

ties with no pain or assistance. Our interpretation of the feeling or the
performance is based on the

information we possess about conditions of

sound bodies or pathological-physiological states. Does an absence of
pain indicate that my body is working well? Is my ability to lift weights
an index of a medically ﬁ t body? Is a recurrent cough a symptom of a
disease aﬄ

icting my lungs? Th

ese questions arise when we are already

aware of the answers in some nebulous way. Such answers come from
the information and discourses around ‘healthy bodies’, ﬁ tness, patho-
logical conditions, diseases and biomedical symptoms that we encounter
on an almost daily basis. In other words, we ‘read’ our bodies through
the representations of them. Th

ese representations provide us with the

conceptual, epistemological and linguistic vocabularies for the analysis
of the ‘signs’ of the body.

If ‘health’, as I have suggested earlier, is a matter of interpreting

signs

in/on our bodies, it is important to understand how health or ﬁ tness is
represented and deﬁ ned

for us so that we have the vocabulary and skills

to ‘read’ the signs. Take for instance, a commonplace advert. Children
play cricket after consuming Boost or eating particular biscuits (inspired
throughout by Sachin Tendulkar, whose cricketing exploits

imply a

healthy body). Th

e advert suggests an intrinsic connection between the

consumption of these products, health and the ability to play the game:
Only healthy bodies can engage in sport. In eﬀ ect, health has been
deﬁ ned and represented here as the energy and ability to engage in stren-
uous exercise and physical sport. Th

e number of ads featuring health

drinks that enable/empower the child to play a more sedentary game
like chess are rare, are they not? Health is deﬁ ned as physical,

bodily

stamina, energy and ability. Th

is means, a sporting body will be read as

a sign of ‘health’ because we have been bombarded with images of the
same.

I see health discourse as embedded in the

culture of care and cure, a

culture that emerges primarily through the extraordinary process of the
medicalization of everyday life. ‘Unpacking’ involves a careful disentan-
gling of the various cultural, technological and commercial codes that
make up the culture of health today—the ‘bundling’ of ideologies of
individual choice, technological advancement and the perfectible body
within diverse representations.

Packaging Life

The Medicalization of the Everyday

We keep our bodies under constant surveillance. Th

is does not mean

that we are policed, but that we

police our own bodies based on the author-

ity of medical knowledge. Health comes packaged in the form of endless
amounts of information that enables us to examine ourselves for signs
of debility and disease. Th

e culture of care and cure originates with this

medicalization of the everyday where health is projected as a ‘resource’
that we need to guard, use carefully and defend.

We:

• monitor our blood pressure,

• watch our calories,

• record temperatures,

• check for lumps, nodules, numbness,

• measure sugar levels and

• examine our teeth.

In general, we check to see if the body is working smoothly, keeping

our bodies under constant surveillance. We have, in short,

medicalized

our lives. Th

is is made possible, as pointed out earlier, through the avail-

ability of easily digestible information (health in a biscuit-

byte), but also

through technologies that are usable by lay persons. Th

us,

• self-injection devices (insulin pens),

• digital sphygmomanometer (blood pressure apparatus),

• thermometers,

• corn caps,

• weighing scales and

• glucometers

are inventions that have furthered this medicalization of the everyday.
We are all now paramedics in the sense that we are all

partly medicos!

‘Packaging’ is the process that ensures that we have acquired suﬃ

cient

knowledge—and vocabulary—of medicine, biology and pathology and
the technologies for such a medicalization, self-surveillance and even
advice. Medicine and its assorted components have been delivered to us

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

through this ‘packaging’. We experience what can be called ‘the medical
eﬀ ect’ on a regular basis in our everyday lives.

e ‘medical eﬀ ect’ adds two (now-commonplace) components to

the everyday culture of cure and care:

1. Th

e recognition and increased talk of lifestyle diseases, the em-

phasis on working out, self-surveillance, diet and control are
key elements in the present discourse of medicine. Health and
sickness are here packaged as something you can achieve if you
are disciplined in your lifestyle, follow a basic exercise regimen
and undertake periodic examinations (self or with help) of your
body. In short, the discourse of medicine now places the onus
for maintaining health on

you.

2. Health is something that occurs between your biological body

and your environment. Or, the relationship between your body
and your environment determines the state of your health.

Medicine itself, as commentators have noted, relies on authority,

control and power (Lindenbaum and Lock 1993; Turner 1987; Young
1997). Th

e white coat bestows upon its wearer a fair amount of au-

thority. Th

us, even ads for toothpastes depict actors dressed up as doc-

tors in order to show that they have medical authority behind them.

Historians and sociologists of medicine have argued that observation, sur-
veillance and control are central to the medical construction of the body
(Foucault 1994; Porter 1997). Medicine clearly exerts a regulatory power
on bodies and populations. Th

is regulatory regime is exempliﬁ ed in the

Apollo Hospitals group’s manual of instructions for in-patients, titled
In-Patient Guide (Apollo Health City, undated, brochure, Hyderabad).
It provides detailed information about the structure of the hospital, the
facilities, the do’s and don’ts and the rights of the patients. What the
guide does is to

organize the hospital experience by informing us, in ad-

vance, of what to expect and how to behave. Just as courtesy books once
informed the experience of say courtship or formal dinners, the hospital
guide prepares us to function in certain ways.

Sociologists of medicine situate knowledge and power at the cen-

tre of the medical profession (Annandale 2001; Bury and Gabe 2004;

Packaging Life

Nettleton 2006; Turner 1987, 1999). Sociologists of medicine argue that
in order to understand how medicine works we need to see how medicine
works through structures of power upon the body (individual and collec-
tive). Medical sociologists are interested in the following questions:

• How does biomedicine promote itself as authoritative?

• How does it impose controls on individuals and groups?

is approach necessarily takes into account not just the biological

dimensions of medicine but also issues of research funding, the social
contexts of research and medical biology (for instance, the social
background to AIDS research that isolates homosexuals as a high-risk
group and therefore stigmatizes them), the institutional structures of
the hospital, the National Institutes of Health in the USA, the racial
dimensions (the diﬀ erential publicity given to diseases that could
aﬀ ect the USA, for instance, as Susan Moeller [1999] has noted), the
intervention of the state (through national policies or measures, rural
health schemes), among others. It also accounts for the role of media,
the power of advertising and the politics of pharma (arguably the biggest
industry). Medicine is a ‘package’ involving an assorted bag of such
elements, and involves several

non-biomedical and socio-cultural elements.

In what follows, we shall ‘unpack’ some of these elements.

The Informational Culture of Health

Bronchoscopy is a procedure that allows your doctor to look at your
airway through a thin viewing instrument called a bronchoscope…
How it is done:

You may be given some medications…

You may be asked to remove dentures, eyeglasses or contact

lenses …

Your heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen level will be

checked…

A chest x-ray may be done before…

–

Bronchoscopy, Brochure, Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad.

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

Medicalization of the everyday is marked by a pronounced

aware-

ness of our states of health and sickness. Th

is involves the circulation

of a massive amount of information—expert, professional, alternative
and some commonsensical—about health and disease. Biomedical and
health information is perhaps the most visible factor of the information
environment today.

Note, for instance, the items available on the Yahoo! (arguably one

of the most popular Internet services) opening menu and its featured
services link ‘Health’: Everyday Wellness, Diet and Fitness, Mind and
Mood, Longevity, Conditions and Diseases and Resources. It includes
expert advice, a video on heart disease (as on 29 May 2008), tips for
‘beautiful skin’ and sex lives, coping with tragedy, advice on diabetes,
videos for everyday ﬁ tness and the dangers of excessive use of antibiotics.
Th

e Hindu carries a health column that often provides specialized top-

ics like adolescent health, eye diseases, depression or geriatric problems.
Th

ere is a wide enough variety for you to choose from—from cosmet-

ics to antibiotics, chronic ailments to everyday ﬁ tness regimen. ‘Health
is now a part of the everyday life of information itself,’ the webpage
mentions. Works like Robert Proctor’s

Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes

What We Know and Don’t Know about Cancer (1995) call our attention
to the ‘problem’ of information, misinformation and non-information
about diseases. And of course everybody knows about Deoxyribonucleic
acid (DNA), genetic engineering and the ‘book of life’ (DNA) even as
metaphors of and from genetics (the ‘DNA of …’,) has become all per-
vasive. In fact, DNA is now so ubiquitous that the historian-philosopher
of science, Evelyn Fox Keller (2000) designated the 20th century the
‘century of the gene’.

It is here that the full power of what I have called ‘packaging’ be-

comes manifest. Commentators have noted that with the arrival of
the Internet there has been a veritable explosion of websites devoted
to delivering medical information. In fact, empirical studies such as the
Pew Internet and American Life Project 2006 have shown that 80 per
cent of all adult Internet users in the USA have searched for health
information on the Internet (Fox 2006). Health-related websites are, ac-
cording to some sources, the most popular resources on the World Wide
Web (WWW).

is could include authoritative, physician-researcher

Packaging Life

created resources but, more and more, user-generated content and mat-
ter about health issues. Th

e ‘medicalization of cyberspace’, as Andy Miah

and Emma Rich have termed it, has altered not only knowledge-delivery
of medicine and medical research (for both doctors and the lay person),
but also has signiﬁ cantly changed the doctor–patient relationship (Miah
and Rich 2008). Th

e cybercultural turn in medicine, medical cultures

and health matters has been signiﬁ cant enough to warrant a full journal,
the

Journal of Medical Internet Research.

In the USA, the highly respected medical journals, the

New England

Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association
preview some of their key articles for the press before the journal is
released. Articles published in these venerated journals are often cov-
ered in mass-circulation newspapers like

e New York Times, and thus,

the mass media becomes a vehicle for delivering cutting-edge medical
research to the common person. With this mechanism the journal ac-
quires publicity for its work, and the lay public gains knowledge about
recent research—where the publicity and information also feed into re-
search in terms of attracting funding opportunities. Brochures, such as
the one cited before (on bronchoscopy), serve the purpose of furnishing
information about a biomedical procedure. Information in the brochure
includes the uses of bronchoscopy, preparation, the actual procedure
and risks. Pamphlets like

Prevention of Seasonal Diseases (May 2007) by

the respected All India Institute of Medical Sciences (New Delhi) on
prevalent diseases like dengue fever (downloadable from the website)
also constitute this informational culture of medicine and health (All
India Institute of Medical Sciences 2007). Indeed, this right to be in-
formed about health matters has gained ascendancy as a crucial citizen’s
right, and has, at least since the 1990s, been installed as a public health
imperative (Lupton 1995).

Debates in the Parliament and the US Congress on medical research

or health crises are reported regularly in the mass media and keep the
public informed about developments. For instance, every English-
language newspaper and magazine has, for the past ﬁ ve years (before
Barack Obama’s Presidency), carried governmental, scientiﬁ c and medi-
cal debates about stem-cell research and President Bush’s opposition to it.
It widened the domain of bio-medical research and technology beyond
the medical establishment into the ﬁ elds of ethics, religion, morality,

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

pedagogy and public ﬁ nance involving priests, common people, social
and political theorists (Francis Fukuyama’s polemical

Our Posthuman

Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution has acquired best-
seller status since its ﬁ rst publication in 2003), administrators and ethi-
cal philosophers. To take another example of the mediation of science
and biomedicine in the public domain, genetics as a science might be
inaccessible to members of the general public, but the language in which
research is reported and popularized takes recourse to metaphors and
rhetoric that the public understands. Th

us, metaphors like ‘the book

of life’, the ‘blueprint’ or the ‘recipe’ drawing upon the more common-
place language of information coding have become the means of public
representations of genetics (see Condit and Condit 2001).

is ‘media-tion’ (I use the term to indicate the media coverage

and the mediation) of biomedicine is, I believe, an important advance-
ment in the

social processes of medicine because it seeks to demystify the

procedure—technological, medical and recuperative—to the patient
or the lay person. It is ‘packaging’ because it generates public aware-
ness, commonly-available, bite-sized and specialized information—
discourses—about biomedicine. Th

is communicative aspect (and de-

pendence) of biomedicine has come in for considerable attention for its
role in the public health opinions, policy, lifestyle choices that it inﬂ u-
ences, and has given rise to scholarly attention in journals like

Commu-

nication and Medicine and Journal of the Medical Humanities.

Multiple dimensions of sickness and health—the pathogen, the

nature of the disease, the contexts of the disease, the possible preven-
tion and cure, the setting (hospitals) and the processes of treatment
(surgery, alternative medicine, post-operative care, physiotherapy or
medication)—are delivered to us through media representations. In ‘me-
dia representations’, I include promotional material from hospitals, in-
surance companies and pharmaceutical ﬁ rms, documentaries and public
interest articles, health columns and advice programmes on TV and even
ﬁ ctional/creative representations in ﬁ lms (arguably, before

Black [2000],

to the best of my knowledge, there has been no ﬁ ctional representation
of Alzheimer’s disease in Hindi cinema, Rajesh Khanna’s

Anand [1971]

gave high visibility to cancer, AIDS-themed ﬁ lms like

My Brother Nikhil

[2005] and

Phir Milenge [2004] provide some information—some per-

haps misinformation—about the disease).

Men’s Health and Woman’s

Packaging Life

Era oﬀ er suggestions on healthy living, exercise and makeover. Disease,
health, medicine, cure and treatment are popularized for consumption
like any other product/event today.

Health advice in magazines such as

Men’s Health is often medicalized;

technical yet accessible. Th

e informational culture of health is at least

partly the language of medicine. For instance, we read about how beef is
a good source of zinc and creatine (

Men’s Health, June 2007, p. 97). Or

‘thin-walled vessels in the brain can burst under extreme pressure, caus-
ing the wholesale slaughter of brain cells that’s known as a haemorrhagic
stroke’ (

Men’s Health, July 2007, p. 118). Or, it shows you, through

computer-generated visuals, how exactly the leg muscles move during
a run (

Men’s Health, July 2007, p. 34). Such magazines also embody

a ‘culture of expertise’, as I have termed it elsewhere (Nayar 2008b).
Advice columns cite mostly people with PhDs and MDs attached to
their names, thereby lending a certain legitimacy and authority to the
discourse of health and ﬁ tness. More recently, it has been recommended
that restaurant menus display the calories and nutrition facts of their
dishes (rather like such information on food products now), where ‘nu-
tritional information can help consumers moderate their eating over
time’.

Healthism

‘Now I feel great, absolutely fantastic. Everyday I wake up feeling on top
of the world. I am also comforted by the fact that I have maintained the
weight loss.’

He has emerged a new man. His physical ailments are things of the

past and replaced by conﬁ dence and a new found sense of assurance and
pride in his appearance.

– Testimonial by Matthew Th

omas and

commentary on VLCC website

Once the information about dengue fever, the possibility of a protein-
rich diet helping a six-pack body or the vaccinations available for the
scourge of 2006–07 chikungunya are disseminated, we have an immedi-
ate and protracted public awareness about the disease (as late as 2009,

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

three years after the epidemic, newspapers occasionally provide reports
and scientiﬁ c studies of the disease. See Raj 2009). Th

ere is, on occasion,

panic purchase of preventive medication from various homoeopaths—a
common sight during the chikungunya epidemic.

Information dissemination of disease, ﬁ tness programmes, diets and

nutritional facts generate what has been called ‘healthism’, an extreme
preoccupation with personal health (cited in Moulting 2007: 62).
Once information is made available to us about what the ‘healthy body’
should be, it becomes contingent upon us to act responsibly and stay
healthy. ‘Being informed about one’s own health,’ writes a sociologist of
medicine, ‘also invokes the emergence of a “healthy self ” ideal, creating
the obligation to reach and sustain that ideal, thus driving the relentless
pursuit of information’ (Kivits 2004: 513). We are also made aware,
through the work of exceptional journalists and commentators that
‘health’ is rarely a neutral concept or condition. Th

us, Kalpana Sharma

writing in

e Hindu noted that the All India Services Performance Ap-

praisal Rules, 2007, under the heading, ‘Brief Clinical History, If Any’
for ‘female oﬃ

cers’ insisted on knowing their menstrual cycle (Sharma

2007).

Healthism emerges in part due to the hyper-pathologization of the

body. Disease is something we are very familiar with not only in terms
of personal experience, but also through what I have called the ‘informa-
tional culture of health’. How exactly is the diseased, at-risk, decaying
body portrayed in this ideology of healthism?

An advertisement for MIOT joint clinic (Hyderabad) shows a senior

citizen performing the Suryanamaskar. Th

e tag line goes: ‘Suryanam-

askar at 70? Why not?’ Th

e ad captures a crucial element in the way

medicine is promoted today: medicine and medical expertise are what
enable you to go on doing what you do. At 70 you do not have to alter
your morning exercise regimen just because your weak bones and hip do
not allow you—medical treatment, including hip replacement, can help
you

continue to perform the same exercises that you did at 35. Health-

ism is linked to this project of continued personal health.

Continuity is a key theme in medical discourses about chronic illness.

Chronic illness is what Michael Bury has theorized as a ‘biographical
disruption’ (Bury 1982). Th

is means, illness, especially chronic illness,

Packaging Life

interrupts the regular rhythm of life.

Illness is a disruptive situation. It

causes us to suddenly pay attention to our bodies, to seek explanations
for the illness and to ﬁ nd practical solutions to it. Health is a resource
and ‘capital’ for a good life, and must therefore be nurtured and safe-
guarded.

e advantage of seeing illness as disruption is that it shows us how

illness alters our lives. Illness demands changes in food habits, the
monthly budget, the spaces of living (hospitalization, home-nurses, spe-
cial equipment in the sick room), the family, habits and hobbies—in
fact, everything. Th

us the diseased body reorients the spaces around it,

even as the body itself is being transformed through the pathological
condition. Illness has therefore, social, cultural and economic changes,
all revolving around or connected to the

body, where the body is more

than simply a medicalized one.

Illness also alters the body’s perception of

itself (what is called Body

Image Dissatisfaction syndrome). It conﬂ icts with the way we have thus
far perceived our bodies. Th

e VLCC ads about obesity and slimming are

an excellent illustration of this. Arguably, many of these dwell not on
obesity as a medical problem, but one of psychological crisis and a crisis
in looks. Ads where young men and women (there are no old people in
VLCC ads that I am aware of: Is it that old people are not concerned
about their self-identity and appearance?) declare that they got back
their appearance, conﬁ dence, indeed life itself after slimming down. As
the Matthew

omas

testimonial and description from VLCC suggests,

the person’s identity is intimately linked to the body’s form and appear-
ance. And VLCC enables the man to ﬁ nd, improve and reconstruct
his identity. In these cases, their form and appearance—a bulge or a
crooked smile—was at odds with their notions of themselves: the body
was what they did

not want the body to be. ‘Improve your smile, boost

your self conﬁ dence’ declares the ﬂ yer for Impressions Dental Hospi-
tals, Hyderabad, thus linking form with conﬁ dence, faith in one’s body-
appearance (‘do not hesitate to smile full heartedly’, it goes on to add)
and ﬁ nally medical interventions.

In such ads, what we see is the modiﬁ cation of the body, at least

partly through biomedical intervention (surgery, nutrition), in order
that it approximates to what the self-representation is. Obesity here can
be seen as something that works at the

interface of the person’s image of

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

her/him-self and her/his body. Illness works the same way because it shows
up the gap between self-representation (this is me) and the sick body
(this is

my ailing body). Medicine works at this gap where it seeks to

bring the body closer to the person’s estimate of her/him-self, to become
a low-cal life form.

The Culture of Care and Cure

e packaging of health results, I suggest, in a culture of care and cure.

e medical profession professes its care for us, the biomedical research-

ers express their concerns, and the individuals are expected to care about
themselves. Th

is culture of care and cure has very speciﬁ c essentials:

• It involves a notion of the body as something that can be per-

fected and reconstructed.

• It involves a very deﬁ nite notion of the care of the self.

From the late 1990s, the cult of appearance and the increasing glo-

balization of celebrity culture (depicting ﬁ t and healthy bodies), the
availability of cosmetic products from all over the world saw a signiﬁ cant
transformation of Indian bodies, so to speak. Th

e cult of the perfectible

body acquired higher visibility when it involved the Indian cricket team.
John Wright, the then coach of the Indian cricket team, came down
harshly on the lack of ﬁ tness among the players. As one commentator
on the ‘changed’ players put it:

It was Wright, again, who introduced the traditionally lazy Indian
cricketer to the culture of ﬁ tness. It was Wright who emphasized the
need for ﬁ tness training, and arm-twisted the most parsimonious
sports body in the world into investing in a physio and physical train-
er, a policy that has resulted in the notoriously slack Indian team now
taking its place as one of the ﬁ ttest on the circuit. (Shariﬀ 2003)

In a country where cricket is a religion, the shift to a ﬁ tness regi-

men under the aegis of a foreign coach—it must be remembered that
former India players, including Kapil Dev and Anshuman Gaekwad

Packaging Life

were against Wright’s appointment—is signiﬁ cant. Fitness in sports is
considered essential and, John Wright had to point out, Indian players
were simply not ﬁ t. Th

e culture of ﬁ tness in sport has from around 2000

spilled over into other areas.

e new age of ﬁ tness and health was recognizable enough in its

manifestations for

India Today to run a special report on what it called

the ‘lust for youth’. It mapped the numerous technologies and proce-
dures that are now available to ‘ensure that the quality of life does not
decline with age’ (Bezbaruah 2004). Th

is is popular rhetoric that reﬂ ects

the prevalent culture of cure and care.

e culture of care and cure can be examined for its speciﬁ c forms

(not exhaustive, but indicative).

The Perfectible Body

3 minutes is all it takes to help repair 3 months of damage….
Presenting Femina-Pantene 3 minute miracle challenge….

– Pantene advert,

Femina, 8 April 2009, pp. 14–15

e cosmetologist group, Kaya, calls itself the ‘Kaya Skin Clinic’.

Beauty parlours around India are ‘beauty

clinics’. Th

is seems to suggest,

on the one hand, that dermal problems might be pathological-physio-
logical and therefore requiring medical intervention. On the other hand,
it also suggests something else: blemishes, acne, scars and asymmetric
teeth are not simply pathological conditions but

cultural conditions.

Ugliness—attributed to these skin conditions—is something that seems
to demand medical attention. Hence, ‘beauty clinics’ are where ugliness
of the skin is ‘treated’. In other words, the ad’s representations hinge
upon an Indian fetish and cultural rhetorics of fair complexion, skin
tone and beauty. Th

is cultural rhetorics becomes the norm within the

discourse of cosmetic enhancement and repairs. A low-cal life form can
emerge even from within your obese body, if the promotional material
of any slimming centre is to be believed.

is is the age of the perfectible body, and all of us are asked to invest

in what have been called ‘body projects’ (Shilling 1993: 4–8). ‘Projects’
imply information, imagination, diagnosis and a process of intervention

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

that attains a target.

e body is now an entity that is in the process

of becoming, in transformation and transition, into something healthier,
better-shaped and more beautiful. A

body project is now part of the making

of the individual’s self-identity. Th

is is a crucial dimension of packaging

health today. Th

e body is a project because we are aware—and constantly

made aware—that its shape, form, size, features and, increasingly, its con-
tents can be modiﬁ ed.

us, Kaya Skin Clinic:

1. helps you identify the situation—blemishes, warts, skin ail-

ments,

2. oﬀ ers a diagnosis and a well-deﬁ ned target—root (medical)

cause and clear skin respectively and

3. prepares a process of intervention—treatment.

It asks you to indulge in a ‘body project’ where blemishes do not have
to be a part of your body. All those ads about diabetes being curable
and controllable suggest that one does not have to accept the body as a
given—the body is open to change and reconstruction.

A variety of such projects are commonplace today: heart patients can

have pace-makers installed, gym work outs give a diﬀ erent body shape,
high-protein and low-carb diets give better Body Mass Index (BMI),
teeth can be ﬁ led, chiseled and braced-in to shape up, liposuction means
you do not have to be obese any more. ‘Body projects’, especially of the
biomedical kind, are here to stay and they are linked to the wide circula-
tion of the images of the perfectible.

is excessive circulation of the images of the perfectible, and the dis-

course of healthism, has led to consequences such as the new phenom-
enon of Body Image Dissatisfaction or BID (Moulting 2007). Here, the
person is unhappy with her/his body’s appearance and seeks medical
support. Th

is leads, in some cases, to severe psychological stress and

depression. Body Image Dissatisfaction is now a documented medical
condition in Western societies. It is also a gendered condition, and has
a

social dimension since it informs social interaction of people with the

syndrome. In order to understand this, we need to turn to the thinness
imperative among women in the West, and, since the 1990s, globally.

Packaging Life

Susan Bordo in her classic work (1990) has shown how the pursuit of

thinness is a highly seductive project for young women and girls. Bordo
argues that this drive towards anorexic bodies can be seen as a form of
resistance to traditional ideals of the ‘matured’ feminine body. Bordo,
however, sees this drive as inherently contradictory because on the one
hand the girls are tempted with consumer products that add to their
weight, and on the other, they are asked to curb their food intake and
look thin. Healthism relies on such a contradictory discourse of the per-
fectible body. Th

e ideological drives behind this enormously gendered

discourse of health and beauty have therefore become the subject of
numerous feminist-driven studies (for India, see Anand 2002).

In the case of men, a similar ideological prejudice about particular

kinds of bodies prevails. Magazines like

Men’s Health promote a ‘hegem-

onic masculinity’ of the muscled, healthy and ﬁ t male. A biological de-
terminism of the youthful is clearly visible in the rhetoric of magazines
like

Men’s Health. ‘Hegemonic masculinity’, a term ﬁ rst used by R.W.

Connell in 1979, refers to speciﬁ c

kinds of masculinity that gain domi-

nance over other kinds in speciﬁ c cultural, historical and political con-
texts (Beasley 2005: 192). It describes how speciﬁ c types of men occupy
positions of power, and proceed to legitimize, reinforce and naturalize it
(Carrigan et al. 1985). We are now in the age of the

yuppie masculine—

epitomized in the ﬁ t

and wealthy bodies of Anil Ambani and Aditya

Birla—where successful career professionals interested in the care of
the self represent the most dominant form of masculinity. Th

e current

‘hegemonic masculinity’ is of the businessman, or what is identiﬁ ed as
the ‘transnational business masculinity’ where power and authority re-
main masculine, but include attributes like tolerance, energy focused on
work, ﬂ exibility, a certain libertarianism, technological skills and skill in
communication (Connell and Wood 2005). Th

e number of corporate

businessmen depicted in magazines is a good index of this form of hege-
monic masculinity. As a result of this, it comes as no surprise to see the
development of a concept of ‘corporate wellness’ where companies en-
courage healthy lifestyles among their employees (Nambiar 2008). And
therefore, a bank advert that carries a visual of a young man with the
legend, ‘Ceo@24’ and declares ‘banking for a young India’ (

e Week,

22 March 2009, p. 23).

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

Magazines like

Men’s Health thrive on the link between the desire to

be distinctive and the ‘culture of expertise’ that generates the rhetoric of
desire and desirability. Note the rhetoric: ‘Fight Fat and Win’, ‘Eat Curry,
Lose your Belly’, ‘Double your Muscle in Half the Time’ and ‘Burn Fat,
Get Fit’ (from

Men’s Health, May 2007; June 2007; July 2007; August

2007). Stated as imperatives in this kind of grammatical construction,
the ﬁ t body is set up as a goal, which

presupposes its desirability.

e ideal male body in

Men’s Health is a body builder, though ﬁ t-

ness of other kinds—from martial arts to athletic bodies to de-stressed
lives—also ﬁ gure. In terms of sheer quantity, body building outweighs
any other kind of health advice. Th

ere is a distinctive feature about what

I have elsewhere (Nayar 2008a) termed as ‘pornography of ﬁ tness’ (I have
used the term ‘pornography’ deliberately, in order to describe products,
events and advertising ‘designed to stimulate and excite’ [which is the
other meaning of the term ‘pornography’ according to the

Oxford English

Dictionary]). Th

e ideal shape of the man’s body as seen in the visual

vocabulary of

Men’s Health is: muscled, hairless, lean, clean-shaven and,

if in colour, tanned. Th

e rhetoric presupposes that the muscled body is

(or ought to be) the goal of every man and masculinity codes as muscle.
What is also interesting is that this goal of muscled bodies is presented as
an easy acquisition. All gym and ﬁ tness advice suggests that these mus-
cles can be achieved with moderate eﬀ ort. Th

is discourse of ease takes

the form of a

numbered rhetoric of ﬁ tness, a quantiﬁ catory imperative:

‘Pantene’s

3-minute miracle’ (as in the epigraph to this section), ‘Double

your Muscle in

Half the Time’, ‘Six protein-packed veggie superfoods’,

‘A head-to-toe overhaul in

15 minutes or less’, ‘Five Quick Fixes: Alter-

native Health Cures that Work’ (

Men’s Health July 2007; May 2007;

August 2007). It is almost as though the numbering reduces any sug-
gestion of hard work. Five steps in the gym that include weight training
are not ‘easy’ by any stretch of imagination: but what we are asked to do
is to focus on the numerically smaller

5 steps rather than the intensity of

each of those steps.

e opening of fast food centres, new modes of work (computerized,

work from home) and automation has made physical movement mini-
mal for most people. Lifestyle changes in food and work habits have
generated a crisis of obesity, according to reports from most countries

Packaging Life

round the world. Consumer culture asks, invites and pleads with the
citizens to indulge themselves—eat more, play more, shop more. Yet,
simultaneously this same consumer culture markets health products, ﬁ t-
ness machines, diet foods and nutrient supplements. Indeed, the market
metaphor is what dominates public health discourse itself—hawking
health as a product (Malone 1999). Computer gaming, often seen as
unhealthy, has also cashed in on the healthism ideology—Reebok has
introduced

CyberRider and CyberFit exercise bikes with PlayStation con-

trols so you can pedal and play at the same time.

e cultural rhetorics of the perfectible body—male and female, with

variations for each—is one that is drawn in two directions simultane-
ously: consume more, control more. What I have termed the ‘culture of
care and cure’ can actually be rephrased as the

culture of care, cure and

consumption, where care and health are products that can be purchased.

A noticeable shift that has occurred in notions of the perfectible

body is the new emphasis on ‘holistic’ health. If we live in increasingly
fragmented societies and cultures—the age of the ‘fragmentation of the
social’, as one thinker has claimed (Jenks 2005)—the emphasis on ‘ho-
listic’ cures and treatments is an interesting phenomenon where whole-
ness of body and mind are sought at least at the individual level.

us, AddLife, the popular Ayurvedic chain, speaks of its ‘holis-

tic approach to health’ in its ﬂ yer. In alternative systems of medicine,
‘holistic’ appears as a key concept and image. ‘Holistic’ is used as a term
to describe a whole made up of interdependent parts which would in-
clude:

• mind and body,

• mind, body and spirit, or

• spirituality, emotions and the body.

It is now used as a synonym for alternative therapies such as homoe-
opathy or Ayurveda. ‘Packaging health’ since the 1990s has involved a
massive amount of information and publicity for alternative systems of
medicine and therapy.

To tweak the argument about holism slightly, it also indicates the in-

tegration of multiple levels of care and cure into one large system. Hos-
pitals like Apollo now oﬀ er psychological support—a thing unheard of

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

in the 1980s and 1990s in India. Th

ey also integrate things like patient

rights and responsibilities (Apollo Hospitals has a brochure detailing
these).

The Care of the Self

A beauty regime inside your purse…

– Advert for Kara Skincare Wipes

(Chronicle Hyderabad,

Deccan Chronicle, 1 June 2008, p. 60)

e care of the self is at least partly to do with the idea that you need

to be healthy to survive in a competitive world, to carry out everyday
functions and be a good citizen.

Health and biomedicine have a particular way of understanding health,

one that gives primacy to the body. Bodies have borders that are violated
by disease-causing pathogens. Th

e body’s borders have to be secured

against the invaders. What is interesting is that the battle for the body
against the invaders is a battle between ‘culture’ and ‘nature’. Th

e human

body has been cultivated, perfected and controlled—in other words,
cultured. Viruses, infections, pathogens—in other words, disease—
represent nature where everything is uncontrolled and in excess. Health
is the state of being when nature—infections, disease—is kept out of
the body, in which the body’s boundaries are secured against the inva-
sive forms of natural life. In other words, the biomedical view is that
disease occurs when natural processes such as cellular multiplication,
or the crossing of the border between human bodies and the world, oc-
cur. Medicine attempts to

regulate these processes because these natural

processes threaten the integrity of the human body (see Waldby 1996
for an excellent study of this theme in AIDS discourse). And yet, this
regulation is something that one can perform for oneself, on a daily
basis. Th

e use of the term ‘regime’ in the advert cited at the head of this

section captures the regulatory imperative in self-care today.

e mid-20th century was when medicine really began to speak

social diseases, and social factors as causal agents for sickness. Th

diseases resulting from malnutrition were not pathological or biologi-
cal, but social—since they resulted from poverty, poor hygiene and

Packaging Life

nutritional problems. Here, disease is the result of ﬂ awed social rather
than biological systems. In simple terms, the new approach to medi-
cine placed disease in the social context: poverty/aﬄ

uence, location and

neighbourhood and lifestyles. Th

is meant that doctors, clinicians and

researchers had to acquire the knowledge of non-biological factors about
the disease or patient.

e social model of illness also suggests that medical intervention is

only one component of the contexts of disease. Hygiene, sanitation, nu-
trition and environment (including things like race and ethnicity) were
equally important factors in the origin, spread and control of disease.
In such a model, ‘diseases’ like anorexia or other eating disorders are the
results of not (only) individual choices but also of a social context:

the

glamourization of thin (the low-cal edition of life, as I am calling it).

Being sick involves, in contemporary medical practices, a social as-

pect in addition to the biological one. A person being sick involves more
than the sick body—it means an institutional involvement, the respon-
sibility of the medical profession and the pharmacist, the laboratory and
sometimes even the state. Th

e sick person, argued the sociologist Talcott

Parsons (1951), has an obligation to get better because being sick meant
being a non-productive member of the social system (in addition to
being a burden on the system’s economy) and a non-participant in the
social obligations (this emphasis on the productive citizen is the cultural
rhetoric at work within the discourse of sickness). Th

e ‘sick role’ also le-

gitimizes the function and power of the medical profession: its members
identify and mark a person as sick or healthy. What this means is simply
that sickness has a very prominent

social dimension.

It is important that the body’s borders are kept safe. Health is some-

thing that can be achieved, and culture kept pure and safe. Health is
increasingly depicted as something we can achieve through bodily con-
trol—of exercise, food habits and lifestyle. Obesity is therefore a ‘life-
style disease’ and is linked with the consumption of ‘junk food’ instead
of ‘health food’. Sedentary lifestyles, excessive computer-related work
are seen as the cause of spondylosis, back pain and other ailments. AIDS
is linked to promiscuous lifestyles and unsafe sex. Coronary heart dis-
ease is connected, like obesity, to sedentary lifestyles and bad food hab-
its. In short, health and sickness are related to factors of habits, lifestyle
and environment. Health is here about

bodily discipline and control. Or,

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

more fascinatingly, health is about regulated consumption of the good
things in life: rich foods, luxurious lifestyle. Excessive consumption (also
known as hedonism) and indulgence of the pleasures of life is the route
to sickness and medical problems.

Health is the condition that results from

the correct balance between denial and pleasure. Th

e term ‘balance’ is criti-

cal in all health advice and writings today.

e ‘balance’ is also, on occasion, between

the regime of treatment

and the regime of pleasure. Leisure and relaxation are now integral to
the culture of self-care, and leisure is itself seen as something one does
as a component of ‘self-improvement’ and self-actualization (which of
course includes questions of agency, self-determination and identity-
making).

Ayurveda, known for its rigorous diet programme, seeks to

reinvent itself by projecting its form of

treatment as pleasure. Cure as

pleasure is captured in the advertisement for Ayurbay, an ‘Ayurvedic
Beach Resort’, in its tag line: ‘Wellness or vacation’. Th

is is accompanied

by visuals of foreigners relaxing by the beach and in the garden (

Global

Ayurveda, 3.4, 2007, p. 35). A similar rhetoric conﬂ ating healthcare
and pleasure is visible in other wellness centres (

Global Ayurveda, 3.4,

2007, p. 6). Th

e idea is to show the regime of cure and care need not be

tortuous at all, but can very well be an agenda on your

vacation. Medi-

cal tourism, especially with Ayurveda, is an attempt to combine the two
regimes of cure and pleasure.

More signiﬁ cantly, health is something to be managed by the self

too. With increasing facilities and technologies managing one’s health
is a routine task of the everyday. Google launched its Google Health in
February 2008 with its personal health record (PHR) facility for users—
once you have registered, Google displays listings of healthcare organi-
zations and product/service vendors that have integrated with Google
Health.

Users can compile and download their records, including con-

ditions, medication, allergies and test results, from the multiple sources
used to generate any health record. Th

is integrates an individual’s health

records into one, and can be directly ‘fed’ or transmitted to the health-
care worker/hospital—yet another instance of the ‘informational cul-
ture of health’.

Men’s Health India from the India Today group aims to provide

‘unmatched content for Indian men to take control of their physical,
mental, and emotional lives,’ with a focus on ‘health, ﬁ tness, fashion,

Packaging Life

nutrition, relationships, sex, travel, gear and money’

(It must be noted

that there is no mention of parenting or domestic work here). Every issue
of

Men’s Health carries a semi-clad male form on the cover. Aged male

bodies are completely left out—except as caricature—in the magazine,
thus suggesting an ideology of ageism at work: the only body worth
looking at and talking about is the youthful one.

e health columns and advice carefully mix

unhealthy things with

ﬁ tness. Th

us, one article on weight loss advises men: ‘You can eat French

fries sparingly’ (

Men’s Health May 2007: 60). Another quotes medical

authorities to declare: ‘People who down one or two alcoholic drinks a
day retain their memories better than either teetotallers or heavy drink-
ers’ (

Men’s Health May 2007: 64). It encourages men to play video and

computer games because it apparently improves concentration levels
(

Men’s Health May 2007: 64). Men’s Health presents a hedonistic, aggres-

sive male stereotype where lifestyles and habits that have long been asso-
ciated with ill-health and nerds are recast as things males

must or can do

in moderation. And this is the point I have made before: contemporary
care of the self is marked by a self-contradictory move where on the one
hand you have to consume more to be cool or ‘with it’ as a good con-
sumer citizen, and on the other, you have to consume in moderation.

e care of the self in the packaging of health

presupposes an autono-

mous subject who can make choices about her/his lifestyle, food habits, exer-
cise regimen and work style. Th

individual, made aware of the problems,

beneﬁ ts and risks in adopting a particular lifestyle is able to transform
her/him-self accordingly. In other words, the ideology of self-care as-
sumes that we are empowered individuals who can make such decisions.
Th

is makes conditions like obesity the consequence of poor lifestyle and

self-control. It shifts the condition from the

medical to the moral, where

the choice of lifestyle, indulgence or lack of self-control in the indi-
vidual is blamed for the ‘problem’. Th

e autonomous individual must

make moral choices about exercise, food habits and lifestyle. To cut a
long story short,

the care of the self is a moral imperative on the individual,

a bioethic for the individual to pursue and implement.

Such an imperative placed upon the autonomous individual and

bioethics is problematic in India because decisions as to food habits are
governed by strong family structures. Th

e ideology of self-care works

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

for First World families where the basis of all rights, including human
rights, is the autonomous individual with agency and control over her/
his lifestyle choices. Th

e same does not hold good for India. So, lifestyle

choices in India are severely restrained and restricted by the family struc-
tures an individual occupies and to which she/he often submits.

en what is the form that the care of the self takes in India? Notice

the number of ads that target ‘you’, as in, the individual. Th

ese address

the individual as the site of lifestyle choices. However, a slightly diﬀ erent
order of the same care discourse works for the family. Ads for cooking
oils, for instance, or insurance, focus on the family as a unit. In such
cases, I propose, we see the care of the self is tempered and suitably
modiﬁ ed with a commitment, especially on the part of the woman—
these are highly gendered ads—toward the family’s health.

e cultural rhetorics within which the care of the self is embedded

in India exhibits a dualism. On the one hand there is an increasing
atomization where lifestyle choices focus on the

individual rather than

the family or community. On the other hand, there is a far greater em-
phasis on the

family in particular discourses of safety, ﬁ nances, home and

housing, as I have demonstrated elsewhere (Nayar 2008b, see especially
Chapter 5). Th

e care of the self is, in the case of India, caught between

self-care and welfare, where the ﬁ rst is, as the term indicates, about the
individual and the second is about the family.

Managing Health, Promoting Wellness

Health has to be managed. Wellness is promoted by insurance com-
panies, biomedical research organizations, the medical fraternity, gyms
and ﬁ tness centres and even the state. Like ﬁ nance, risk or careers, health
is part of the great managerialism of the late 20th century. Physicians
are not simply doctors— they are health managers, regulating your body
and mind to achieve health.

Apollo Hospitals Hyderabad declares itself as ‘Asia’s First Health

City’. A city, we know, consists of some of the most organized and man-
aged ‘systems’—transport, law and order, healthcare, communications,
administration—integrated so that the city runs well. Th

e city has to be

Packaging Life

‘managed’. Th

e city is also many things put together—cultural, social,

political and infrastructural. To see a hospital and healthcare facility de-
scribed as a

city is therefore rather interesting.

The Technologization of Health

e hospital is at the forefront of medical technology and expertise.

– Prefatory note,

Out Patient Clinic Brochure, Apollo Hospitals

Why do hospitals ﬁ rst showcase their technologies rather than their
caring, compassionate and kind doctors? Why are hospitals and clinics
state-of-the-art rather than, if I may indulge in drollery, state-of-the-
heart? ‘Care’, ‘charity’ and ‘cure’—the roots of medicine—proceed from
‘caritas’, which implied the physician’s sense of compassion and humani-
ty. Th

is component seems to have dropped out of sight, or at least seems

miniaturized, in descriptions and self-representations of hospitals and
biomedicine. Instead we see a preponderance of a highly technologized
biomedical environment. Ads for hospitals regularly and invariably
showcase new technological devices that (apparently) help cure people’s
ailments. I turn to two high-proﬁ le examples of the technologized body
in biomedicine today.

ere has been, historically, an intrinsic connection between visual-

ity, visual representation—photographs, graphs, charts, images, models,
simulations—and medical diagnosis. In the beginning, the dissection
yielded up the body’s interiors and workings to the eye of the physician.
Engineering has tried constantly to provide better tools to look into,
probe and explore the human body. Laennac’s stethoscope invented in
1819 enabled the physician to ‘read’ the heart. Röntgen’s X-rays in 1896
helped doctors see fractures in bones. In the latter half of the 20th cen-
tury, MRI scans, X-rays, CAT scans, DNA sampling, all provide visual
images of disease, the pathogen and the damage. Schematic models of
the DNA are commonplace in the cultural imagination because they
occur frequently as visual representations in newspapers, magazines and
other forms.

We now know what the structure of the AIDS virus is

through ﬁ lms, newspapers and reportage. Computerized imaging is
now integral to medical technology. Th

e massive Visible Human Project

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

has rendered the human form in 3D ﬂ y-through video for anybody
who wishes to know the human anatomy. Visualization technology
transforms the body itself into a visual medium. Medical visualization
technology and the digital human projects are ways of perceiving and
representing the body—that is, they are about

images.

However, these technologies are not neutral. Th

ere are social, cul-

tural, economic and political aspects to any technology. In the rest of
this section I look at select ways of ‘screening’ health and sickness.

e projects that I take up deal with the digitization of the human

body. Th

e Visible Human Project of the National Library of Medi-

cine, USA (VHP, inaugurated in 1994) and a related project by the
Center for Human Simulation, Colorado (CHS) are two medically re-
lated projects.

Both the projects have become extraordinarily famous

as anatomy texts. Th

e project has sectioned the human body, photo-

graphed it, and stored it as digitized data. What the CHS does is to
cause the digitally constructed, chip-driven ‘heart’ or ‘lungs’ to simulate
physiology, and even disease, so that the processes can be studied better.
Th

e images in 3D and virtual reality models—which the CHS com-

pares to ﬂ ight simulation—are meant to serve as educational devices.
When converted into the digital format, transmitted and reconstructed
elsewhere to

produce an anatomy the body in eﬀ ect disappears to be reas-

sembled elsewhere, indeﬁ nitely, inﬁ nitely.

One of the key, and fascinating, features of the VHP and CHS is

their stark realism. Th

ese are computer-generated views created directly

from body slices. Where earlier medical textbooks used photographs
or artists’ visualizations—that is, created in the imagination—of the
body, the VHP works with the body itself as raw data to create its images.
Th

e VHP presents a unique combination of the ﬂ eshly and the virtual,

the cadaver and the digital, the skin-and-bones and the computer code
(Cartwright 1998). Visibility here is linked both to the ﬂ eshly real and
the coded virtual. It is simultaneously real and computer-generated—
this is the fascinating dimension of the VHP’s digital anatomy.

It is interesting to note that this ‘Visible Human’ is a biological male.

us ‘

human’ is automatically assumed to be male. It is in line with

convention in medical science where the ‘standard model’ of the human
was always male, and the female body (in anatomy or physiology) would
only be described in terms homologous to that of the male. A study of

Packaging Life

US medical text books from the 1890–1990 period demonstrated this
crucial cultural diﬀ erence in the ways in which male and female bodies
were perceived even in medicine: the male body was the primary and
standard, and the female was only a variant to be studied after studying
the male model (Lawrence and Bendixen 1992). What is evident here
is that the

visibility of the human body in medical texts is governed less

by anatomical or medical requirements than by cultural viewpoints and
prejudices. It is because the woman was considered secondary to the
man that anatomy lessons were prepared based on the primary model:
the male. Later, a ‘visible woman’ was added to the VHP database. Th

‘visible woman’ was based on the body of a 59-year old woman. It was
emphasized here that the woman was

past the reproductive age, thereby

linking the woman’s identity to the possibility of the procreative func-
tion: no such condition was used to identify the visible human male. It
is almost as though the woman’s visibility depends on the reproductive
ability and function.

In 1995, an equivalent of the Visible Human was created at the Stan-

ford University, termed Stanford Visible Female (SVF). Th

is one was

based on the body of a 32-year old woman, and is, crucially, described
thus:

[T]he SVF project is unique in two important ways: the specimen is
that of a 32 year old female and it was ﬁ xed in a standing position.
Th

ese features are unlike the 59 year old post-menopausal Visible Hu-

man Female. Th

e uterus and ovaries are those of a reproductive age

female and do not reﬂ ect the atrophic signs of post-menopause.

e representation in the SVF is apparently of the ‘normal’ female.

As seen in the discussion of the VHP, the visual simulation generates a
model or standard for the human. In the case of the SVF the ‘standard’
is that of a woman in the reproductive age group. In other words, the
politics of representation here

casts the woman as normal or standard only

if she is within the reproductive age. As in the case of the VHP visible fe-
male, the woman’s identity, even in simulation, revolves around her abil-
ity to bear children. Child-bearing becomes the mark of her femininity.
Visibility here is restricted to viewing the woman’s body in (mainly)
its reproductive functions. What I want to emphasize here is that the

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

technology is rooted in cultural prejudices and ideologies where the woman
is reduced to her reproductive ability.

A second example for the cultural politics of visualization technol-

ogies in medicine is the ultrasound. In 2003 the Punjab government
considered banning a US company’s gender determination technology
kit for fear that it would lead to killing of female foetuses and ruin the
state’s already precarious sex ratio (Gulfnews.com 2006). Th

e Indian

government in the 1990s had already starting cracking down on pre-
natal gender determination procedures because there was an alarming
increase in female foeticide—here an instance of a cultural rhetoric of
‘protecting the female’ that runs counter to the cultural rhetoric that
privileges the male child (since the 1990s the ultrasound scan and other
modes of foetal gender identiﬁ cation procedures came in for much at-
tention all over the world). India’s Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diag-
nostic Tests Act prevents gender testing of foetuses. We shall return to
the politics of childbirth later, but right now, it is the centrality of visual
culture to the issue of foetuses that is the focus. What is central to the
ban and the ultrasound is the visualization of the foetus, the granting of
recognition to the foetus because we now have knowledge of its identity
as male or female—the foetus’ ﬁ rst step to socialization.

With ultrasound, the foetus appears for the ﬁ rst time as a ‘person’. In

1990,

Life magazine put the foetus in the womb on its cover with the

caption: ‘Th

e ﬁ rst pictures ever of how life begins.’

Now, the moment

when the foetus becomes a sentient human being—for instance, the
change from an ‘embryo’ to a ‘foetus’—has been furiously debated by
ethicists and the medical profession (just as the ‘moment’ of death has
been). What the ultrasound picture did was to suddenly give the foetus
an identity as a

human. Parents begin to ‘bond with’ their child well

before its birth through ultrasound scans. What is important is that the
boundaries between the medical and the personal are blurred here. Th

biomedical image takes on the ‘aura’ of a portrait and creates a docu-
ment of the baby as a

social being.

Clearly, visualizing technology in medicine has cultural consequenc-

es and emotional eﬀ ects on viewers. Th

is was demonstrated by a Volvo

automobile ad which showed a foetus in an ultrasound scan visual, with
a tag line below—‘Is something inside telling you to buy a Volvo?’—
thus suggesting that the foetus inside needs to be protected and you

Packaging Life

therefore need to purchase/consume a particular product. In 1984,
Bernard Nathanson made a videotape called

e Silent Scream, wherein

he showed ‘real-time’ ultra-sound images of a 12-week old foetus. He
stated that the images converted him to anti-abortionist because they
revealed to him that what he saw on screen was a ‘living unborn child’.
Th

e foetus thus becomes a ‘person’ when viewed thus. Images of foetuses

have been used by pro-life groups in the USA to oppose abortion. Femi-
nist critics have argued that such foetal representation, by bestowing
some kind of autonomous identity upon the foetus somehow ensures
the disappearance of the mother and the mother’s material body, which
is set in speciﬁ c economic, cultural and social contexts (Stabile 1998).
By focusing on the foetus as a ‘human being’ that requires protection
(and hence no abortion) it is separated from the mother’s body and

its

needs: access to health, food and shelter. Th

e gendered nature of medical

visualization techniques has social consequences, argue commentators
(see Treichler et al. 1998).

A related domain of medicine’s visual and performance culture is the

work done by

artists with scans, bodies and medical concepts. Th

e 1990s

and 21st century art forms appropriated and aestheticized contempo-
rary developments in technoculture, especially in biology, medicine
and genetics. Franko B uses his own blood and bodily ﬂ uids in or-
der to comment on medicine’s obsession with objectivity and control
(see http://www.franko-b.com/gallery/g_performance4.htm). Stelarc
(Stelios Arcadiou) interfaces his body with machines and the Internet.
Alexis Rockman’s

e Farm (2000) depicted a soybean ﬁ eld that shows

recognizable plants and animals, and speculated on how they might
look in future. Th

ese are

transgenic art forms, blurring the boundaries

between human, animal and vegetable.

e medical image of a body (now sliced into less than a millimetre

thick, photographed and digitized) is now an exhibition of the

inter-

nal body. It turns the body inside out, as the newest exhibition in this
line, Gunther von Hagens’ ‘Body Worlds’ actually does (also archived
at www.bodyworlds.com). When it comes to genes and chromosomes,
it literally inﬂ ates the smallest component of the human into a visual
treat. In the case of genomic art, the modiﬁ ed animals and plants are
basically exhibitions and renderings of the ‘natural’ processes of evolu-
tion, growth and decay.

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

Genomic art is about the aesthetization of the ultimate secret proc-

esses of the human body. Th

e deformity or perfect forms represented

here signify

possibilities, and artists and scholars alike are fascinated by

the directions human life/form can take, as evidenced in a new volume
of essays titled, appropriately,

Human Futures: Art in an Age of Uncer-

tainty (Miah 2008). It is cybercultural art that takes the human form,
environment and future in the context of heavily technologized envi-
ronments very seriously. In order to emphasize this possible transforma-
tion of the real/bodily through technologies, it takes recourse to particu-
lar aesthetic forms. What the images, performances and installations in
Alexis Rockman or Stelarc tell us is the course our (as in human)

future

life could take. Genomic art establishes anomalous, non-natural forms,
even when they have natural functions (such as the third ear, which was
used by the artist Stelarc). Th

e Pig Wings project calls attention to this

aspect in its opening statements:

Rhetoric surrounding the development of new biological technolo-
gies make us wonder if pigs could ﬂ y one day. If pigs could ﬂ y, what
shape their wings will take? Th

e Pig Wings project presents the ﬁ rst

use of living pig tissue to construct and grow winged shaped semi-
living objects.

Such projects are attempts to demystify and popularize—albeit to the

hardened viewer—the medicalized body. By ‘revealing’ the processes in
biomedicine and genetics, new media and genomic art renders it more
visible, even as it adds to the sense that medicine is an integral part of
our lives.

The Biomilitary State

Global War Against AIDS Runs Short of Vital Weapon: Donated Con-
doms. (McNeil 2002)

At Ground Zero of India’s War on AIDS. (Warrier 2006)

Medicine itself can now be deﬁ ned as the attempt to keep nature (in the
form of bacteria or pathogens) from intruding into our lives. Human

Packaging Life

life, in this view, is culture. Viruses and bacteria represent nature and na-
ture constantly tries to take over, colonize and overwhelm the cultured
human. Infection is this invasion by and multiplication of another body
within the human one. Th

is multiplication is

natural to the life form,

but in the biomedical view, it causes serious changes in the human body.
Disease therefore occurs when natural processes such as cellular multi-
plication or the crossing of the border between human bodies and the
world happen. Medicine attempts to regulate these processes because
these natural processes threaten the integrity of the human body.

In this section, I want to explore how epidemics and diseases are

packaged. I am interested in the processes through which particular ide-
ologies, prejudices and political ideas inform the packaging of diseases
and epidemics. In order to understand these processes, it is important to
look at one of the most inﬂ uential models of the biomedical body in the
20th century: the immunological model.

e immunological model of illness has become one of the most

prominent in the latter half of the 20th century. In this model the body’s
own warriors—the white blood corpuscles, the T-lymphocytes, the mac-
rophages—ﬁ ght the invaders. What is fascinating about the immune
model and its rhetoric in medicine is the image of military warfare. Here
is a description from a textbook:

e innate immune system is our ﬁ rst line of defense against invading

organisms while the adaptive immune system acts as a second line of
defense and also aﬀ ords protection against re-exposure to the same
pathogen.

is is how the prestigious US National Institute of Allergy and In-

fectious Diseases (of the National Institutes of Health) deﬁ nes the im-
mune system:

e immune system is a network of cells, tissues, and organs that

work together to defend the body against attacks by ‘foreign’
invaders.

e entire body is imaged as a nation with its own battalion of sol-

diers (Martin 1990). Th

e pathogens are enemy invaders that need to be

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

fought oﬀ and destroyed. Th

e body is a territory that has boundaries,

and these are vulnerable to invasion. Th

e immune system is the guard-

ian of this territory. Such a conception of the body as a nation-state and
the immune system as an army transforms medicine itself into a war
with the body as battleground. More importantly the immune model in
medicine situates the body as the site of a battle between self and the
foreign, the self and the invader-other. Th

e very term ‘immune’ comes

from the Latin

immunis meaning ‘exempt’ and refers to protection

against foreign agents. Th

is rhetoric of the immune system is based on

a larger

cultural and philosophical assumption: that the non-self or any-

thing from the outside is a source of threat. Th

e immune model creates

the body as a bounded territory that is at risk from invasion.

An epidemic occurs when the

non-human natural world (of bacte-

ria, viruses, pathogens) crosses over into the

human, cultural world. Th

aim of medicine, following from this argument, is to keep the civilized
world of humans separated and guarded from the natural one, and to
keep the identity of the human body inviolate from the pathogens.

is attempt is usually cast as what has been termed ‘biomilitary’ im-

ages (Montgomery 1991). If disease is seen as an invasion of culture by
nature, then epidemics are frequently imaged as an attack on the cul-
tured body of a nation or city or civilization. Th

e nation as

body politic

is an image that dates back (in Europe) to the early modern period.
James I of England thus saw his role of King as combined with that of
the physician of this body politic. In such contexts invasion by enemies
was almost always imaged as invasion by disease (Harris 1998). Con-
currently, disease itself becomes a military attack. In the 20th century,
as several critics have noted, AIDS—the celebrity plague of the age—
has been constantly described in martial terms: Th

e ‘war against AIDS’,

for instance (Waldby 1996). Governments see their role as marshalling
resources in this war, even as the biomedical teams see themselves as
soldiers. Th

is kind of imagery is not medical but

cultural, since, techni-

cally, the two ﬁ elds of military and medicine have nothing in common.
However, modern discourses have ensured that the languages of the two
ﬁ elds—war and medicine—merge, and epidemics are particularly suited
to the new conﬂ ated language.

As early as 1993, smoking demanded a war, as in the headlines from

the

New York Times: ‘17 States in vanguard of war on smoking’ (Brody

Packaging Life

1993, emphasis added). A headline in

Financial Express announced:

‘WHO Prof

wants war on obesity’ (Financial Express 15 May 2008, em-

phasis added). Th

e article went to cite the respected professor who sug-

gested that governments need to take the same kind of action against
obesity as they did against smoking. Th

e popular medical news web-

site, MedIndia.com announced that ‘

the war against cancer continues’

(MedIndia.com 25 December 2005, emphasis added).

Outlook mag-

azine ran a cover story on blood pressure and titled it ‘Silent Killer’
(Wadhwa 2003). ‘Healthwatch’ of

e Hindu carried an article on World

No Tobacco Day (31 May), which had a visual of volunteers spreading
awareness of the dangers of smoking. Th

e caption for the visual was:

‘Silent Killer’ (Narasimhan 2008). AIDS of course readily attracts the
metaphor of war. Th

us, the then Prime Minister of India A.B. Vajpayee

addressing the ministers of six states in 2001 called for a

joint war against

AIDS.

In 2002, a Chandigarh panel discussion involving experts from

various organizations, including military ones like the Central Reserve
Police Force (CRPF) termed malaria a ‘killer disease’ and called for ‘a
pragmatic approach on the grassroot level must be adopted for better
implementation of the eﬀ orts being made to win the war against malaria’
(Chauhan 2002). Th

e ‘biomilitary’ metaphors bring together military

and biomedicine while focused on two things: the body of the indi-
vidual and the body of the social order. It also relies heavily on the image
of the

contagion: the agent of disease and disruption that breaks up the

body of the individual and the body of the society/nation.

e contagion, as Cynthia Davis points out, is both the disease and

the process of the transmission of the disease (Davis 2002). It is impor-
tant to note that cultural transmission has also been, historically speak-
ing, treated as contagion. Th

at is, cultural aspects are also seen as both

disease and the process of disease transmission. Th

is usually involved

an anxiety of racial mixing in the colonial cultures of the 19th century.
Th

ere was a ﬁ rm delineation of boundaries where every culture, body

politic and self was held in, guarded and defended against mixing with
other cultures. Th

is tendency to mix race, national identity and disease

reached its most horriﬁ c peak in the Nazi regime of the 20th century.

In the 1930s, the Germans set out to mark the ‘racially pure’ Aryans

and the ‘others’. Purity was to be established on the basis of blood and
anthropological race studies. Otto Reche, professor of racial science at

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

Leipzig, conducted blood research aimed at identifying physiological
racial features and diﬀ erences, and set up the Blood Group Research in
1926. After their research, they concluded that there was a correlation
between race and blood type, but with intermarriage, the pure lines of
blood had got mixed up. New races such as Jews and Slavs were seen as
mongrel races resulting from the mixing of blood lines. In 1935, Hit-
ler passed the Nuremberg laws excluding Jews from being considered
German citizens. Th

is law deﬁ ned Jews as those with at least three Jewish

grandparents; those with fewer than three were considered ‘half-breeds’.
Th

is was a concerted attempt to distinguish Jews and Germans on the

basis of their blood—an exercise in cultural rhetorics that ‘packaged’
race as biological, and the Jewish race as an enemy of the state.

In the 20th century, such a fear of culture as contagion has resulted

in Western anxieties about particular ‘Th

ird World’ nations, and other

racial groups. Th

us, the fear of culture/contagion from Africa and other

‘hot zones’—the standard term for regions designated as zones of in-
fectious diseases—has resulted in extraordinary attitudes towards these
countries as the source, origin and cause of infectious diseases. Take, for
example, the furore over sickle cell anemia in the 1970s in the USA.
In 1971, the US Congress passed the Sickle Cell Anemia Control Act.
What was curious in this case is that it was treated as a potential public
health hazard and an epidemic, even though it was a genetic disease, and
genetic diseases are never transmitted epidemically! Sickle cell anaemia
control programmes focused exclusively on African Americans.

What I am trying to emphasize is that the

idea of disease contagion

quickly folds into the idea and practice of cultural contagion. Places and
diseases are mapped onto each other, and each is taken as an instan-
tiation of the other. Anxieties about Africa as the source of AIDS, for
instance, have resulted in classiﬁ cation of Africans as AIDS-carriers.
In other words, contagion is a means of shifting between disease and
culture. Or, the very idea of contagion has political consequences. Take
AIDS, for instance. Africa has always been, for the West, the ‘dark conti-
nent’. Stereotypes in ﬁ ction from the late 18th century and later in ﬁ lms
like

Romancing the Stone (1984), the Indiana Jones series (1981, 1984,

1989, 2008) or even more recently

Blood Diamond (2006) depicted

Africa as a savage place that can be subdued only by the white man.
Darkness, mystery and danger (Africa) demand light, solutions and

Packaging Life

control (the white man’s). Later, representations of AIDS in the media
painted Africa as a region devastated by AIDS, where cures and treat-
ments were diﬃ

cult because of the ‘primitive’ beliefs and superstitions.

As Paula Treichler has pointed out in her magisterial study of AIDS and
its cultural locations, stories about Africa were ‘designed primarily to
warn Western readers about themselves’, and treating Africa as the point
of origin of this demon (Treichler 1999: 125). In addition, of course,
AIDS isolated the gay community as direct threats—as carriers of the
contagion—to the heterosexual community. Biomedical discourse very
determinedly maps on to a discourse of (racial) Othering.

With the ‘arrival’ of the Ebola virus, Africa returns to the news as a

‘hot zone’. Authors like Richard Preston (

e Hot Zone, 1994, and a

New York Times bestseller in the non-ﬁ ction category for 12 months), by
tracing an outbreak of Ebola in Virginia, USA, to Africa, retrieve older
images of Africa as the originary moment of the world’s great diseases.
Films like

Outbreak (1995), Robin Cook’s ﬁ ction (1988, also entitled

Outbreak), invariably show Africa as the site where numerous deadly
diseases emerge. Yet what is important, as in the case of AIDS pointed
out in the preceding paragraph, is that these diseases are represented
as threats originating in Africa, but

moving towards the USA and the

First World. Critics have demonstrated how, for instance, Preston’s book
frames the Virginia outbreak by foregrounding the European encounter
with particular viruses in

Africa (see Haynes 2002). Th

e Virginia out-

break, in this packaging of Ebola, becomes a trans-Atlantic attack by an
African pathogen. In all cases, the community is foregrounded as the
victim of the disease/contagion or the beneﬁ ciary of the muniﬁ cent ef-
forts of the (usually white) biomedical heroes (Nayar 2008c).

Genetic science projects such as the Human Genome Project (HGP)

also generate particular models of communities and populations. Infor-
mation of the world’s populations will be stored in databases that could,
as the Project itself announces in its manifesto, be sold to private buyers.
Th

e indigenous populations—who have been ‘databased’—themselves

will have no access to the information. As the project puts it:

Because much of the challenge is interpreting genomic data and mak-
ing the results available for scientiﬁ c and technological applications,
the challenge extends not just to the Human Genome Project, but

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

also to the microbial genome program and to public- and private-
sector programs focused on areas such as health eﬀ ects, structural
biology, and environmental remediation. Eﬀ orts in all these areas are
the

mandate of the DOE genome informatics program, whose prod-

ucts are already

widely used in genome laboratories, general molecular

biology and medical laboratories,

biotechnology companies, and biop-

harmaceutical companies around the world. (emphasis added)

Originally, African Americans were

not included in the genomic sur-

vey of the human race. Th

at is, African Americans had not been origi-

nally treated as part of “humanity” when the DNA of the entire race
was being proﬁ led. Th

is exclusion is a throwback to the colonial age

when Africans did not ﬁ gure in tracts on humanity, except as primi-
tives and animal-like species. A normative human genetic code drawn
from a narrow section of the population—white, Caucasian—becomes
‘representative’ of all humans. It is crucial as to whose genetic make-up
is being used as a baseline or standard because medical, health and such
research will use these as models. Th

at is, in ﬁ elds like pharmacogenetics

(where medicines will be prepared according to genetic proﬁ les), there
will be no medicines designed for the African American. It will gener-
ate a genetic racism where African American genes do not constitute a
case for analysis and medical biology’s advances in therapeutic medicine.
Commercial drugs based on genetic proﬁ les will, therefore, not be de-
signed for African American or Chicano/a people. Th

e paradox is worth

pondering over: on the one hand genomic projects collect genetic mate-
rials from minority and ‘Th

ird World’ communities, and on the other,

commercial interests could possibly exclude this (economically weaker,
and therefore representing a meagre market) ‘gene pool’ from getting
drugs suited to their genetic make-up. It is illustrative to note that Nor-
ton Zinder, who chaired the advisory committee to the HGP, had men-
tioned social anxieties that ‘having the human genome at hand might
provide an inﬁ nite number of new reasons for genetic discrimination
by employers and insurance companies; it might even inspire Nazi-like
eugenic measures’ (Wilkie 1993: 77).

In short, the ‘packaging’ of ra-

cial data preliminary to pharmacogenomics and genetically engineered
medicine could well be a new form of racism and biocolonialism, as I
have argued elsewhere (Nayar 2006; Th

acker 2005).

Packaging Life

Such cultural and political anxieties about contagions and disease are

of course readily stoked by events such as the anthrax scare in late 2001.
‘Biowar’ and ‘bioterrorism’ have suddenly acquired a celebrity status in
the wake of the anthrax scare. Dozens of books and hundreds of articles
have appeared since 2001, providing, in particular, detailed information
about lethal pathogens. Th

ere is even a ‘beginner’s guide’ to Bioterror

and Biowarfare! (Dando 2006).

Social Marketing

A key element in the packaging of health is its social marketing of health.
Social marketing proceeds from the assumption that several prob-
lems are the consequence of the social and cultural contexts. Th

us, for

example, critics have argued that eating disorders are located in the mar-
keting of thinness and the predominance of thin in glamour contests. In
such circumstances, marketing agents become social advocates seeking
changes in the system that generates particular ailments. An individual
negative body image is not of her choice but is induced through peer
pressure and socially circulating images of ‘thin is beautiful’.

Social marketing is the marketing of products and services that seek

to serve as social advocates. It is not entirely commercial in its inten-
tions, even though large pharma companies might have stakes in the
sales of products and services. It glamourizes the particular disease and
enables an attention-grabbing advert for a larger cause. In 2002, Akshay
Kumar and Sonali Bendre worked with the UK Public Health Minis-
try in its campaign against tuberculosis.

In 2005, a large number of

Bollywood and sports stars (Salman Khan, Anil Kapoor, Shilpa Shetty,
Sharmila Tagore, Kapil Dev) campaigned for AIDS awareness.

During

the 2003 Cricket World Cup, the cricket teams from India and Pakistan
together promoted the national polio eradication campaign in TV com-
mercials.

e now-routine polio vaccination campaign in India with

no less than Amitabh Bachchan, in print and on TV, is another case
in point. Issued in public interest the ads preach health, security and
the family’s ‘healthfare’. Jackie Shroﬀ campaigning for AIDS care is an-
other instance of social marketing. In the AIDS campaigns, the social
marketing does something more. It focuses on the individual as the site

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

of transformation—the individual chooses a lifestyle—but at the same
time locates the individual within a context: of the family in particular.
Th

e care of the self, suggest these campaigns, is connected to the care of

the family.

Such campaigns hope to eﬀ ect both individual and environmental/

social change. Th

ey position the individual

as an active subject who can

transform her/his life while, at the same time, locating her/him as somebody
whose choices are predetermined by the structures she/he inhabits.

Medical Spectacles

One arrested for manufacturing duplicate medicine.

– Headlines,

Daily News and Analysis, 23 November 2007

Girl separation surgery a success.

– BBC South Asia, 7 November 2007

I am like a left-handed batsman.

–

e Hindu, 24 March 2009

An eﬀ ective way of promoting health is to transform medicine into a
spectacle. By spectacle I mean something put on display for purposes of
information or entertainment, mostly on the screen but not restricted to
it. Dramatic footage in newspapers, documentaries and reports are also
spectacles. Medical spectacles mark a powerful

convergence—of theatre

(drama, but also staging), science, the body, disease and medicine. Th

ea-

tre is not simply theatrical presentations, but also representations that
highlight particular situations such as life-and-death battles, monstrous
disﬁ gurement or horriﬁ c diseases. I take ‘theatre’ to now simply mean
‘media’, since—and this is my key argument—diseases and bodies are
represented theatrically through technologies of ﬁ lming, voice-overs,
editing and choice of medium.

Medical spectacles contribute to the common fund of the layman’s

knowledge of medicine and disease. Medical documentaries, reportage
and entertainment participate in a process whereby the general public is
informed of the developments in these areas. ‘Science communication’,

Packaging Life

as this realm is called, is the ‘packaging’ of scientiﬁ c and technical in-
formation that is passed on from experts to the common public. Th

spectacle and informational culture is crucial because it inﬂ uences the
public’s perception of the profession as well its views on issues like clon-
ing or genetic engineering. A study demonstrated that news coverage of
the MMR (mumps, measles, rubella) vaccine during 2002 in the UK
inﬂ uenced public opinions about the vaccine, and a reported fall in vac-
cinations (Speer and Lewis 2004). Another recent study—of the visu-
alization techniques in nanotechnology—demonstrated that the ‘public
that can be rapidly swayed from neutrality toward either support for or
strong opposition to the technology, depending on the course of events
and the particular slant of the streams of images of nanotechnology to
which they are exposed’ (Landau et al. 2009: 335). Th

e scientiﬁ cally

challenged public develops opinions—and choices—depending upon
the information (print, visual, expert) passed on to them. Th

us, ‘infor-

mation’ is about ‘packaging’. And this is precisely my implicit argument
throughout the chapter (and the book, in fact) that information and the
communication-dissemination of information in controlled ways is the
setting for a deliberative democracy and the informational culture of
today inﬂ uences public opinions, choices and even policy. To shift focus
to medicine, such a ‘packaging’ can take various forms.

Michael Bury and Jonathan Gabe (2006) have proposed that televi-

sion coverage of medicine takes one of three formats: the exposé (where
corruption within the system, the powerful interests working within
medicine and incompetence are exposed), the documentary (which
seeks to widen the public awareness of medicine and, as I have proposed
earlier, incorporates medical knowledge within our everyday lives) and
the drama format (serials and soaps dealing with medical themes, hos-
pital stories). Th

e ﬁ rst epigraph to this section, cited from a newspaper,

is an exposé revealing the ﬂ aws within medicine. Th

e second epigraph

dramatizes a medical procedure, even though it is not cast as a soap
opera.

Medicine has achieved cult status as entertainment in the form

of long-running and popular TV shows like

ER and Chicago Hope.

is is

medical culture as drama, and constitutes an important means of

popularizing—perhaps not very accurately, as critics have pointed

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

out

—life inside a hospital. In televised medical drama there exists a

tension between information and entertainment. Does the audience
learn anything about disease, pathogens or treatment from the soap op-
era? Or is the emphasis simply on entertainment? Critics have argued
that the media tends to trivialize serious issues like personal tragedy or
disease in order to amuse, and often, misrepresent the medical condition
(Atkins 2008).

However, entertainment need not, of course, exclude knowledge.

us,

ER can help us understand the culture of a hospital, the proc-

esses of decision-making, the hierarchies, the key procedures in treat-
ment, and even deliver an evaluative judgment. Recall, for example, the
scenes in

Munnabhai MBBS in which Munnabhai objects to the bureau-

cratization of the hospital where one has to ﬁ rst ﬁ ll in multiple forms
before treatment can be given. Invariably in these soaps, the doctor is
heroic and, as commentators have noted, even breaks rules in order to
help patients (Makoul and Peer 2004). It is also true that much of the
medical drama on TV addresses the personal lives of doctors rather than
medicine per se (Cinevista’s

Sanjivani, launched in 2004 and now also

being aired on TV Asia in the USA, is a case in point). Earlier forms
of dramatic narratives of medicine—James Herriott’s books on life as a
country veterinarian in England are good examples—also delivered the
profession as a scene of drama.

But medical spectacles need not necessarily be restricted to television.

I see narratives of medical discoveries—biographies of ﬁ gures like Lou-
is Pasteur or Alexander Fleming—also as spectacles. Th

ey capture the

drama of discovery, the terror of failures, the tensions of disease-agents
in their storytelling. Th

e causal agent is demonized—in fact, a recent

book on the search and discovery of sulfa, the ﬁ rst antibiotic, is titled
Th

e Demon Under the Microscope (Hager 2006)—the infrastructure (the

hospital, the lab) seems to fail, and yet, ﬁ nally, then doctor-researcher
emerges triumphant. Medical spectacle invariably casts the doctor as
hero and marks the convergence of theatre, science and disease.

Professionalism and the constraints under which doctors work and

some ethics are usual themes here, though almost all of these are overlaid
with the personal. Th

ere is little discussion of the

institution of medicine

itself—the status of the profession, the role of the state or the question

Packaging Life

of public health, for instance. Even patient–doctor interactions shift to
the personal end of the spectrum rather than the professional. Th

e con-

stant emphasis on the doctor as human is a notable feature of all these
soaps, and is linked with the dramatic, emotional and personal com-
ponent of doctor serials. Makoul and Peer therefore conclude that the
key frames operating in such soaps are: medicine is drama, doctors are
human and patients are trouble or troubled (2004: 258). It is important
to note that such medical dramas shape

public perception of the profes-

sion, and can eventually inform the attitudes patients take with them
into the hospital, and the doctor–patient relationship. Th

ey can also be

instrumental in public debates about bioethics and controversial medi-
cal interventions such as euthanasia.

Yet another form of medical spectacle that renders the discipline far

more complex is seen in the case of doctor-writers like Atul Gawande
and Abraham Verghese, it showcases the doctor’s struggles to deal with
the reality of illness and institutions, and even assumes the form of a
bildungsroman (in literary texts, this is a type of novel where the young
boy becomes a man through a physical and internal journey, during the
course of which he faces and overcomes many obstacles). Discovery and
disillusionment, personal courage and the scourges and the battle for
superiority over the known and unknown demons become the sources
for and sites of dramatic journeys—into institutions, the self, the pa-
tient and the realm of pathogens. While ‘narrative medicine’ (exempli-
ﬁ ed in the work of Rita Charon 2006) focuses on the patient stories of
illness—and contributes equally to what I have described as ‘medical
spectacle’—medical narratives of discovery, pathogen-battles and doc-
tors’ life stories constitute a whole new genre where medical science
and the white-draped hero ‘grow’ in stature and in the process discover
themselves.

Medical documentaries prepared by the WHO, the Films Division

of India, National Geographic Channel are located at the interface of
information and entertainment. Some of these are politically sensitive
because, as has been the case with AIDS ﬁ lms, their portrayal of countries
has resulted in the dissemination of particular opinions on the disease.
Th

e African countries have been regularly depicted as zones of disease

and, as commentators have noted, the world itself has been mapped by

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

organizations like the WHO in terms of disease zones, a kind of medical
geography of the earth (Ostherr 2004).

Another kind of medical drama consists of medical documentaries

on unusual diseases and bodies. BBC Channel 4’s

Bodyshock series fo-

cuses on what can only be called extreme bodies: a girl born with eight
limbs—the surgery in Bangalore that removed her extra limbs made
headlines even in Australian news reports (ABC News 2007)—a family
where four children are victims to progeria (a rare premature aging dis-
order), a vastly overweight boy, among others. It is medical drama that
is partly about information and partly about entertainment. Corporeal
monstrosities and monstrous illnesses—ﬂ esh-eating bacteria being the
latest—have always been the subject of curiosity, and medical science
has, historically speaking, been responsible for converting these into
spectacles. Th

e Elephant Man (Joseph Merrick, born severely deformed),

for example, was exhibited in a London sideshow in 1884 as an anomaly
and a monstrosity (his remains were for a long time exhibited in the
Royal London Hospital). Surgical procedures on Siamese twins have
always attracted media attention (BBC News 2005). News items about
people with unusual medical conditions make headlines, even if for a
day (as the epigraphs to this section suggest).

Horror ﬁ lms have relied upon monstrous bodies, bodily processes

such as mutation, alien reproduction to produce a genre that has been
termed ‘Frankenﬂ icks’, after Mary Shelley’s

Frankenstein (Clark 2004).

ese would include hugely successful ﬁ lms such as

e Silence of the

Lambs and Hannibal, Th

e Elephant Man, Th

e Fly, Alien and even the

many versions of

e War of the Worlds—all of which have a medical

subtext running through them. Th

e medical spectacle that relies on

monstrosities and abnormalities is eﬀ ective in drawing attention to what
‘normal’ itself means. Like freaks in freak shows and circuses from the
19th century, misshapen and grotesque bodies remind us of our own
vulnerabilities. Freaks are versions of the ‘normal’ because we can deﬁ ne
normalcy in terms of what we are

not. Medical drama—ﬁ ctional, non-

ﬁ ctional—marks, as suggested earlier, the

convergence of theatre, science,

bodies, diseases and medicine. Yet, such medical drama relies on a key
element—

aﬀ ect—in order to achieve its purposes. As José van Dijck

has pointed out, ‘Surgical intervention is hardly the main subject of the

Packaging Life

ﬁ lm: what matters is the full story, from birth and diagnosis to operation
and after-care’ (2002: 547). In short medical spectacle demands

aﬀ ect

and a

dramatic plot.

Sympathy, horror, disgust and revulsion are common features

associated with viewing monstrosities, disﬁ gurements and degenerative
bodies. In the literary tradition, genres like the Gothic have relied on
dissolving bodies, broken bodies and disﬁ gured bodies in order to invoke
horror. Medical drama is a mediated, quasi-scientiﬁ c—the presence of
the doctor, the carefully positioned equipment and medical charts con-
stitute the

rhetoric of medical authority—and commercial spectacle of

the human form.

‘Unpacking’ the health discourse around and of the low-cal body

therefore reveals a battery of ideologies and implicit politics. Th

e medi-

calization of the everyday and the informational culture of medicine
results in the hyper-pathologization of everyday lives where we place
our own bodies under surveillance. Healthism thrives on the projection
of particular bodies as desirable and as norms. In the culture of care and
cure the cult of the perfectible body reigns supreme across adverts and
advice columns. Th

e care of the self thus becomes an imperative, even

as it presupposes an autonomous individual who can take and execute
decisions on her/his looks, diet and exercise regimen. Th

e ‘management’

of health and wellness involves a large-scale technologization (especially
visualization techniques) of biomedicine and the body. Th

is carries its

own political baggage of the ‘standard’ body and the transparent body
subject to the doctor or X-ray machine’s gaze even as it leads to so-
cial consequences (especially in the realm of childbirth, as this chapter
showed). Th

is ‘visualization’ of biomedicine is at least partly driven by

artistic responses and renderings, this chapter argued. Th

e biomilitary

state, working with the immunological paradigm, wages wars against
disease and disease-agents and often builds on a rhetoric of othering, one
that has in the past, slipped into a racialized discourse. Social marketing
takes up the diseased body as a cause for campaigns. Medical specta-
cles of visual and other dramatic modes renders disease commonplace,
popularizes medicine as a profession even as it seeks to deﬁ ne the stand-
ard human body. Th

e ‘packaging’ of health clearly indicates numerous

complex layers within it—and that a low-cal body is acquirable.

Life, the Low-calorie Edition

Notes

1 A book series called the DoctorNDTV Book Series is now available.
2 As an example, Peter Poon (2000) shows how cloning as an idea and an entity

has been co-constructed in imaginative works, ethicist debates and scientiﬁ c
laboratories. It is the consequence of both scientiﬁ c and cultural events.

3 Th

e notion of health as ‘resource’ and ‘capital’ for everyday life has been domi-

nant since the late 1990s. See Williamson and Carr (2009) for a study.

4 It is important to note that medical authorities are not always in agreement

in each other. Medicine and diagnosis are matters of interpretation of ‘hard
data’ (symptoms), and interpretations of the same set of symptoms can often
be very diﬀ erent. Systems of medicine—Western and Ayurveda for example—
sometimes diﬀ er too. Institutionalization is a means of organizing medical
knowledge, and hence, the government’s frequent crackdown on ‘quacks’ and
faith healers. Occasionally warnings are issued about the unscientiﬁ c practices
of particular doctors or systems. In the editorial for the May issue of

Global

Ayurveda (3.4, May 2007), for example, Joseph Mathew writes about how one
of the periodical’s foreign representatives visiting Ayurvedic treatment centres
in tourist destinations found the situation to be ‘unAyurvedic’ in not following
proper procedures.

5 I am not interested the sociology of medical cultures, but in the representa-

tional and narrative elements which are, of course,

social.

6 Such searches and information seeking is not a simple matter at all. M.J. Dutta

and G.D. Bodie (2008) have recently explored how health information search-
es are done on the WWW, showing that disparities in healthcare are reﬂ ected
in the searches themselves. Th

ey therefore recommend communications in-

frastructures, health literacy, information literacy and Internet literacy in the
marginalized sectors of society to create accessible health information.

7 See http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage (accessed on 4 April

2009).

8 See http://www.vlcc.co.in/wm-testimonials.asp (accessed on 31 May 2008).
9 Disease and physiognomies were once associated with sin and sinning bodies.

With the secularization of the body, the perspective has shifted, but the moral
angle—for instance, about gluttony or the work ethic—and the body has not
altered (see Turner 1999: 213 on secularization of the body).

10 A ‘project’ is ‘a socially transformative endeavour that is localized, politicized

and partial, yet also engendered by longer historical developments and ways of
narrating them,’ but also with an interest in creating something new (Th

omas

1994: 105). ‘Projects’ are ‘willed’ by the ‘agent’ even though it may not be
apparent to her/him. ‘Projects’ presuppose a ‘particular imagination of the so-
cial situation … and a diagnosis of what is lacking, that can be rectiﬁ ed by

Packaging Life

intervention’ (Th

omas 1994: 106). Th

e use of the term ‘project’ thus signals a

conscious, socially located, political process that identiﬁ es a situation (illness,
ugliness) and oﬀ ers an intervention (medical, exercise, diet) in order to achieve
a set target.

11 Van Eijck and Mommaas have argued that leisure participation is now based

on a narrative of ‘personal enrichment’ (2004).

12 See http://www.healthmgttech.com/industry_watch.aspx#special (accessed on

30 May 2008).

13 See http://www.menshealthindia.com/mhindia.htm (accessed on 27 May

2008).

14 For a study of the ubiquity of the DNA and the ‘double helix’ in the cultural

imagination see Nelkin and Lindee (1995) and Judith Roof (2007).

15 See http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/visible_gallery.html, http://www.

uchsc.edu/sm/chs/gallery/animate/animation.htm (accessed on 16 July 2009).

16 See http://lucy.stanford.edu/visibhum.html (accessed on 27 May 2008).
17 Th

e cover can be viewed at http://www.2neatmagazines.com/life/1990cover.

html (accessed on 16 July 2009).

18 See

http://www.genomicart.org/oﬀ erings.htm (accessed on 16 July 2009).

19 See www.tca.uwa.edu.au/pig (accessed on 16 July 2009).
20

Microbiology and Immunology On-Line Textbook. USC School of Medicine,
http://pathmicro.med.sc.edu/ghaﬀ ar/innate.htm (accessed on 27 May 2008).

21 http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/immuneSystem/default.htm (accessed on

27 May 2008).

22 Th

e immune model of the body and the nation-as-territory has resulted, in

the 20th century, in theories of racial purity and led to extreme events like
the Holocaust. Contemporary political philosopher, Roberto Esposito (2008)
argues that the Nazi biopolitical apparatus, including the concentration camps,
which were based on biological views of race, was an attempt to immunize the
German body politic against the Jew and other ‘impurities’.

23 I take this view of epidemic disease from Catherine Waldby (1996).
24

AIDS Asia. 2001. 3(3–4):15.

25 For a study of the Nazi obsession with bloodlines, racial purity and their state-

sponsored discriminatory programmes, see Allyson Polsky (2002).

26 See

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/publicat/tko/07_

beyond.html (accessed on 16 July 2009).

27 See also Zilinskas and Balint (2001) and especially the ground-breaking work

of Fatimah Jackson (1999, 2001).

28 It is instructive to note that pro-anorexia sites, on which many individuals as-

sert their right to choose thinness, attracted criticism, and many were forced to
shut down. See Miah and Rich (2008) for a study.

29 See http://redhotcurry.com/archive/health/news2004/tb_awareness.htm (ac-

cessed on 3 July 2008).

Chapter 2

Life, the Deluxe Edition

Cultures of Comfort

his chapter is concerned with a self-evident consumer-oriented
aspect of public culture: the marketing of comfort, where com-
fort is promoted and projected as an essential condition of life,

and one that can be achieved through the increasingly

easy purchase and

use of commodities. Sanjay Kapoor, the Chief Executive Oﬃ

cer (CEO)

of Genesis Colors, which markets Satya Paul and other luxury brands
in India, comments on this easy availability of luxury goods: ‘From a
socialist economy we are now in an era where you step into a mall and it
brings in a completely new lifestyle in front of you’ (

Hi! Blitz, 7.4, 2009:

130–34, quoted from p. 134). Th

is accessibility to luxury and lifestyles

is the regulatory grid for a new consumerism, one that has shifted from
comfort to luxury.

From the pleasure of sipping the cup that cheers to car travel, from

hotel rooms to television viewing, humankind has sought to maxi-
mize comfort. Once the basic necessities of life—food, shelter, cloth-
ing, safety and health—have been attained, mankind moves on to seek
better quality instances and usables of the same necessities. Necessities
are

needs—objects without which life would be diﬃ

cult or impossible.

Comforts are

wants—objects and conditions that make life smoother,

faster and easier.

Consumer culture today rarely packages necessities, even though, as

reports tell us, across the world, there are people living on the thresh-
old of life without the bare necessities. Consumer culture is concerned
with comfort and, increasingly (as this chapter argues), with luxury. It
seeks answers to questions like: How is comfort sold to the consumer?
What is the form of its packaging? And what distinguishes ‘luxury’ from
‘comfort’?

Life, the Deluxe Edition

In this chapter, I explore the packaging of comfort and luxury. My

assumption here is that high-end consumption—or conspicuous con-
sumption, which is not about necessities, but about lifestyle—is increas-
ingly possible to the consumer through a

democratization of comfort.

Consumer culture simultaneously seeks a widening of the consumer
base (what I termed ‘democratization’) via mass circulation of high-
proﬁ le, expensive brands as well as a judicious (especially in terms of
proﬁ ts) separation of the mass market from the niche one. Th

is dis-

tinction between the mass, mall-culture and the niche-boutique one of
consumption is, I argue, the distinction between comfort and luxury. In
other words, comfort is the cultural logic of mass manufacture, market-
ing and consumption, while luxury is the cultural logic of niche manu-
facture, marketing and consumption. Th

is chapter explores how these

cultural logics are worked out in consumer culture.

‘Unpacking’ comfort and luxury is to unravel the multiple discours-

es of utility, stylization and self-branding, the oxymoronic ‘necessary
luxury’, heritage and sacralization, among others.

The Culture of Comfort

We skillfully blend three varieties of Tulsi leaves and blossoms to craft a
truly exquisite tea drinking experience.

– Promotional pamphlet, Tulsi Tea Collection from ITC

Skin creams alone don’t preserve your complexion …. Garware Suncon-
trol ﬁ lm … stops harsh sunlight from piercing your car window, pro-
tecting your skin from becoming dark, and keeping your car cool and
comfortable.

– Garware Suncontrol window ﬁ lm advertisement

(

Top Gear, September 2007, p. 51)

Comfort is the most pervasive and visible cultural logic of consumer
culture today. Whether it is housing or air travel, furniture or food,
comfort is the

demand and condition that is most emphasized in market-

ing products and services.

Packaging Life

Comfort was, until the 17th and 18th centuries, used to refer pri-

marily to

physical comfort, and physical satisfaction remains the chief

emphasis in any rhetoric or narrative of comfort. Comfort is the self-
conscious satisfaction of the relationship between the body/mind with
its immediate environment (where the environment can include people
as well as things). Comfort is related mainly to bodily satisfaction, and
is closely linked with physical settings of seating, housing, objects of
use, etc. In other words,

comfort is the consequence of a particular kind

of relationship of the body with its neighbouring material objects. Leather
upholstery in the car, spacious rooms that are well-lit and ergonomically
designed chairs are all material objects that ensure the physical com-
forts of the individual

body. However, a state of well-being is not always

physical alone.

With an increasing psychologizing of comfort in the 20th

centu-

ry, we have product narratives that speak of emotional comfort. Th

could include: a sense of safety and security, a measure of peace and
tranquility, and a feeling of ‘at-home-ness’. Chocolate, as science will
tell us, is a ‘comfort food’. It cheers us when our biological and emo-
tional states are rather low. Th

is state of wellness and cheer is also about

being comfortable. Comfort is the

physical, mental, emotional feeling of

satisfaction arising out of a relationship usually with material objects
in one’s vicinity. Humanity is intimately linked to material culture and
the objects that constitute material cultures. Th

at is, objects are central

to the formation of humans as subjects because we are engaged in a re-
lationship with them. Objects can be the

medium through which social

relations are forged and reinforced.

Comfort, I propose, is a condition

that is closely linked with the consumer culture, speciﬁ cally, material
culture—

one consumes in order to be comfortable. Products and services

are increasingly promoted as objects that add to your physical, emo-
tional and mental comfort. Phrases like ‘comfort zone’, ‘comfort levels’,
‘comfort foods’ are loaded terms: they indicate the prominence of com-
fort as:

• a sales and purchase category,

• an intended aim of consumption and

• an entire cultural condition.

Life, the Deluxe Edition

So, once we have established that comfort is aligned with material

culture (which also includes, it must be noted, services) in a consumer
society, we can proceed to speak of how this relationship is represented.

Comfort is essentially ‘liveability’, to adopt Tomas Maldonado’s term

(1991). ‘Liveability’ itself varies from context to context. In war-torn
nations, ‘liveability’ means a context where the bare minimum level of
existence—without hunger or fear—is available. ‘Liveability’ here is sur-
vival. In other cases where bare survival is not an issue, ‘liveability’ is a
context where amenities make for better living conditions. Liveability
comfort, Maldonado argues, emerged as a theme in Europe with the
industrial revolution when more and more material goods were manu-
factured (1991: 35). Goods that helped make everyday life or a space
(such as the home) more liveable were increasingly available for the larg-
er populace through mass manufacture. Comfort was evidently a result
of the appropriate material objects.

Material objects have a deeper meaning than simply utility for their

users. How things are used, displayed and incorporated into everyday
lives often have very signiﬁ cant consequences for individuals and fami-
lies and their ‘liveability’. Material things mean diﬀ erent things to dif-
ferent people at diﬀ erent points in time. A commemorative object, a
photograph of an ancestor, a family heirloom, a new technological de-
vice in the living room—each of these

material objects possesses mean-

ing depending upon the individual(s) perceiving them. Th

us people—

‘users’—give meaning to material objects; meanings that are not perhaps
intended by the manufacturer. Goods, in other words, possess meanings
that are dependent upon their appropriation by the users. Material cul-
ture, therefore, is not simply about things and objects. Rather, it is about
the intimate connection between the object and its users. Issues of style,
fashion, aesthetic appeal are not properties inherent in particular objects,
but the result of a social and cultural evaluation of these objects. Very of-
ten, as we know, the user bestows the value upon the object: the material
object’s ‘value’ is co-constructed through its use and appropriation.

Comfort is a material condition (involving material goods and serv-

ices related to the use of goods)

between necessity and luxury. Comfort is

not indispensable to life, but it makes life easier. Th

e packaging of com-

fort often works at the intersection of utility, eﬃ

ciency and aesthetics.

Packaging Life

Necessity, Supplement and Utility Plus

e Trans chair brings harmony in comfort and takes away stress.

– Monarch furniture (

Hi! Blitz, August 2008, p. 157)

Necessity would consist of the very basics for living: food, shelter and
clothing. Necessity, in this view, is embedded within the cultural rhetor-
ics of lower incomes and even poverty. Luxury, at the opposite end of
the scale, signiﬁ es massive wealth, but also, as we shall see, taste. Com-
fort occupies the middle ground and is to do with

amenities of live-

ability rather than necessities. As John Crowley (1999) has pointed out
in his study of the sensibility of comfort in 17th and 18th centuries
Euro-American cultures, comfort was described as ‘conveniences’ or
‘decencies’.

e culture of comfort is not about needs, but

wants. If necessities are

about plain functionality and the need for safety, comfort is about func-
tionality with a certain eﬃ

ciency, artistry, aesthetic appeal and style (I

shall return to style in the next section). Douglas Holt (1997) has argued
that consumption almost always occurs within ‘cultural frameworks’—
of taste, ideology (such as patriotism and nationalism), aesthetics (styl-
ing) and eﬃ

ciency. Even the subjective-psychological contexts and con-

ditions of consumption are informed by these cultural frameworks. Th

wearing of

khadi or the consumption of native agro-products, for exam-

ple, are to be understood within a cultural framework—rhetorics—of
nationalist ideology. Th

e marketing and consumption of eco-products

and nature is within a cultural framework of environmentalism. When
Bombay Dyeing’s range of eco-friendly towels asks you to ‘surrender to
nature’s soft caress,’ it is to be ‘consumed’ within a cultural framework
of personal comfort as well as within an environmental one (

Hello! June

2008, p. 80).

e discourse of necessity works within a cultural framework that

is still, predominantly, middle class and emphasizes

functionality, util-

ity, economy, safety and hygiene. Th

ese constitute the

basic parameters

on which a consumer product will be evaluated. Th

us, cleaning ﬂ uids

and disinfectants that eradicate bacteria would be necessities in today’s
world. Yet one rarely sees these products being advertised in their

basic

condition of disinfectant chemicals.

Life, the Deluxe Edition

No product can now be marketed as simply ‘necessity’—it needs a

little extra something. Consumer culture now encodes what I have else-
where termed as ‘rhetoric of pluses’ (Nayar 2008b: 142–44). Th

e ‘rheto-

ric of pluses’ is the basic necessity, function and utility with something
added to it. With this addition, the product moves from the category of
necessity into one of comfort. Th

e cultural framework of functionality

and eﬃ

ciency increasingly folds into one of

stylized eﬃ

ciency, utility and

additions, but does

not completely abandon ideas of thrift, economy or

the family. As we shall see, comfort is a discourse that seamlessly merges
three economies: the

ﬁ nancial, moral and cultural.

e condition of the consumer where these additions have become

a norm is the culture of ‘Utility Plus’. ‘Utility Plus’ is the larger cultural
rhetorics of contemporary consumer culture where the framework of
necessity and utility and manifests as the culture of bargains, extras and
freebies. Toothpastes, soaps, drinks, all have an additional 25 per cent
(Nayar 2008b: 142–44). Free gifts accompany almost every biscuit and
food product. I should know: my 6 year-old refuses to buy a biscuit
unless there is a toy free, and we often buy biscuits that we do not like
because there is a toy free—in the supermarket. Often associated with
terms like ‘deals’ or ‘bargains’, the rhetoric of ‘Utility Plus’ marks the
rise of the

culture of the supplement. Th

e culture of the supplement is, at

one level, about extras and therefore of the

ﬁ nancial economy, but it also

caters to a

moral economy—of thrift, saving and economic prudence.

is ‘supplement’ is an addition where the object or context marks

completion

and excess at the same time.

us, fragrant disinfectants

and stylish furniture contain ‘additives’ such as aroma or colouring that
are not integral to the functioning of the product. Lavender aroma in a
disinfectant does not drive away germs, and the colour of the upholstery
does not make the seating more comfortable. Yet, ease of use is a sup-
plement that adds to the appeal of the product. Blumotion from Blum
is advertised as oﬀ ering the ‘perfect and

eﬀ ortless movement of kitchen

drawers’ (

Good Housekeeping, July 2006). Toshiba’s electric chimneys of-

fer ‘the Ultimate Comfort’ (

Inside/Outside, August 2008, pp. 16–17).

While the culture of comfort does not always emphasize economy, the
latter remains a subtext. Hence, aﬀ ordability and maintenance costs are
features that are advertised even though they may not be central to the
rhetoric of comfort. Low-electrical consumption is a major feature of

Packaging Life

adverts for all products: refrigerators, washing machines, the microwave,
the electric iron, with ‘energy saving’ stickers on the products themselves.
Th

e advert for Toshiba electric chimneys speak of ‘energy eﬃ

ciency’ as a

major feature of the product (

Inside/Outside, August 2008, pp. 16–17).

Eﬃ

ciency in these ads is, like thrift, about the

moral economy—where

the saving fuel reﬂ ects positively on a family /household.

Such features are add-ons. Th

ey give a sense of completion to the

basic function of a refrigerator or chimney. Th

ese additions are factors

that make the products more convenient and pleasurable to use—and
pleasure is central to consumption once the basic necessities have been
fulﬁ lled. BMW cars are thus ‘sheer driving pleasure’, where pleasure is
a supplement integral to the driving experience—for it completes the
driving experience with the introduction of pleasing

sensations. Supple-

ments lend an aesthetic—visual, aural, olfactory, tactile—appeal to the
use of the product. What is termed ‘styling’ is a superﬂ uous addition,
a supplement, to the product’s functions, but which has come to be
regarded as

integral to the comfort in using the product.

‘Plus’ thus includes ease of use as well as economy and aesthetic ap-

peal. It is situated at the intersection of the ﬁ nancial, the moral and the
aesthetic economies of a home. As we have noted earlier, ‘comfort’ is the
physical as well as emotional equilibrium or pleasure attained through a
relationship with the objects around us, or the events. In the new BMW
model 5-Series (priced, according to the report, at Rs 4,250,000), for
example, there is an iPod socket. Th

is means, writes a reviewer, ‘you

can carry all your tunes without all the CD cases’. Th

is is an ‘extra’, and

the ‘updated’ model gives ‘added pleasure’ (

T3, January 2008, p. 55).

us, in the culture of the supplement, comfort here is the emotional

condition—pleasure—achieved by virtue of having got something more
than one paid for. We

pay for the carbolic acid in the disinfectant, we get

a fresh lime-smelling one.

Comfort is the consequence of the supplement. It is a condition of sup-

plementarity, not of the basics. Th

e discourse of necessity merges, al-

most every time, with the discourse of comfort through this culture
of the supplement which caters, as I have suggested, to the ﬁ nancial
economy, but also to its aesthetic and occasionally moral one (a BMW
does not cater to the moral economy of a middle-class Indian family). In

Life, the Deluxe Edition

contemporary India’s consumer culture, a product moves (in its rheto-
ric) from simple functionality to easy functionality and simple utility
to stylized utility. In this it has moved from

necessity to comfort, from a

basic good to an amenity.

us, comfort can be deﬁ ned as:

• functionality/utility with ease and

• functionality/utility with style.

A washing machine can of course be advertised only as a utility de-

vice that makes for ‘liveability’. As the IFB washing machine ad puts it:
‘You can always wash and dry at your convenience in comfort, with the
IFB washer dryer combo’ (

Filmfare, 26 June–9 July 2008, p. 49). With

timers and automatic controls, the machine moves beyond the basic
function into the realm of comfort. When Responsive ﬂ ooring advertis-
es itself, it emphasizes both functionality and ‘utility’ as something that
will ‘leave you amazed’. Th

functionality/utility component is advertised

thus: ‘easy to maintain’ and includes resistance to stains, the hygienic,
ﬁ re-retardant, qualities. Th

us, functionality/utility is about safety and

hygiene. Th

en comes the supplement that adds the comfort to the ne-

cessity: the ‘vibrant colours and textures’ (

Inside/Outside, August 2008,

pp. 22–23). AIS glass suggests that not only does the use of this glass on
windows and doors render your home safer, it also ‘makes your home
look modern and

beautiful’ (Good Housekeeping, March 2006). A cell-

phone’s basic function is to enable communication. Th

e integration of

games and entertainment programmes constitute a supplement to this
basic function and its ‘plus’.

Utility functions as a discourse in insidious ways. Cleverly situat-

ed within the discourse of family safety, insurance, cleaning solutions,
toothpaste and cooking oils are all sold as utility+safety for the fam-
ily. Here, the question is not simply of the ﬁ nancial economy of utility
and savings, but the

moral economy of being concerned about the entire

family.

e utility of tiles, glass or cell phone is a component of the dis-

course of

necessity. Yet, with the addition of style, aesthetic appeal and

entertainment, it has folded into the discourse of

comfort. Th

is is Utility

Packaging Life

Plus, where style is added to the basic function to generate comfort. And
comfort, rather than necessity, is what sells the product today. Comfort
is the

cultural rhetorics of utility (and, in some case, thrift) ampliﬁ ed to

include the

cultural rhetorics of style.

In addition to the moral and ﬁ nancial economies of utility, function-

ality, responsibility and thrift, the discourse of comfort possesses one
more element that distinguishes it from necessity. Comfort is therefore
about

styling that may enhance the object’s use-value but deﬁ nitely am-

pliﬁ es its cultural-symbolic (status) value. ‘Liveability’—or comfort, as
we have seen—today is intimately linked to social appeal. Th

at is, so-

ciability and sociality are considered indispensable for a good life. Th

is the

cultural economy of comfort, and often functions unobtrusively

beside the moral (responsibility, thrift, eﬃ

ciency) and ﬁ nancial (utility)

one. As a result, home spaces, fashion and goods that would have been
considered primarily for their function and utility, are now evaluated in
public culture forms such as newspapers, magazines, advice columns,
for their style and social appeal (the ‘wow’ factor). In other words, util-
ity and functionality of goods must be accompanied by an aesthetic
appeal—what I have simply denoted by the term ‘style’, and to which I
return later in the chapter.

If comfort is the condition of equivalence and pleasure established

between the body and the surrounding objects, then it follows that the
objects/surroundings must possess qualities that induce this condition.
In other words, comfort is intimately dependent upon the material—
texture, visual, aural—nature of the product. Comfort is the achieve-
ment of a balance between the ﬁ nancial (utility, functionality), moral
(thrift, eﬃ

ciency) and cultural (style, status, appearance, aesthetics)

economies of any product or service. What is clear is that this balance
must somehow be the characteristic of the product, brand or object.
Comfort is primarily the eﬀ ect of the

materials.

The Materials of Comfort

Comfort is a warm feeling.

– Advert for A.O. Smith-Jaquar Water Heaters

(

Inside/Outside, August 2008, p. 36)

Life, the Deluxe Edition

Comfort is the eﬀ ect of a particular relationship between the material
object and the user. More importantly, in consumer cultures, this re-
lationship is what is targeted, promoted and sold to the user: that the
use of this particular object/context will give you physical, mental, and
emotional satisfaction/comfort.

What I have termed the ‘culture of comfort’ is this

narrative that

links the individual body with particular material objects and services,
assuring the potential user that the continued use of object would pro-
vide comfort. Comfort, in other words, is a projection and narrativiza-
tion of the link between an object and the individual body. Objects are
located within a human context—what material culture studies terms
‘narrative elaborations’ of objects, referring to their embeddedness in the
life stories of humans (Hoskins 2006)—and humans are aﬃ

liated with,

and in proximity to, the objects. Th

sensation—anticipated—in sip-

ping Tulsi tea is narrativized in the advert when it speaks of an ‘exquisite
experience’. Th

e link—narrative—here is between a physical experience

(pleasure) and the material object (tea).

Sensation is at the core of the

culture of comfort. ‘Packaging’ is

this construction of a narrative between

the object-context and the user’s internal state of comfort.

Clearly, this narrative of comfort appropriates a very personal, internal-

interior and, therefore,

subjective sensation or condition of comfort and

repurposes it to speak of a

physical object or context. Comfort, one can

argue, is

the meaning attached to this relation, this interplay between

subjective feelings/sensations and material culture. Objects are emplaced in
a human relation, human setting and a human lifestyle, even as human
interactions and sentiments are plotted around comfort/able objects.

ere are two modes of this interplay narrative.

Proxemical Relations

In the ﬁ rst mode of the interplay narrative, proxemical relations of ob-
jects and/in their human settings are geared to providing comfort levels
(proxemics is the science of the bodily use of space and, in this context,
of objects). Th

at is, human bodies feel ‘comfortable’ depending on their

relation with objects in their vicinity and with which their bodies might
be in physical or sensate contact. Objects in proximate relations oﬀ er a

Packaging Life

sensual, emotional and mental comfort. Th

us, a comfortable, eﬃ

cient

kitchen can, apparently, fuel romance. Gilma’s ad runs thus:

e graceful designs crafted with exceptional good looks and lus-

ter, explores the deepest yearnings of the heart as it stirs the ten-
der, shimmering thrill of romance. (

Good Housekeeping, May 2008,

p. 27).

In the ad for IceCubes Kitchens, we see a (supposedly) sexily clad

woman on the kitchen counter, a man leaning towards her, shirt unbut-
toned, while she eats a slice of chocolate cake. Th

e tagline says: ‘Th

ere’s

a lot more to kitchen than cooking’ (

Good Housekeeping, March 2009,

p. 31). Th

ere is no

tangible link between the functioning of a chimney

and romance and yet the ad persuades us that romance is a natural out-
come of the proper functioning of a chimney. In consumer culture, a
manufacturer or service provider has to convince the potential consumer
of the consequence of this relation between function and comfort, that
the use of a particular object/context will generate comfort—this is the
‘narrative elaboration’ of the object and the objectiﬁ cation of a life story
or lifestyle.

What is central to this narrative in the culture of comfort is the ex-

periential moment: the individual body’s experience of the object or
context that oﬀ ers a pleasing

sensation. Because comfort is a proximate

condition—based on the immediacy of location of the body in that
context or alongside the object—the culture of comfort relies heavily on
proxemics. All narratives within a culture of comfort rely on this sense
of proximity and experience. Th

e ways in which objects must be used—

experienced—within the space of the house inform the degree of ‘com-
fort’. Here, comfort is the consequence of an equable balance between
body and the objects in its environs. In terms of personal products,
proxemics and the experiential imperative inform choices of products.

Transformative Relations

In the second mode of the interplay narrative, comfort is contingent
upon the transformation of the body through the incorporation and

Life, the Deluxe Edition

adaptation of objects so that you are at ease with the surroundings. Th

settings become

secondary to the body because the body has been trans-

formed. ‘Cleanse. Body and Soul’ says an ad for Euro sanitary ware thus
linking bodies, emotional and metaphysical comforts in one package
(

Hi! Blitz, March 2009, p. 25). Th

e ‘packaging’ of comfort includes

building a narrative where the individual’s internal state is linked,

hypo-

thetically, to the object. Packaging comfort and luxury is the deliberate
creation of fantasies of transformation: ordinary to attractive, weak to
strong, bare necessity to comfort. Th

ere is, as we shall see in the case of

luxury, a magical air lent to the fantasies of transformation.

Material culture, in order to bestow comfort, must be satisfying to

the senses: soft/gentle touch, pleasant taste, good ﬂ avour/smells. Th

Ĺoréal’s new shampoo advertises itself as a sensory/sensual experience of
comfort:

New Light Technology
Mirror shine, cashmere touch … weightless feel!

It then goes on to add:

Hair feels clean and light to the touch. (

Marie Claire, April 2008,

pp. 258–59)

Cosmetic ads are, as seen in this case, about a level of comfort for

and with one’s own body. However, they constitute an interesting genre
in terms of the discourse of comfort. It is important to note that in
some cases, comfort is a feature and consequence not linked to your
body’s immediate

settings: it is the result of what you have done to your

body as make-up, ﬁ tness or beauty-treatment. Rosemary Huisman in
her study of advertising culture points out that most ads for cosmetics
lack any setting (in sharp contrast to, say, car ads). Huisman writes:
‘It doesn’t matter where you are or what your social role is, beauty is
available to you at the price of a product; your world will be centred
on your own wonderful presence’ (Huisman 2005: 291). Th

is is, notes

Huisman, magical. However, what is crucial here is the way in which
cosmetic ads work:

Packaging Life

• in locating comfort as the consequence only of the body and the

immediate/proximate product and

• in disconnecting the body from the immediate contexts.

According to Tomas Maldonado, comfort is about order and control

(1991: 36). For Maldonado, this means the conduct of the

body in rela-

tion to objects such as furniture is ritualized and ordered for maximum
comfort. Comfort is the regimentation of daily life—disciplining time,
space and functions. Th

is regimentation is governed by two principal

concerns in the modern age:

privacy and hygiene (Maldonado 1991: 37).

As noted earlier, the body’s proxemical relations with the control and
regimentation that Maldonado theorizes is essentially about the rela-
tionship a body’s proxemical relations with the neighbourhood objects
as well as the body’s transformative relations determine the level of com-
fort (as I have discussed earlier). I have elsewhere argued that adverts
for housing properties and housing appliances invariably demonstrate
three main discourses: utility–safety–health, fashion and lifestyle, and
the family (Nayar 2008b: 215–20). I now propose that these discourses
are essentially about comfort because they:

• suggest privacy as a key feature of family-space as a self-

contained, closed unit (the moral economy of ensuring the
safety-privacy of the family),

• suggest economical and eﬃ cient modes of caring for the house

and its inhabitants (the ﬁ nancial economy),

• suggest hygiene and safety measures to ‘secure’ the family space

against invasion by burglars, but also by germs and

• suggest stylization and aesthetic ‘work’ in order to make the

family-space ‘presentable’ (the cultural economy).

Comfort, I argue, has to do with all four, where all discourses are

plotted within the discourse of aesthetic appeal. Th

e second element of

the discourse of comfort aligns it with necessity (since, as argued earlier,
safety is a feature of necessity rather than comfort). But

the ﬁ rst and

third elements constitute the discourse of comfort because these are sup-
plements and amenities rather than necessities. Signiﬁ cantly, therefore,

Life, the Deluxe Edition

the culture of comfort combines function and utility with artistry and
style. Physical design, sensory pleasure and social appeal are all equally
central to the culture of comfort.

us, necessity becomes sidelined within contemporary consumer

culture because necessities are always

stylized in product and service

promotions. Necessities, packaged as

stylized, make them comforts

and amenities. Indeed, it could be argued that

style rules over utility

and function, but retains a moral economy of thrift, safety and eﬃ

ciency.

Style, as

the dominant cultural rhetoric today, is what mediates

between and distinguishes comfort from luxury. Th

e packaging of com-

fort is increasingly the packaging of luxury, and this involves the promo-
tion of

style as a key factor in consumer culture.

The ‘Stylization of Life’ Itself

Style your life.

– Advertisement for Villeroy and Boch crockery

(

Delicious, October 2007, p. 19)

Keep your style alive.

– Tagline, Westside (

Good Housekeeping, May 2008, p. 19)

From Essence of Luxury to Icon of Luxury.

– Th

e Pride Hotels group (

Hi! Blitz, August 2008, p. 158)

Late 20th century consumer culture thrives on a ‘stylization of life’, a
term Mike Featherstone (1991) adapts from the sociologist Max Weber.
Consumption is not simply about the utilization of a product for fulﬁ ll-
ing a particular function. As noted earlier, functionality moves towards
comfort in consumer culture. Consumption, argues Douglas Holt, is
also about ‘integration’: of self and object and, sometimes, altering their
self-concept so that it aligns with an institutionally deﬁ ned identity (Holt
1995: 6–9). Th

us, material objects are ‘domesticated’ so that they integrate

into our everyday lives (Silverstone and Haddon 1996). Th

ey become

a part of our identities. Comfort, therefore, is the smooth integration

Packaging Life

of objects into our lives, where the objects lend an air of physical and
emotional satisfaction and pleasure to our bodies.

However, as Douglas Holt argues, there is also a social angle to con-

sumption. Social worlds are necessary to provide consumers-users with
the resources to construct meanings. Holt uses the example of games
and spectacles as institutional structures that help the consumer of the
sport understand the experience and generate meaning (Holt 1995:
6–9). Fashion is the social world into which an individual must immerse
in order to understand the meaning of her/his costume, accessories, eti-
quette and style. Th

e peer group of corporate culture, for instance, is a

social world that demands a dress code, a speech pattern and behaviour.
Likewise, being ‘cool’ with gadgets and clothing is to be accepted within
a college peer group. Integration is this participation in the social world
via the cultivation of style.

Style is the uneasy and complex negotiation between determining

one’s own style and ﬁ nding acceptance among one’s peers through a
common code. Th

e social world of comfort with technology, pop culture

or fashion is a world in which you need to be both individualistic (dif-
ferent) and recognizable (sharing). As the social theorist Pierre Bourdieu
puts it, aesthetic stances adopted in clothing or home decoration ‘are
opportunities to experience or assert one’s position in social space, as a
rank to be upheld or a distance to be kept’ (Bourdieu 1999: 57). Style is
the ‘aesthetic stance’ and the rhetoric of promotional culture is consist-
ently informed by the aesthetic imperative.

Housing, fashion, food, technology, are all consumer products pro-

moted in terms of

style and not just function-utility. Th

e launch of Tata

Sumo’s new variant, Sumo Grande, produced a rhetoric in

Autocar India

that illustrates precisely this function + style + personality—the deluxe
edition—mode of consumer culture:

Oodles of comfort, generous power and fresh looks are what you will
get. (

Autocar India, February 2008, p. 23)

Stylization is never far from supreme functional qualities or comfort

here. In some cases the style takes precedence over function, as Anand
Parthasarathy’s product review of the Apple iPhone pointed out:

Life, the Deluxe Edition

e iPhone is a canny mix of form and function—with form winning

by a whisker. (2008: 13)

Style marks a new turn in the culture of comfort—a turn to luxury

where style is emphasized over function. Consumer culture in the late
20th century is marked by several simultaneous shifts from:

• use to display

• function to artistry

• utility to aesthetics

ese shifts together mark, from what I have been arguing thus far,

the larger shift:

from comfort to luxury. Luxury is the excessive styliza-

tion (the deluxe edition) of life, the culture of display, ornamentalism
and spectacle. If comfort was about utility, functions and economy—in
short, ‘liveability’, as argued earlier—then luxury is about looks, appeal
and spectacle. ‘Luxury’ itself, as its etymology (

luxus) suggests, is about

excess. Expensive brands were earlier described as deluxe—literally, de
luxe (the excess). Stylization is a process of signiﬁ cation—of generating
new kinds of meaning through the vocabulary of brands and objects so
that the self becomes a text with all-new meanings.

A luxury brand or good is characterized by product quality, heritage

and prestige (Jackson and Haid 2006: 63). It is also associated with
particular kinds of people—those who value heritage and those who
clamour for recognition as connoisseurs of heritage. Th

at is,

luxury sig-

niﬁ es not only product biography but the user biography as well. A luxury
brand or commodity does not develop an aura on its own—it becomes
a luxury brand, at least, partly through its endorsement and appropria-
tion by people who are themselves icons of style, fashion and the good
life. Th

e object is evaluated in terms of its ‘narrative elaboration’, its

emplacement

within human life stories. Gucci, Jaguar, Cartier, Mont

Blanc are brands and commodities that have become luxury items be-
cause of who their buyer-wearer-users are. Luxury commodities are part
of the contemporary contexts of their ‘stylization of life’, a ‘stylization
of life’ common to the masses as well as the elite, the bargain hunter as
well as the luxury hunter. In the case of luxury commodities, stylization

Packaging Life

is about self-branding by the wealthy, the powerful and the so-called
‘trend-setters’.

If, as I have proposed, a commodity becomes a luxury brand through

its association with particular people and lifestyles it follows that we
need to pay attention to the ways in which commodities and lifestyles
coincide or work in conjunction. To this end, I shall examine two modes
of branding that are intrinsic to stylization:

1. Th

e product or brand biography.

2. Th

e user biography, or self-branding.

Stylization is the intertextual narrative that results when these two

narratives merge into each other.

Brand Biography

Product or brand biography is the narrative of/around the product.
Brands, as we know, are reliant upon

narratives for their popularity, vis-

ibility and sales. Th

ese narratives are a combination of names, signs and

slogans (Frow 2002). Branding, as James Twitchell (2004) has demon-
strated, is the ability to tell a convincing

story, that is, narrative, about

the product. Product biography is the tale told of a particular commod-
ity through promotion campaigns, logos and the circulating images.
Product biography, in short, is, using Andrew Wernick’s (1991) term,
the ‘promotional culture’ circulating around a particular commodity,
and constructing it as valuable, easy-to-use, economical or, in this case,
a status-accessory. Th

e product functions as a sign, with speciﬁ c mean-

ings attached, but whose entire force of meaning is dependent upon its
situation. Th

is context-speciﬁ c meaning involves a shift in the text of the

brand through the following stages of signiﬁ cation:

1. Its contextualization in the brand’s history or company, say

Gucci, and its history.

2. Its de-contextualization where the sign/brand is taken

out of the

showroom.

3. Its re-contextualization in the lives of its users.

Life, the Deluxe Edition

e third stage is one of re-signiﬁ cation, where the brand’s meaning is

modiﬁ ed through its use, even as it modiﬁ es the user. Th

e paradox of

this process of re-signiﬁ cation is what I turn to next.

High styling, or status-branding, includes

not having to speak of the

brand one sports: the brand speaks for itself. Cartier and Gucci, for
instance, do not demand or require the wearer-user to speak of it. Th

well-publicized launch of Apple’s iPhone (22–25 August 2008) pro-
moted the brand

as style statement. Th

is means, eﬀ ectively, the

sign of

the brand—its biography—carries weight and meaning on its own, by
virtue of its location (contextualization) in the history of brands. In this,
the ﬁ rst stage of signiﬁ cation, the speaker depends on the iterability and
recognizability of the sign-brand

irrespective of the user. Th

at is, a person

wearing Gucci must be seen as

any person wearing Gucci, where Gucci

does

not depend on the person wearing it. Gucci is a sign whose mean-

ing exists outside and independent of the wearer.

en, Gucci is sold and acquired—and thereby, de-contextualized

from its moment/point of origin in the second stage of signiﬁ cation. It
is acquired by an individual who then proceeds to display, use and own
it. Th

is is the third moment of signiﬁ cation, and is the moment where

luxury and branding reveals its paradox.

e second and third stages are eﬀ ected through the agency of the

user. Th

e brand does not have to speak for itself, the user speaks

for it.

When Gucci is worn, say by celebrities, it gets re-signiﬁ ed as the brand
that even celebs choose to wear: Th

is is Gucci worn by

Aishwarya Rai

Bachchan. It becomes a sign-brand that is given value addition because
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan wears it, lending it

her meanings. Or, when

a cheaper, mimicked version of it appears in the local markets, it be-
comes re-signiﬁ ed as a global luxury brand that can be duplicated for
middle-class users too. Gucci has been re-contextualized and a new text
has emerged that is the composite of the narratives of its lineage and of
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Appropriation of signs and brands, what I
am calling re-contextualization and re-signiﬁ cation, are now a common-
place phenomenon, and alter the texts that constitute product biogra-
phy, a feature we can examine by scrutinizing ‘cultural borrowing’.

‘Cultural borrowing’ is a term used by Linda Peck to speak of ex-

oticism in early modern English material-consumer cultures, where to

Packaging Life

‘borrow’ styles and products from diﬀ erent parts of the world was a
marker of class (Peck 2005). In the late 20th century’s consumer cul-
ture a widespread and dominant knowledge economy operates. Fashion
shows, mass cultural forms like ﬁ lms, tabloids and fashion catalogues
help the dissemination of knowledge about exotic, foreign and global
products and practices. Th

e corporate dress code, for instance, enlivened

by the ‘Friday casuals’ mode in multinational corporations (MNCs) in
India constitute a ‘cultural borrowing’ within consumer culture, where
an informed appropriation of a diﬀ erent fashion, cultural practice or
custom is possible. Th

is ‘cultural borrowing’ is characteristic of the shift

from the culture of comfort to the culture of luxury and is visible in the
cosmopolitanization of high-end brands and products (as seen in the
chapter on mobilities). While the use of Gucci or Jimmy Choo, the ad-
diction to Westlife or the ﬁ lms of Woody Allen might overtly indicate a
cosmopolitan taste, other, more subtle methods also exist. Brand biog-
raphy involves an act of

agency—of recognizing the brand—but also of

appropriating a wide variety of global brands today. Th

e global brand

has been re-contextualized by the Indian user.

Feng Shui, not only as a means of home décor (style), but also as a

means of spiritualizing the home (comfort), is an instance. Advice col-
umns in design and architecture magazines suggest Feng shui measures
to ‘improve’ the home. Th

e displays of exotic imported trophies, orna-

mental work or ‘foreign’ objects are instances of this complex interplay
of form (style) and function in contemporary material culture. Tai chi,
as a form of exercise, is another cultural import that is situated some-
where between comfort and luxury.

What I am proposing here is that brand biography within the ‘styli-

zation of life’ incorporates an element of agency and ability to borrow
from and adapt to other cultural products and practices. Style, as I have
argued, is the narrative of the brand working in conjunction of the self/
person. When the brand is high-end we get a higher value of signiﬁ ca-
tion, a greater valence of the product and the body on which it is posi-
tioned and creates a narrative of luxury stylization.

In the cosmopolitan consumer economy of the late 20th century,

this ‘cultural borrowing’ is a hybridization of consumer practices that
announces one’s style. Th

e dominant cultural rhetoric here is that of

personal taste, style, agency and aﬀ ordability, all of which result in the

Life, the Deluxe Edition

re-signiﬁ cation of the brand when absorbed into the life of the user.
To be native as well as international, local as well as global, is the new
hybrid chic of the consumer revolution. A study of luxury housing in
India notes that such homes often ‘reﬂ ec[t] a ﬂ avour of chosen cultures’
(

Hello! June 2008, p. 75). And this is a matter of style not function

alone. Th

e projection of such a cosmopolitan identity is more than the

brand biography: it is the language of the self—self-branding—to

com-

municate with the world and one’s peer group.

e display of commodities and styles is not simply a matter of self-

branding and self-satisfaction—display, especially of high-end brands
‘becomes the site for both the appropriation of the outside, public world
and the representation of the private, inside world’ (Money 2007: 357).
Th

us, the objects displayed on the person or in the home become a

means of interfacing with the world, winning adulation as well as aﬃ

lia-

tion. Object cultures are, therefore, modes of socializing where the indi-
vidual displays her/his personality, feelings, status and ‘private’ character
to the world through the acquisition and display of fashionable brands.
In other words, the narrative of a person is built through the merging of
the object narrative, the intimate narrative (of character) and the public
narrative (of social acceptance and validation). In what follows, we shall
look at the culture of self-branding as an integral component of the
culture of comfort and luxury.

e third stage of signiﬁ cation (re-contextualization and re-signiﬁ -

cation of the product) that I have explored in brand biography is the
re-contextualization of the object within the life story of the wearer/user.
Stylization is the re-contextualization of a brand within a self-branding
narrative.

Self-branding

Commentators have argued that ‘self-branding’ is a form of labour
that involves highly stylized self-construction. It is the packaging of
the self for the public eye. Success is dependent upon ‘the glossy pack-
aging of the “self ” and the unrelenting pursuit of attention’ (Hearn
2008: 498). In the case of people, magazines seek to ﬁ nd out where the
wealthy shop, what kind of clothes they like and their preferred holiday

Packaging Life

destinations. In similar fashion, I have argued elsewhere that celebrity
culture is based upon the large-scale circulation of information, that
is, narratives (Nayar 2009b). Celebrities promote their tastes and pref-
erences. Self-branding is therefore

narrative—the promotional language

of interviews, photographs, ceremonial appearances and circulating
information. Within this self-branding by the wealthy occurs, often,
the promotion of commodities and brands through association where
the product biography (brand) enhances and is in turn enhanced by the
user-biography. Th

is is an exercise in self-branding and the third stage

of signiﬁ cation in a product’s biography.

What I am calling

excessive stylization in the case of luxury is not

simply a matter of degree (more expensive, larger numbers), but one
of hierarchic and auratic qualities. Luxury culture embedded in celeb-
rity culture thrives on rarity and exclusivity.

Excessive stylization in-

cludes the

freedom to choose objects that have little functional value

over others, but provide aesthetic appeal and satisfaction. As scholars
of luxury have pointed out, luxury is hierarchic. ‘Liberty and magniﬁ -
cence’, John Sekora points out in his historical account of the idea of
luxury, were the domain of the highest social ranks, and denied to the
others (Sekora 1977: 61). Th

at is, the liberty to choose stylized objects,

rather than useful-functional ones, was the privilege of the few who
could aﬀ ord them. Stylization therefore is a matter of freedom born
of capability.

To put it diﬀ erently,

stylization is a matter of agency and ability. Th

choice of a luxury brand—and the self-branding that accompanies
it—is a marker of ability: economic, taste and social. Luxury culture
is the culture of the agency of particular people, and the circulation
of information about this agency in the media. It sets up this agency-
ability to own Gucci or Jaguar as a benchmark of success. Th

e cultivation

of success is thus the cultivation of the ability to stylize one’s life in
the way one chooses without worrying about expense. Luxury is
the creation of a particular kind of self-branding. Objects acquire
meaning when re-contextualized on the user’s person. Th

e objects func-

tion as signs—narratives—of the self (of the user) signifying taste, abili-
ty nd choice. Th

e self, in turn, brands the objects. Th

e re-signiﬁ cation of

the brand is accompanied by a re-signiﬁ cation of the self. Th

is argument

Life, the Deluxe Edition

of mutual branding is built on the premise that commodities and ob-
jects are not simply prostheses to the person, but constitutive of the
very self.

Film stars, for example, have always been linked to fashion and,

therefore, consumption. Jackie Stacey has noted how British and
American women responded to Hollywood heroines of the 1940s and
1950s as fashion icons, and sought to emulate them in terms of consum-
ing similar fashions (Stacey 2007). Th

e stars and their commodiﬁ cation,

as Stacey puts it, extend beyond the cinema and into the spectator’s
purchasing practices (2007: 321). It would, therefore, be tautological
to argue that mass cultural forms like cinema and celebrity culture to-
day, are central to consumer culture. Even when celebs pose without
make-up or in ‘everyday’ costume (that is,

not haute couture), they lend

an aura to consumption. Th

at is, in their

abandonment of conspicuous

consumption, they highlight their agency. When stars ‘pose’ without
make-up, as Jessica Biel, Jessica Alba and others did for the magazine
Marie Claire (April 2008, pp. 142–47), they emphasize their voluntary
renunciation of their ability to wear luxury. It is the culture of restraint—
understatement, ‘normal’ dressing, behaving like a ‘regular guy’—that,
ironically, emphasizes the culture of luxury. When SRK appears in casu-
als (at the IPL for example)—wearing tees and jeans—it is like a million
others’ costume he emphasizes his iconic status in this act of routiniz-
ing. Roland Barthes once said of descriptions of celebrity novelists in
pyjamas: ‘Far from the details of his daily life bringing nearer to me the
nature of his inspiration, and making it clearer, it is the whole mythi-
cal singularity of his condition which the writer emphasizes by such
conﬁ dences’ (1972a: 31). Barthes underscores the fact that when ‘great’
people abandon their greatness it only emphasizes the ‘miraculousness’
of their costume or habits.

It is in the self-denial and the routinization, that their power to con-

sume is emphasized. Th

ey are dressed ordinarily because they

choose to,

even though they

can put on their Guccis and Versaces. Th

us, many

stars, when interviewed, state that they do not mind shopping in rou-
tine stores for their clothes: the important thing, they underscore, is that
the clothes should ﬁ t them and be comfortable—not necessarily fash-
ionable. Restraint and understatement are components of the language

Packaging Life

of luxury—they communicate the ability of the celebrity to acquire and
renounce brands and wealthy products.

Luxury, therefore, is not simply the product. It is increasingly the

self that emerges through the use of that product that is central to the
aﬄ

uent. Luxury is the eﬀ ect of a double-coded narrative—of the self as

brand and the brand as intrinsic to the self. Luxury is the explicit and
deﬁ ant

promotion of the self as a brand, a brand that is marked by:

• individual ability (wealth, power, success),

• agency (the power to choose one’s lifestyle) and

• social recognition (by one’s peers).

e exclusive Vertu mobile phone declares that the product was

created ‘for the most discerning individuals’. Th

e cultural rhetorics,

clearly located within and embodying an ideology of class and money-
power, is about individual taste and wealth. Having explained its mode of
manufacture and its key features the write up announces: ‘Th

is has been

Vertu’s decade of achievement. Th

is is

your phone’ (Advertisement, India

Today, 11 August 2008, p. 9, emphasis added). Th

e rhetoric shifts from

the expensive product to the consumer here: suggesting that the phone
is something only ‘discerning’ individuals—coded as people with money
and taste’—will pick up. Th

e ‘your’ emphasizes the relation between the

self and the object. Th

e exclusivity in the ad’s rhetoric is emphasized—

and validated—when we discover that it has been declared one of the
‘top ten status symbols’ by the celeb magazine,

Hello! (Hello! April 2008,

p. 84).

Luxury is this process of

displacement—from the commodity to the

user in a process of branding. It is the intertextual process of signiﬁ ca-
tion where the two narratives of brand-object (de-contextualized and
re-contextualized) and self merge into a larger narrative.

The Culture of Luxury

Club Kitchen. Because a craving can strike at any time.

– British Airways advertisement

(

Outlook Travel, December 2007, p. 57)

Life, the Deluxe Edition

Pure luxury. Sometimes, luxury is spelled out most eloquently by artful
understatement rather than in-your-face opulence … the perfect blend of
subtlety and sumptuousness.

– ‘Th

e Shops: Fashion Trends on the High Street’

(Kath Brown,

Marie Claire, April 2008, p. 70)

According to the survey, if money were no object, 41% of Indians and
37% of UAE consumers said they would choose Gucci.

– Nielsen Global Luxury Brands Survey, March 2008

Indulgence written all over it…

– Advertisement for Godrej Interiors

(

Good Housekeeping, October 2006)

India has suddenly emerged as a major market for luxury brands, where
the manufacture of such items alone could exceed US$ 500 million
(

e Hindu Business Line, 28 July 2008). Rolex watches, Louis Vuit-

ton bags, BMW sport utility vehicles (SUVs), platinum-plated Mont
Blanc pens, a cruise on a luxury liner—items that are a bit more than
a watch, a bag, a car or a pen—constitute a signiﬁ cant and expand-
ing market in so-called ‘Th

ird World’ India. Th

is indulgence spending

is linked to a new cultural dominant visible in late 20th century con-
sumer culture: the culture of luxury. In order to grasp this enormous
commercial and cultural shift, we need to go back to what constitutes
luxury itself.

Luxury is packaged primarily as

stylized indulgence for some indi-

viduals who can then use it as a marker of self-identity. It is a package
that includes a new moral code of consumerism and what I term ‘re-
enchantment’. Th

e call is to put together, for your self and for the envy

and adoration of the world, a deluxe edition of life.

Colin Campbell (1987) has suggested that satisfaction-seeking in

consumption indicates needs and pleasure-seeking indicates wants.
Satisfaction-seeking or comfort-seeking is initiated by the identiﬁ cation
of a particular need (food, warmth). Food, after the ﬁ rst few mouthfuls,
fulﬁ ls the need and is satisfactory. Pleasure, on the other hand, is more
general and interchangeable—we wish to try diﬀ erent dishes for their
tastes, or we move from cinema to shopping for the pleasure of leisure,
substituting one form for another. It is in the latter—pleasure-seeking

Packaging Life

behaviour—that we can discern the rise of luxury consumption. Luxury,
in other words, is the search for pleasure.

e culture of comfort emphasizes individual warm and easy

sensa-

tion, while the culture of luxury oﬀ ers an emotional pleasure. Camp-
bell (1987) proposes that the shift from comfort to luxury is marked
by the shift from

sensations to emotions, speciﬁ cally the emotion of

pleasure, recognition, validation and social status. Indulgence, for ex-
ample, is the pleasure-seeking behaviour of the consumer and is about
something more than a comfortable sensation. As noted earlier, pleas-
ing sensations of warmth, touch, taste are crucial for attaining a de-
gree of comfort in one’s surroundings and object-consumption. In the
culture of luxury, this sensation is replaced by the pleasures of recog-
nition, status, a feeling of ‘wellness’ and self-conﬁ dence. Th

e pursuit

of this

emotional rather than sensory pleasure is at the heart of the quest

for luxury.

Indulgence and the De-moralization of Luxury

Go Away Guilt, Over to Luxe. (FICCI–Yes Bank 2008)

e world is still deceived with ornament. (Shakespeare 1974)

Scholars have noted that ‘luxury’ has always been treated as something
immoral, associated with sin and excess (Berg 2005; Berg and Cliﬀ ord
1999; Berg with Eger 2003; Jardine 1996; Sekora 1977). Th

e pursuit of

comfort, on the other hand, was deemed to be acceptable. Excess was
sinful because it was a mere indulgence of the senses. Moralistic views
that rejected consumption have treated consumption as simply mate-
rialist, capitalist and against the environment, and must therefore be
rejected.

Such moralistic views, as Richard Wilk demonstrates (2001),

proceed from particular social contexts and an evaluation of the social
and economic status of the consumer: Mukesh Ambani building a mas-
sive residential complex does retain a sense of respectability and gener-
ates envy while a university teacher who goes into debt in order to buy
a large apartment would be reprehensible.

With the 18th century, this attitude changed. Luxury and excess were

seen as encouraging manufacture and, therefore, the country’s trade.

Life, the Deluxe Edition

Luxury was, therefore, a

requirement for the country’s good. Th

is shift

in attitudes has been termed the ‘de-moralization of luxury’ (Sassatelli
2007: 36). It is important to note, as Daniel Miller warns us (2001a:
232), that to take the example of the minority ultra-rich in order to
critique consumption itself is a ﬂ awed approach because consumption is
also something all classes engage in, to greater or lesser degree.

De-moralization occurs in a context of

general de-traditionalization

of society and culture. When local, culture-speciﬁ c norms and moral
codes break down, they are substituted with anything else that might
be circulating. In a context of globalization, de-traditionalization auto-
matically translates into a cultural globalization. Th

is means, as Mike

Featherstone has suggested, there is a loss of local ‘referents’ in a culture
full of global signs and commodities (Featherstone 1991: 114). Nike
and McDonald’s, the Dark Knight and Gucci become ‘localized’, even
though they do not have a local origin or history. In other words, the
availability and circulation of global signs, fashions and commodities—
via TV,

Cosmopolitan and other magazines, catalogues and, more mate-

rially, stocks in malls in Indian metropolises (and now, in other towns
like Sonipat, Shimla, Th

rissur, Pondicherry and others, according to one

report by Aiyar [2008])—generates a diﬀ erent moral viewpoint regard-
ing commodities.

In a global consumer culture, global signs and commodities circulate

everywhere, de-linked from local cultures perhaps, but nonetheless ef-
fective and hyper-visible. Th

e de-moralization of luxury is contingent

upon, and the eﬀ ect of, the selling of a

global corporate and media-

driven idea: that to consume is alright. Th

e epigraphs to this section cap-

ture the ‘de-moralization’ of luxury where the sense of guilt that haunts
excess does not exist any more. Th

is is not to say that consumers are pas-

sive purveyors of global brands. However, the integration of the world’s
products, wealth, celebrities and signs exerts considerable pressure on
local cultures, manufactures and buyers. Th

e de-moralization of luxury

is a logical consequence of the internationalization of consumer culture
and lifestyles. It is no more a sin to be seen in luxury brands. A deluxe
life is the only one worth living, or desiring.

e discourse of luxury thrives on a

rejection of the moralistic view

of consumption itself, even though one cannot ever separate morality

Packaging Life

from consumption (Wilk 2001). Th

us, ‘normal’ food—the basic meals

and fruit and vegetables—are ‘moral’ and, therefore, justiﬁ ed because
they are linked to work. Th

e consumption of food is linked to pain,

utility and sacriﬁ ce, because goods (including foods) help a human body
to work. Th

ese are ‘moral’ goods and the consumption itself is moral

because they

help a body become productive. Th

ey fulﬁ l a

sensory require-

ment where a physiological state of comfort is attained from the pleas-
ures of taste, touch, sight and smell.

On the other hand, foods like chocolates and cakes are often de-

scribed as ‘sinful’ because they are not linked with work or pain. In-
stead, they have come to represent pleasure alone. Going by the
earlier argument made about the function–utility–artistry ‘impera-
tives’ for goods, chocolates, ice creams and cakes are driven by the
imperative of sociability and pleasure alone, not function or utility. In
the culture of luxury, therefore, luxury is packaged as an indulgence
that one need not be ashamed of. Luxury goods fulﬁ l an emotional
requirement.

e discourse of luxury, as a result of this rejection, adopts the

rhetoric of indulgence. ‘As the mercury rises, stay in, pamper yourself
from head to toe,’ advises a column in

Good Housekeeping (May 2008,

pp. 78–79). ‘Pampering’, as one has noticed in adverts today, is a key
term in the culture of luxury. James Twitchell, writing about luxury in
America, states the case blandly:

When consumption is triumphant, one witnesses an almost universal
sense of entitlement to the supposed sensations of luxury. ‘Pamper
yourself ’ is no longer a rally cry for the rich. … Now it’s for the rest
of us. (Twitchell 2001: 6–7)

Where the discourse of comfort, especially in adverts of home spaces,

as I have demonstrated elsewhere (Nayar 2008b), turned to a rhetoric
that emphasized utility, safety, hygiene and the family, with some con-
cessions to lifestyle and fashion, the discourse of luxury is concerned
with something more. Th

e rhetoric of indulgence in the discourse of

luxury persuades the consumer that to:

Life, the Deluxe Edition

• pamper oneself is not a sin,

• purchase/use something that makes us feel good rather than one

that is necessary is perfectly legitimate and

• participate in the culture of spectacle by becoming style icons is

a human need.

While this sounds like hedonism (Colin Campbell 1987) does in-

deed associate consumption with hedonism), it also marks a major shift
in the way we perceive objects and our (human) relation with them.
Th

e discourse of luxury is marked by the rhetoric of indulgence that

proposes legitimacy for/to hyperconsumption.

In the case of Loréal, this rhetoric of indulgence manifests in the ta-

gline: ‘Because you are worth it’. Skoda Fabia’s advertisement announc-
es: ‘Because you are special’ (

India Today, 11 August 2008, p. 15). Th

new line of TV sets from LG, labelled Scarlet, is a semi-erotic portrayal
of the technological device and a woman. Termed ‘Th

e ultimate seduc-

tion’, the ad presumes that we want to be seduced. Advising people on
perfumes for summer, a column provides a description of a particular
variety: ‘Cartier Délices de Cartier (priced at Rs 4,950 per 100 ml) … in
which frosted cherry reveals a hint of forbidden fruit’ (

Good Housekeep-

ing, May 2008, p. 67).

Indulgence, here, is not sinful because it is packaged as a just reward

for success. Luxury is an indulgence, but one that has been

earned. Th

is, luxury is a

reward for having arrived. Th

e purchase of a swanky home

and a luxury saloon automobile is a reward for achievements, but more
importantly, as a means of making a spectacle of this achievement for
the world to see, admire and emulate. Th

e idea of using Cera tiles in the

home, says its ad, is to ‘make the world sit up and take notice’ (

Inside/

Outside, August 2008, pp. 18–19). If the purpose of consumption is
the integration into social worlds (as I suggested in the Introduction),
luxury consumption is an integration into a very elite world where suc-
cess is measured in terms of fashion and ‘style statements’. Success here
is the pleasurable emotional experience of being lauded for taste rather
than the (mere) sensory pleasure of comfort.

us, newly-crowned millionaires (India’s millionaire club is

set to expand at 12.8 per cent annually, according to one report

Packaging Life

[Rediﬀ .com 2006]) expect ‘recognition for their product use,’ according
to Robert Henin, American Express India vice president and country
manager (Indian Television 2006). Th

is emphasis on recognition for the

product use is a

metonym for recognition due to the user’s achievements. In

other words, brand recognition is user-recognition, or the merging of the
two narratives of self and brand noted earlier. Luxury, in India, is thus
this complex relation of the brand’s story working with the millionaire’s
story (what I argue further as product biography and user biography. As
one study of luxury marketing in India puts it, the slogan is ‘Brand me
aﬄ

uent!’ [Mansharamani and Khanna undated]). Th

e emphasis on in-

dulgence as earned and as a marker of having ‘arrived’ is the new culture
of luxury. It is a means of escaping the moral dilemmas that have always
been associated with consumption because it is seen as a just reward for
achievements and hard work.

In order to see how the product and user are packaged within this

culture of luxury we turn to two speciﬁ c process, that of ornamentalism
and of ‘re-enchantment’.

Ornamentalism and Luxury

Central to the theme of luxury, as I have previously repeated

ad inﬁ ni-

tum, is the dominance of form and style over function. What I am call-
ing ‘ornamentalism’ is not a pejorative sense of excess, but the increasing
preponderance of the

decorative in life.

e decorative is not a vile feature or an immoral condition. Th

decorative is a

celebration of a particular lifestyle, wealth, success, event

or occasion. If, as argued, luxury is increasingly treated as a right earned
by those who are successful, then ornamentalism is the ideology of this
right, and the decorative the most

visible form of this ideology. Th

at is

(to speak in the language of semiotics), the decorative is the signiﬁ er (the
word) for the signiﬁ ed (luxury) located within a discourse of success.
Ornament is the outward display of one’s sense of worth, one’s pride in
having ‘arrived’. It ties in with luxury because, like luxury, it is not con-
cerned with the use-value of an object: it exists solely as a sign, an image,
a style that captures the inner state of the individual. Ornamentalism
includes singularization and customization (to which I shall return in

Life, the Deluxe Edition

the section on ‘sacralization’)—the ‘imposition’ of the user’s personality
onto the object of use. But what is central to ornamentalism and the
decorative is the

display of adornment.

An issue of

Hello! listed the paintings of Syed Haider Raza as one of

the top 10 status symbols in India today. Th

e write up stated:

[T]he … geometric, spiritually inspired symbols, bring an instant
and unquestionable aﬃ

rmation of wealth and status … your walls

will speak a language of their own through his technicoloured, reso-
nant visual language. (

Hello! April 2008, p. 84)

A few pages later, the magazine lists a jewelled Piaget watch as another
such symbol. Th

e rhetoric is illuminating:

THE bling watch ﬂ ashed by our wealthiest.… Th

e central emerald-

cut diamond is of the most sought-after colour.… Sporting this baby
on your wrist is a sure sign that you’ll be noticed. (

Hello! April 2008,

p. 86, emphasis in original)

In both cases, the rhetoric emphasizes adornment and display rather

than function. Admittedly, an art object is only an adornment with little
functional use. However, the fact that the art work and the watch are
linked within a discourse of display and ornamentalism suggests some-
thing else altogether. Th

is something else is luxury: the display as an end

in itself and not for use. Th

e use value here is of attracting attention,

as a status symbol and cultural capital. Th

ose who can aﬀ ord a Pigaet

watch or a Syed Haider Raza painting constitute the elite. Th

e pleasure

of wearing a Rolex or owning a Raza has little to do with the sensory
pleasures of either, but everything to do with the

emotional state of social

recognition, elite aﬃ

liation and lifestyle appreciation. Th

e object caters

to the emotional rather than to the functional or the sensory. Th

is is

the hedonism of luxury consumption. Th

e emphasis in both features

is on

narrative (‘a language of their own’ and ‘a sure sign that you’ll be

noticed’). Ornamentalism, that gestures at the emotional value of an act
of consumption, is thus the new

language of success.

When celebrities become patrons of the arts, we see another instance

of ornamentalism. Th

e successful industrialist family that has a couple

Packaging Life

of art connoisseurs and patrons (such as Tina Ambani) is an example of
deﬂ ected ornamentalism because, in promoting art work and ornaments,
they suggest:

• taste,

• patronage and

• wealth

eir support of art works constitutes a discourse of taste within or-

namentalism and taste, as we know from Pierre Bourdieu (1999), has
always been a marker of class and distinction.

Capricious and ‘irrational’ styles—often described in tabloids as

‘wardrobe malfunction’—also constitute a culture of display and or-
namentalism. Th

e wardrobe-fashion watch launched by almost every

single glamour and tabloid during celebrity events is an index of this
culture of ornamentalism. It is

not decoration or ornamentalism per se

that these columns attack, but what they see as irrational or ‘poor taste’.
Th

at is,

ornamentalism is treated and accepted as an integral component of

successful lives and is not the subject of criticism: the argument is over what
constitutes ‘good taste’ or ‘fashion’ within ornamentalism.

Re-enchantment, Sacralized Consumption and Luxury

Dream in colour.

– Advertisement for Kohler bathroom ﬁ ttings

(

Good Housekeeping, May 2008, pp. 8–9)

e magical bangle collection.

– Advertisement for a jewellery line (

Society, July 2008, p. 13)

e BMW is just another car. Or is it?

e automobile—and increasingly every commodity—is projected

as an extension of the individual’s personality. Th

e vehicle completes

the individual. Yet it is also an excess in terms of the automobile itself.
Th

e culture of luxury generates a narrative where excess is normal. Th

Life, the Deluxe Edition

is the culture of the supplement, where the object or context marks
completion

and excess at the same time.

I believe that in the culture

of luxury, excess might be an extra, but it also completes the individual
because style and socio-cultural capital—to which luxury adds—is a
necessity.

e luxury object is

packaged as a device of dream-fantasy fulﬁ llment.

‘Packaging’ consists of what Dennis Rook terms ‘ritual magic’: the pro-
jection of fantastic ‘grooming eﬀ ects’ where products are invested with
miraculous properties, and the youth are

willing to suspend their dis-

belief about these properties (Rook 1985: 261). Th

us, the Garnier ad

where a girl’s shampooed hair is tied to a banister and she is able to
pull apart the woodwork because her hair is so strong represents a kind
of magic. Driven by the ‘cultural idealization of ‘youthfulness’, as
Th

ompson and Hirschman described it (1995: 143), the packaging of

cosmetics and appearance products thrives on the fantasy of ‘forever
young’. Th

e use of words like ‘dream’ or ‘magical’ in numerous promo-

tional works suggests a surreal quality, a vision and a certain mystic-
mythic quality of the product or situation. Th

e repeated occurrence of

such images is but a more direct expression of a speciﬁ c property of
luxury consumption today—what can be called re-enchantment.

George Ritzer refers to the contemporary culture of consumption as

one that promotes enchantment. Malls and shopping centres are ‘ca-
thedrals of consumption’ because ‘they have an enchanted, sometimes
even sacred, religious character for many people’—and Ritzer refers to
the sense of community, ceremonial meals, play, mediated connection
to nature as marking this sense of religiosity in consumption (Ritzer
1999: 8.10).

e extended exposure to high-end consumption in the descriptions

of lavish lifestyles and accounts of symbolic exchanges such as the ones
described, constitute a ‘re-enchantment’ of the world.

Re-enchantment

is the power of illusion, the return to the mythic, the inexplicable, the
magical and the irrational. While comfort oﬀ ered us a modernized, ra-
tionalized world of eﬃ

ciency, utility and necessity, luxury oﬀ ers us, in

contrast, a postmodern,

irrational and magical world of display, excess

and aesthetics. Ritzer proposes that re-enchantment is a development
within the cathedrals of consumption:

Packaging Life

In order to continue to attract, control, and exploit consumers, the
cathedrals of consumption undergo a continual process of reenchant-
ment.… Th

e means of consumption are in constant competition

with one another to see which one can be most responsive to the
demands of consumers for (re-)enchanted settings in which to con-
sume. (Ritzer 1999: 73–76)

He uses the instance of Las Vegas where ‘old hotels are being torn

down and enormously expensive new ones are being constructed with
more enchanted themes and settings’ (Ritzer 1999: 73–76).

While Ritzer is spot-on with his description of the cathedrals of con-

sumption and the enchantment process within consumption, I see the
process of

enchantment as a primary force in the culture of luxury rather

than in the culture of mass-consumption. When Nakshatra asks you to
‘mesmerise the world’ it is not speaking of simple jewellery but dia-
monds (

Filmfare, 29 June–9 July 2008, inside back cover). Th

e mesmer-

ism, enchantment and magic are not any shopping or fashion, but the
high-end one. Th

e tagline captures accurately the process of enchant-

ment that I see as characterizing luxury.

Enchantment may be the creation of malls and super-malls in Indian

metropolises—malls oﬀ ering the global celebrity brands to all. How-
ever, luxury is a step

beyond this massiﬁ cation of shopping. Hence, I

believe, enchantment is inadequate as a term to describe what is beyond
the reach of the mall-shopper. I am, therefore, expanding the use of
the term ‘re-enchantment’ to mean not just the return to magic and
the sacral within consumption (Ritzer’s argument), but to refer to the
culture of

luxury. Ritzer sees consumer culture as a return to enchant-

ment (and its constant re-invention as re-enchantment), while

I propose

luxury culture as something more than ordinary (mass) enchantment. Th

is, re-enchantment in my argument is

not the reinvention of the mall

(as it is for Ritzer), or the construction of cathedrals of consumption.
Re-enchantment here is taken to mean speciﬁ cally luxury culture.

e culture of luxury is a

re-enchantment because the ‘fairy-tale’ lives

(a common phrase to describe the elite) of the wealthy is magical, ideal
and seems to be like an illusion. Th

is re-enchantment and creation of a

parallel, magical world is a process of

sacralization.

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Sacralization

Sacralization is the process of making something sacred, and is usually
associated with religion. In the 20th century, commentators have taken
to describing secular aspects of life becoming sacralized. I adapt here the
work of Russell Belk et al. (1989) on sacralized consumption.

e sacred is something that does not belong to this world. When

certain objects are separated, removed from ordinary human use, they
attain the status of the sacred. Th

ey are distinct from ‘profane’ or or-

dinary objects of everyday life. Such objects invoke strong emotions,
commitment and responses: fear, devotion, adulation, even revulsion.
It is important to note that such a sacralization may not be connected
to religion at all, but the rendering of an object into something other-
worldly, distinctive from everyday objects, rare and believed to possess
special powers. Luxury culture incorporates sacralization as an impor-
tant mode of hyperconsumption. Th

is sacralization consists of several

components.

In contemporary times, the sacralization of this parallel world of the

elite occurs in much the same way as celebrity culture and advertising.
Constant information ﬂ ows and depictions about the lifestyle of the
rich and famous bring this world to our cognition and imagination.
Sacralization is a process that involves enchantment—the holding
in thrall. Th

rough repeated and considerable exposure to the wealth

and lifestyle of the elite, luxury holds us in thrall as something that
exists and yet is unattainable by us. Th

re-enchantment is a process of

sacralization where we are held in thrall by the objects and lifestyles, and
not the humans alone. As in ﬁ lms when we are enchanted, held spell-
bound, by the sound and visual appeal, the luxury lifestyles hold us
in thrall through not their personalities but by the proliferation of
goods they own. We

wonder not at the people—the Ambanis, the

Beckhams, the SRK family—alone, but also the objects/commodities
surrounding them. Th

e objects themselves attain the status of won-

drous objects because they are embedded in the life stories of the rich
and famous.

What I propose here as re-enchantment is the masses’ fascination

(a fascination constantly catered to) with and wonder at the luxurious

Packaging Life

lifestyles of the rich and famous. I propose that celebrity culture, tab-
loid coverage of celebrities and even (Page 3) biographies of the elite
constitute a structure of enchantment because they spend so much time
introducing us to the

objects of a celebrity lifestyle.

Singularization and Separation

What I term as ‘re-enchantment’ is the construction of a paral-
lel world—adjacent to our ‘regular’ one, but inaccessible. When the
oﬃ

cial website for Rolex, one of the world’s biggest luxury brands,

announces, ‘Welcome to the world of Rolex,’ it seems to suggest this
paralleling, a world within a world (see www.rolex.com). Th

e objects of

this parallel world, acquired at enormous price, become sacralized by
virtue not only of their distinctiveness from routine, mass-produced,
easily available objects, but also by the symbolic signiﬁ cance invested
in them.

It is neither accidental nor an exaggeration when the term ‘world’ is

so frequently used to describe the lives and contexts of big business or
ﬁ lm stars. It must be noted that it is a not a ‘place’, but an entire

world.

us, Tom Ford the creative director of Gucci (continuing to occupy

the position of the world’s No. 1 luxury brand according to the Nielsen’s
Global Luxury Brands survey, March 2008)

stated:

[A]dress does not exist in a void, it exists in a world … a store is that
world. (cited in Jackson and Haid 2006: 64)

What Ford omitted to mention is that the connoisseur of these brands

often occupied such a world too: the world of astronomical wealth and
fashion.

e parallel world is something we would like to enter or possess

ourselves, but remains out of reach—and hence appears magical. If sac-
ralization is the separation of objects from the ordinary, the creation of
magical and dream worlds in such a luxury consumer context is sacra-
lization too.

Marxist critic Raymond Williams had used the word ‘magic’ to de-

scribe the fantasy world sketched out in advertisements and promotional

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materials. In his essay, Williams argued that objects in these ads are
validated in ‘fantasy’ by association with social and personal meanings.
Advertising is a ‘system of organized magic’ (Williams 1996). Williams’
deﬁ nition of advertising as a magical narrative can be extended to in-
clude the forms of fantasy worlds being created. Re-enchantment, as
I call it, is the strategic deployment of the parallel world as a

magical

space. Th

us,

Hello!’s palatial houses, the parties of Bollywood, the luxury

items sported by Vijay Mallya, are re-enchantments because these rep-
resentations oﬀ er us a fantasy. Re-enchantment sacralizes the parallel
world, gives it an aura, by referring to its magical properties, a dream-
world that is more fantasy than real.

Indeed, it does seem, in many

cases, a world that seems to operate on diﬀ erent laws altogether (which
approximates to the deﬁ nition of the fantastic).

Re-enchantment is the construction of an aura of the unreal around

worlds, people, objects and events.

Luxury lifestyles oﬀ er the imagination

a mythic world of excesses, extravaganzas and spectacle where nothing is
beyond reach. Th

e symbolic exchanges one reads about and the spectacle

of the swanky homes of ﬁ lm stars and industrialists oﬀ er us a magical
world of irrational and inexplicable spending. Th

is is ‘re-enchantment’

because such wealth seems unbelievable, such a lifestyle unattainable.
Th

e deliberately choreographed descriptions and rhetoric reveals a world

not available to the masses. Th

e community represented on P3 is a re-

enchantment of the world because it renders a parallel world, one that
seems perfect in every sense. Th

is fantasy world is a process of sacraliza-

tion that renders the objects (depicted) in that world scarce, precious
and luxurious.

e objects of this fantasy world are to be isolated from, at least

in terms of availability and price from routine, mall-available objects.
Th

us, a catalogue of fashion items does not list the prices of Rolex,

Van Cleef, Piaget and Christian Dior watches, Louis Vuitton sunglass-
es and Fendi bags do not state the price. Th

e silence in this narrative

suggests that, for those who care to buy luxury products do not really
care for the price, and conversely, if you are one who ﬁ rst looks at the
price, then these products are not for you (

Hi! Blitz August 2008:

136–44).

is is a process of singularization, or customization that de-

commoditizes the commodity. Every single car magazine in India carries

Packaging Life

a feature on modiﬁ ed cars. Dilip Chhabria’s work in

Autocar India is

an example of how a car is transformed into something akin to a work
of art, individualized and therefore sacralized

away from any other car

(

Autocar India, February 2008, pp. 32–33). Roland Barthes, writing

about a new model of the Citroën in the 1960s, speaks of the new ‘my-
thology of cars’ where the earlier obsession with ‘the bestiary of power’
has changed to something more ‘homely’—discreteness, smoothness,
simplicity and comfort. It is the attempt to render something as power-
ful as a car into something attractive that makes the car a ‘purely magi-
cal object’ (Barthes 1972b: 88–90). Sacralization is a process through
which one’s own identity can be ‘transposed on possessions’ (Belk et al.
1989: 15).

Customizing apartments, clothing, mobile phones (the caller tune

‘revolution’), automobiles constitute a mode of sacralization whereby a
commodity available in any store—and is therefore ‘profane’—is made
unusual, invested with one’s own personality and rendered distinctive.
Sacralization relies on quintessence, a premium on uniqueness and dis-
tinctiveness (Belk et al. 1989: 15–16). Rare, mysterious and therefore
powerful in their attraction, sacralized objects are pursued for their
uniqueness.

e culture of luxury is rooted in a phenomenon that is particular

to late 20th century consumer culture: individualism and the ‘care of
the self ’ (we have looked at one manifestation of this in the chapter on
health). From looks to brands, customization is the operative word in
late 20th century culture (Klein 2000). Th

e pursuit of uniqueness marks

a weakening of community, the collective and the group in favour of the
individual, the solitary and the unique. Th

is uniqueness is often cast as

‘novelty’. If comfort is the pursuit of routine and functional ease, luxury
is the pursuit of novelty. Novelty is anything that interrupts the routine
experience (Bianchi 1998). Within consumer culture, luxury is often
packaged as novelty or a singularity—diﬀ erent from others, and never
to be repeated.

e culture of luxury is the culture that emerges from and is rooted

in this ideology of uniqueness. Matthew Hilton has argued that the mo-
rality of consumption in the late 20th century, and an increased concern
for the healthy body has resulted in a consumption debate concerned

Life, the Deluxe Edition

with the individual for the individual’s sake (Hilton 2004). Th

us, cus-

tomization and individualization are the markers of the ability to aﬀ ord
these. A crucial and inventive mode of customization is the antiquarian
turn in luxury, where a temporal branding of the object takes place, and
a diachronic sense of the product’s meaning is invoked.

Antiquarianism and Polychronicity

If, as Guy Debord argued (1967), the world of the spectacle is the world
of commodities, then the world of elite spectacle is the world of luxury
commodities. I am here proposing a hierarchy of spectacle and there-
fore, of consumption. ‘Ordinary’ or mass consumption, such as that in
malls constitutes a now-routine spectacle because of the nature of the
commodity and the nature of the shopping experience. Malls and retail
outlets do not constitute, usually, luxury shopping. Exclusivity is not the
hallmark of the mall. On the other hand, luxury shopping is an entirely
diﬀ erent order of retailing and shopping: exclusive outlets, personalized
service and catalogues, the fashion show.

Luxury is the ability to re-invent oneself (prepare a deluxe edition

of one’s life) through the use of expensive products. Beauty treatments,
fashion and ﬁ tness regimes in the age of self-management are increas-
ingly available to the mass market. Luxury seeks to distinguish itself
from this ‘common’ pursuit and achievement of good looks and ﬁ tness
by oﬀ ering increasingly high-end products. As a result there is a shift in
the promotion of products itself.

Routine shopping and products are about manufactured commodi-

ties. Luxury is also somehow associated with a certain arcane, archaic di-
mension of cooking, designing or living. It is therefore not a coincidence
to see the periodic return of the historical ﬁ lm with its lavish, luxurious
opulence and fashions. Th

is is the

antiquarian turn in contemporary

luxury—a phenomenon that has many dimensions. It invokes an older
meaning of the brand/sign/object and re-positions the object’s older
meaning as valuable

today. Th

ere is, writes Jean Baudrillard, a ‘status

attached to regression in time’ (2008 [1996]: 162). But my point is, it is
not a simple ‘regression in time’ at all.

Packaging Life

My argument is as follows:

Luxury is:

• the co-existence of the past in the present and

• the geographical mixing of cultural practices in globalized

homes.

is is the discourse of

polychronicity (multiple times, and therefore

‘untimely’) and

multi-spatiality (of multiple geographical-cultural ori-

gins) in the culture of luxury.

Polychronicity is the simultaneous existence

of diﬀ erent times within a product—instanced by the emphasis on an
antiquated mode of production (handcrafted) or style. Here, the ob-
ject/artefact recalls the past within the present, and hence is ‘untimely’,
beyond time itself.

Multi-spatiality is the adaptation of cultural habits

and artefacts from multiple locations and cultures. A living room with
artefacts from round the world is a multi-spatial arrangement, where the
‘cultural borrowings’ reﬂ ect taste, agency and luxury.

Luxury thrives on exclusive, slow and a ‘humanized’ production

process. If necessity and comfort represent

manufacture, luxury repre-

sents

craft. As a result ‘hand-made’ is the slogan of the new luxury, one

that I describe here as ‘antiquarian luxury’. Th

e high-end Vertu phone is

an example of this ‘antiquarian luxury’, marked by a shift from manu-
facture to crafting. Th

e ad informs us:

Phones that combine craftsmanship and technology … sapphire crys-
tal and space age ceramic with leather and gold … hand-built in Eng-
land, one at a time. (

India Today, 11 August 2008, p. 9)

Swarovski speaks of its ‘hand-set pieces’ (Swarovski, product pam-

phlet, undated, unpaginated). Th

e emphasis is on the ‘hand-built’, the

singularity of the manufacturing process as a means of luxury. Th

e irony,

of course, is that ‘manufacture’ as a term of description is increasingly
replaced, in the cases of comfort too, by ‘craft’. Th

e Skoda Fabia, not

really a high-end car, also declares its product to be an example of ‘crafts-
manship’ (

India Today, 11 August 2008, p. 15). Devayani carpets claims

it is both ‘luxurious and durable’, but

not mass-produced; ‘hand-made

Life, the Deluxe Edition

with colour compassion’ (

Inside/Outside, August 2008, p. 47). Union

coﬀ ee declares: ‘Th

e ﬁ nest things in life are crafted by hand’ (

Delicious,

October 2007, p. 83).

Re-enchantment is this obsession with an anti-manufacture state.

‘Craft’, as opposed to manufacture (which gestures at industrialized
production), is the new slogan that carries a connotation of magicality
because, very simply, with industrial modernity, we have come to as-
sociate comfort, style and eﬃ

ciency with

machine-made products. Th

return to craftsmanship as a ‘plus’ is a re-enchantment because it recalls an
older form of product formation.

Heritage and the polychronicity of materials are important to this

aura of a luxury product. Th

e product biography in the case of a luxury

object emphasizes timelessness of quality, a tradition of excellence and
exclusivity. A product’s history, therefore, is central to its status as a com-
fort item or as luxury. Klaus Schmidt and Chris Ludlow speak of the
Mercedes Benz’s ‘impeccable engineering heritage’, and the company’s
Head of Brand Management, Hans-Georg Brehm, writes: ‘Th

e assur-

ance that only Mercedes-Benz with its heritage and capabilities is able
to devote itself wholeheartedly to such a comprehensive mission’ (cited
in Schmidt and Chris Ludlow 2002: 65). All these citations suggest that
the age of a brand adds to its value. Burberry, one of the world’s lead-
ing luxury brands, proudly places beneath its company name, a legend:
‘Established 1856’. Orra jewellers inscribe beneath their name, ‘since
1888’. Villeroy and Boch crockery carries its date of origins—1748
—underneath the company name. Hidesign declares that its products
are made from ‘real leather crafted the forgotten way’, thus suggesting
the revival of a rare, forgotten and therefore valuable tradition (

Femina,

27 August 2008, p. 9). Swarovski, in the pamphlet accompanying its
products, has a prefatory note from its Chairman, Helmut Swarovski:
‘For more than one hundred years Swarovski crystal has been ﬁ lling peo-
ple’s lives with joy, fantasy and style…’ (Swarovski, product pamphlet,
undated, unpaginated). Th

e retrieval of a ‘lost world’ and ancient times

in all these adverts lends an air of magicality. Th

e atavistic revisitation of

older styles of architecture, cooking or styling is a form of re-enchant-
ment precisely because it creates an illusion of this return to a former
age. Th

e building becomes ‘untimely’, and the rhetoric of ‘timelessness’

Packaging Life

in numerous adverts today signals this ideology of polychronicity as
unique and luxurious.

Central to the antiquarian luxury move is the

heritagization of com-

fort, commodity, aesthetics and lifestyle. Such a heritagization often begins
with the revival of older fashions, architecture and styles. Popular cul-
ture, especially ﬁ lms, plays a role in showcasing heritage and luxury and
constitutes the frames of the ‘antiquarian turn’.

e ever-popular, and one of Hindi cinema’s best-known lav-

ish spectacles,

Mughal-e-Azam, was brought back in a colour version

(2006). Ashutosh Gowarikar’s

Jodhaa Akbar (2007) has been a com-

mercial success. It could be argued that the period ﬁ lm, especially
the mythologicals and the historicals, oﬀ er an extravaganza of mate-
rial culture—of artistic clothing, palaces and furnishings and feasts.
Often described as ‘costume dramas’, a sense of opulence marks such
ﬁ lms. Th

e heritage and historical ﬁ lm is an important element in the

culture of luxury because it suggests a

history of luxurious living and

styles. Grand feasts, princely gestures and magniﬁ cent buildings be-
come an anterior moment to luxury in the present (even if, of course,
the ancient period represented was not consistently happy). Castles
as settings in contemporary ﬁ lms (even if they are not historical) also
provide the inspiration for this antiquarian turn—

Black, Kabhi Khushi

Kabhi Ghum, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and numerous ﬁ lms have show-
cased heritage buildings.

Fashions, of course, also build on this opulence, as in Ritu Kumar’s

collections. Her brocaded and quaintly coloured-designed work is
also showcased against a setting of dancers and troubadours-minstrels
who seem to recall a bygone age. Here, opulence and luxury in fash-
ion explicitly links both with antiquity (

Femina, 27 August 2008,

pp. 34–35). A parallel to Ritu Kumar’s collection is the colonial fashion’s
reappearance. It is therefore no surprise to see the English East India
Company’s furnishings and furniture being reproduced now (http://
theeastindiacompany.com/). Ritu Kumar makes contemporary fashion’s
linkage (and obsession) with a heritage of luxury clear:

We have cent

ries of tradition and aesthetics beﬁ tting royalty .... Th

lure of diamonds has come down to us a

s a legacy. (

Catalogue, For-

evermark, undated, unpaginated)

Life, the Deluxe Edition

e catalogue of the East India Company Interiors—with the origi-

nal logo, coat of arms and Queen Elizabeth I herself on it—proudly
declares its legacy right on the cover: ‘since 1600’. Th

e wooden furniture

not priced in the catalogue but declares its luxury status loudly (Cata-

logue, Th

e East India Company, Mumbai). Old palaces being turned

into resorts and hotels constitute this new move towards what can be
termed ‘antiquarian luxury’. Woodville Palace in Shimla, the setting
for Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s

Black, and the subject of a feature in Inside/

Outside, is one such. Th

ough the furniture, architecture and styling

are all ‘old world’, they still provide ‘excellent service’. Th

e feature con-

cludes: ‘It provides a glimpse into a distant era, when privileged lives
were diﬀ erently lived’ (

Inside/Outside, August 2008, pp. 165–75). Th

the symbol for Rolex resembles a crown—when monarchy is a rare
thing in contemporary times—is no accident: celebs and the aﬄ

uent

are the new royalty. Roca designer bath suites from luxury-makers like
David Chipperﬁ eld, declares in its advert that ‘you don’t need clothes to
feel like an emperor’ (

Inside/Outside, August 2008, pp. 14–15). Rolex’s

Cellini range is available ‘exclusively in platinum or 18 ct gold,’ is tagged
‘Cellini Classic’ (

Hello! April 2008, p. 84). Th

e enthusiasm for ‘clas-

sic’ or vintage cars and other heritage equipment constitutes a mode of
sacralization of commodities based on their temporal distance from the
present, and the continued relevance of the past—or what I have termed
the

polychronicity of the objects. In other cases, the process of sacraliza-

tion involves being aware of a product’s historical signiﬁ cance. Th

us,

diamonds have been precious, according to one jewellery brochure,
since the ancient Greeks and Romans (Forevermark 2008). It is the an-
tiquity of

use that makes the commodity precious. Th

us it comes as no

surprise that

Jodhaa Akbar was accompanied by the launch of a jewellery

line from Tanishq, and named after the ﬁ lm, thus linking antiquity and
consumerism within the culture of luxury. As the product narrative of
one of the items in the Jodhaa Akbar collection put it:

Delicately sculpted elephants’ trunks entwine, drawing inspiration
from Jodhaa’s ﬁ nely detailed wedding jewellery.

Luxury that was once the privilege and province of the royalty is

now that of the aﬄ

uent. Luxury is the marker of the new royalty. Th

Packaging Life

Heritage Hotels group states in its grandiloquent rhetoric of antiquarian
luxury:

Become a Maharaja for the duration of your vacation, at Heritage
Hotels of India. Ride an elephant into a grand courtyard, dine in a
magniﬁ cent Durbar hall … stay in rooms furnished in opulent luxury
…. Experience the royal lifestyle of the Maharajas of India, when you
enjoy the luxurious ambience of the Heritage Hotels of India. Stay
at a fairytale palace that rises like a marble vision from an azure lake
…. With spectacular locations, fascinating histories and an amazing
ambience, the forts and palaces of the royal families of India, that
have been converted into Heritage Hotels of India oﬀ er you a chance
to live like a king.

e point is, for the today’s privileged, such a ‘royal’ lifestyle can still

be had, at a price. When Lakshmi Mittal’s daughter, Vanisha, got mar-
ried in 2004, the tycoon hired a 17th century palace, the French chateau
Vaux le Vicomte, for the event. Elizabeth Hurley and Arun Nayar wed-
ded at Sudeley Castle in Winchcombe (England) and the Umaid Bhawan
Palace in Rajasthan. SRK bought a heritage bungalow from Nariman K.
Dubash and Tendulkar bought the historic Dorab Villa (dating back to
the 1920s) in Bandra. Vijay Mallya acquired, at unbelievable prices, the
Tipu Sultan sword and, more recently, Gandhi’s personal eﬀ ects (in the
latter case it is not Gandhiana

as luxury objects, but the aﬀ ordability of a

symbolically valuable object that constitutes luxury). In each case, there
is sacralization reliant upon the polychronicity of objects. Th

e antiquar-

ian turn in luxury is this renewed interest in acquiring castles, chateaus,
palaces either as homes or for the hoteliering business—a polychronicity
of materials, lifestyles and manners. Tabloids’ continuing obsession with
royal families and dynasties contributes to the sacralization of an old
world luxury culture. For example, the magazine

Hello! proﬁ les families

and their palaces on a regular basis (see

Hello! December 2007, Febru-

ary 2008, March 2008 and April 2008). Architects now incorporate
classical and baroque elements from earlier ages and juxtapose them
with space-age materials and décor (Nath 2008). Th

ey, thus, hybridize

luxury itself, never abandoning the ancient period as a time of opulent
luxury for the smooth eﬃ

ciency of the present.

Luxury, in fact, becomes

Life, the Deluxe Edition

the co-existence of multiple spacetimes, a kind of polychronicity of the objects
from various places, untimely and very contemporary.

Antiques chosen from round the world thus ﬁ ll the houses of the

rich and famous—for antique collecting has always been a characteristic
of the wealthy (Cohen 2006: 146–47). Film star Zayed Khan’s home
has, notes a report, ‘artefacts from Spain and France,’ Italian statues,
an ‘antique brass chandler from Lebanon’ and ‘antique Rosewood fur-
niture’ (

Hello! June 2008, p. 18). Th

e collection was always a mark of

the connoisseur, as Susan Stewart in her path-breaking 1984 study,

Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Col-
lection, has shown (see also Cohen 2006: 145–65; Peck 2005: 162–79
and). I suggest that the collectibles in such houses constitutes a ritual of
sacralization (as Belk et al. suggest 1989: 25–26), where both the past
and the objects from that time are rendered special, separated from the
contemporary age and its products. By transference, the person who
puts together ornamental and decorative collections acquires some of
the prestige associated with the presence of antiquarian materials.

e packaging of luxury is the successful promotion and acceptance

of the ‘ritual magic’ of being transported to and supposedly experienc-
ing the luxury of a bygone era. Heritage marketing thrives on this ‘ritual
magic’ of assuming the old world’s opulence in the present, of generat-
ing

polychronic and multi-spatial materials.

Clearly, the discourse and culture of luxury cut across genres as di-

verse as period ﬁ lms, antiquarian furniture and contemporary fashion
in their persistent return to and use of the past iconography of opu-
lence. Luxury’s reliance on heritage is also, again, a re-enchantment
process: the creation of a magical world of contemporary fashion
through the return to an ancient opulence. Luxury seeks to recreate a
former luxury.

Heritage is a narrative—a timeline, tracing a tradition from origins

in an earlier age to the present. Th

e antiquarian turn in luxury cleverly

weaves this narrative into a contemporary one. Th

is multi-weave narra-

tive of luxury consists of the following:

• Th e narrative of antiquity.

• Th e narrative of nostalgia.

Packaging Life

• Th e narrative of preservation.

• Th e narrative of contemporaneity.

While no designer would dare abandon the super-functionality of

contemporary technology, the ideal seems to be to promote the present
luxury as a logical extension of the past’s opulence and lavishness. Gold-
and diamond-studded phones recall the bejewelled attire of royalty,
an excellent example of the multi-weave narrative of the antiquarian
moment in luxury. Baroque designs in highly-eﬃ

cient, techno-loaded

homes and oﬃ

ces are a nostalgic return to ornamental opulence with-

out abandoning functionality. As the Heritage Hotels of India write-up
deﬁ nes so grandly, it is a ‘fairytale palace’ with ‘fascinating histories’.
Th

is is re-enchantment of modernity through a recourse to antiquarian

luxury.

Rituals of Sacralization

Sacralization is perpetuated through particular rituals. In luxury culture
a dominant trend is the fashion show showcasing the season’s line from
Armani and Yves Saint Laurent. Rituals also include tabloid coverage
of celeb events like the Cannes ﬁ lm festival, the Academy and Filmfare
Awards, product launches and others. In the process of this ritual, we
ﬁ nd emerging the paradox of luxury culture. We can discern within
the individualistic consumption of sacralized luxury culture the tension
between ghettoization and communitarianism.

While luxury relies on uniqueness, on a separation from the mass/

community, this

pursuit of uniqueness via excessive expenditure and use

itself unites the wealthy into a new community. Sacralization here is the
creation of a separate world of consumers through

rituals of partying,

fashion displays, public events and information-dissemination about
lifestyles. Celeb consumption is

both private (because they do not shop

where everyone else shops, and they shop for goods that nobody else
can aﬀ ord)

and public (everybody discusses what they wear). Securing

privacy, while also ensuring public visibility, is a key feature of luxury
consumption.

Life, the Deluxe Edition

Sacralization rituals also, often take spatial forms. Luxury housing

in India, according to one feature, is worth Rs 2,000 crore (

Hello! June

2008, p. 75). Ads for luxury villas and housing now invariably project
vast, non-crowded spaces and what I have termed ‘secured isolation’,
almost as though luxury is characterized by the absence of crowds and
a concomitant availability of open spaces. ‘Space’, in such housing,
‘doesn’t restrict perspective,’ writes the report on luxury homes (

Hello!

June 2008, p. 75). Th

is secured isolation is luxurious because it is ren-

dered safe: gated communities, security measures and constant surveil-
lance (Nayar 2008b: 203). Luxury is, therefore, the desired

separation

from the masses—in terms of taste, physical distance, fashion and hab-
its. Ironically, the cultivation of ‘rich’ tastes and isolation leads to its own
form of communitarianism—and this is what I have identiﬁ ed as the
paradox of individualistic consumption.

If consumption is a mode of

classiﬁ cation, as Douglas Holt (1995)

argues, then luxury consumption separates the big players from the
ordinary. Celebrity culture has a great deal to do with this form of ‘clas-
siﬁ cation’ based on consumption, fashion and style. Sacred objects, so-
cial theorists argue, unite people with a shared commitment (Belk et al.
1989: 7). From this assumption it is possible to argue that the commit-
ment to luxury, display and style is a unifying factor among the elites.

Page 3 people (P3P) portrayed in newspapers and glamour magazines

constitute a community in themselves, united in their fashion, shopping
and purchasing power and spectacle. Gated communities and luxury
villas seem to now inevitably oﬀ er club houses, play areas and common
facilities (not seen in more middle-range housing in India). Th

ere is a

sense of community among the well-heeled, so to speak. P3 write-ups
also tend to show the same faces, the ‘regulars’ on the party circuit.
What we see emerging in the culture of luxury is a new community that
is clearly separated from the masses and other forms of community.

Yet ironically, other than excessive spending there is nothing that

marks the wealthy as a

community—which would include shared beliefs,

territorial loyalties and roots, customs and traditions. Th

us, there is a

simultaneous abandonment of the community and the creation of one,
but a community based entirely on spending and spectacle. Th

e culture

Packaging Life

of luxury also builds on individual sensations/tastes/styles, moves

beyond

the individual to a collective. What I am proposing here is: luxury is
a peer-group, collective state where excesses, high-end goods and style
become markers of class and social belonging. If comfort works at the
level of the individual and the family, and stays within it

, luxury starts

with the individual, but widens into a social context—of the wealthy, the
well-connected and the powerful. Luxurious lifestyles, excessive spend-
ing and exclusivity—of fashion, taste, habits—are what link celebrities,
wealthy business families and leading politicians. Studies have, for in-
stance, shown how high-end SUVs (costing US$ 55,000 and above)
became markers and makers of a community of SUV owners in the USA
(Schulz 2006).

Our ‘unpacking’ has shown the imbrications of many ideologies—

from hedonistic self-indulgence to heritagization—within the culture
of luxury. Th

e culture of comfort, located between necessity and luxury,

emphasizes the utilitarian, functional and economic dimension of ob-
jects. Comfort is the seeking of sensory pleasure and is situated at the
intersection of the three economies—ﬁ nancial, cultural and moral. Un-
packing the culture of comfort reveals the construction of a narrative
between the object-context and the user’s internal state of comfort. Th

‘level’ of comfort is increasingly associated with an excessive ‘stylization
of life’ itself. With stylization, consumer culture conﬁ gures several shifts,
from use to

display, function to artistry and utility to aesthetics. Styliza-

tion involves the making of an intertextual narrative that results when
two narratives—of brand biography and self-branding merge into each
other. Stylization carried to a habitual performance marks luxury. Luxu-
ry is packaged primarily as

stylized indulgence for some individuals who

use it as a marker of self-identity. Th

e culture of luxury involves ﬁ rst, the

de-moralization of luxury characterized by an ideology of indulgence.
Luxury is packaged in two primary modes: ornamentalism and of ‘re-
enchantment’. Th

e ﬁ rst underscores excess and style over utility. Th

second involves the sacralization of objects, including a careful plotting
of antiquity—what I have identiﬁ ed as the emphasis on the polychro-
nicity of the objects—and rituals of sacralization that mark objects out
as isolated and therefore unique.

Life, the Deluxe Edition

Notes

1 Th

ere has also, of course, been a problematic slide in the nature of objects from

necessities to comfort and even luxuries—a point this book does not address,
but which is signiﬁ cant nevertheless. A good example would be of drinking wa-
ter. Th

e increased pollution (not to mention depletion) of water resources has

ensured that safe drinking water is now a luxury—and we need to

buy bottled

water. Drinking water, for so long a necessity, is now a luxury item if we were
to seek safe water. Th

e only safe water, if at all, is bottled.

2 For a view of material culture as indispensable to the formation of the human

subject see Daniel Miller,

Material Culture and Mass Consumption (1987).

3 I adapt the notion of the supplement from poststructuralist thought.
4 Th

e term ‘de-moralization of luxury’ has been used by various commentators

(Peck 2005: 8, 347; Sassatelli 2007: 36–37 among others).

5 For a critique, see Daniel Miller 2001b.
6 Th

e standard work on decorative art remains, in my opinion, that of E.H.

Gombrich’s

e Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art

(1979).

7 Here, I signal my departure from Pasi Falk’s use of the term ‘supplement’ to

speak of luxury

only as excess (1997: 105).

8 I adapt the work of Zygmunt Bauman (1993) and George Ritzer (1999).
9 Th

e Nielsen ranking of luxury brands is as follows: Gucci, Chanel and Calvin

Klein (both at second), Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Versace, Armani, Ralph
Lauren, Prada and Yves Saint Laurent. See www.nielsen.com/media/2008/
pr_080227.html (accessed on 21 August 2008).

10 Beryl Langer (2004) has argued that marketing of toys often depends on the

creation of a fantasy world for the child, but also sacralizing childhood.

11 Tzvetan Todorov (1975) deﬁ nes the fantastic as a world where the laws of the

‘normal’ world do not apply.

12 See http://www.tanishq-jodhaa-akbar.com/ja_collection_zoom1.asp (accessed

on 26 August 2008).

13 See www.heritagehotelsofIndia.com (accessed on 23 August 2008).

Chapter 3

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

Cultures of Risk

Growing AIDS Th

reat.

–

e Tribune, 4 July 2003

With the monsoons arriving, you become more susceptible to water borne
diseases. And we ensure that you get only the safest and purest water every
time. Read through the following information areas and keep your family
safe and healthy!

– Write-up on Eureka Forbes Water Puriﬁ ers.

Himalayan Meltdown Catastrophic for India.

–

e Times of India, 3 April 2007

Your computer might be at risk. No anti-virus software or ﬁ rewall is
installed.

– (Annoying) Message on desktop after PC is switched on.

n one of the most unforgettable passages in Joseph Heller’s

Catch-22

(1970 [1961]), the character Yossarian worries about his health. Th

passage is worth quoting in all its extensive glory because it captures

the culture of bubble-wrapped lives as no other:

ere were lymph glands that might do him [Yossarian] in. Th

ere

were kidneys, nerve sheaths and corpuscles. Th

ere were tumors of

the brain. Th

ere was Hodgkin’s disease, leukemia, amyotrophic lateral

sclerosis. Th

ere were fertile red meadows of epithelial tissue to catch

and coddle a cancer cell. Th

ere were diseases of the skin, diseases of

the heart, blood and arteries. Th

ere were diseases of the head, diseases

of the neck, diseases of the chest, diseases of the intestines, diseases of

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

the crotch. Th

ere even were diseases of the feet. Th

ere were billions

of conscientious body cells oxidating away day and night like dumb
animals at their complicated job of keeping him alive and healthy,
and every one was a potential traitor and foe.

ere were so many dis-

eases that it took a truly diseased mind to even think about them ….
Hungry Joe collected lists of fatal diseases and arranged them in al-
phabetical order so that he could put his ﬁ nger without delay on any
one he wanted to worry about …. Yossarian had so many ailments
to be afraid of that he was sometimes tempted to turn himself into
the hospital for good and spend the rest of his life stretched out there
inside an oxygen tent with a battery of specialists and nurses seated
as one side of his bed twenty-four hours a day waiting for something
to go wrong and at least one surgeon with a knife poised at the other,
ready to jump forward and begin cutting away the moment it became
necessary. (Heller 1970: 186–87)

In this breathless, maniacally paced description, Heller captures the

discourse of risk that haunts us. What Yossarian seeks at the end of the
passage is a bubble-wrapped life.

From global climate change to bacteria-ridden water, our everyday life

seems fraught with hidden and not-so-hidden dangers. We are threatened
from within us, as well as outside us. Th

ere are hazards from eating, drink-

ing, walking or doing nothing at all. Th

ere is a hazard waiting to happen

to our economy, our nation and our bodies. Disaster lurks in the air, in
water, in the land and in our bones. We could get cancer from doing noth-
ing, or typhoid from consuming polluted water. We might get obese from
lack of exercise, or we might develop respiratory problems from jogging
through polluted city streets. We share the anxiety of our community,
group and neighbourhood about ‘anti-social elements’, drug-peddling
among our children, religious fundamentalism and state indiﬀ erence.

Everyday life, it would appear, is increasingly a battle against assort-

ed enemies. Our anxieties might be individual (my body), group (my
family), community (neighbourhood), nation (India) or race (human).
Th

is is the

culture of risk and we need to be ‘bubble-wrapped’ against

an assortment of imminent threats and risks. ‘Risk’ comes packaged
to us everyday, in multiple forms—from glossy brochures of insurance

Packaging Life

companies warning us of the risk of heart disease and attendant heavy
hospital bills to the dry economic column that warns us against invest-
ing in mutual funds, from Al Gore’s vivid and scholarly depiction—en-
livened with humour—of the ‘inconvenient truth’ of global warming to
ﬂ ag-waving fundamentalists who see our cultures as being at risk from
globalization.

Risk

is the culture of everyday life now. But what exactly

is risk? What are its mechanics of operation, or how does it perme-
ate common discourses of the everyday and our imaginations? In other
words, how are we made aware of various kinds of risks and what are the
consequences of such a ‘packaging’?

Risk Society

Risk is Everywhere.

–

Outlook Traveller, 2007

Alone and Vulnerable.

– Headline, Lotika Sarkar case (

e Hindu, 5 April 2009)

To begin with an example of the narrative of risk, a document,

‘Th

e Ef-

fects of Nuclear War’, produced by the Oﬃ

ce of Technology Assessment

of the US government (Oﬃ

ce of Technology Assessment 1979), can be

read as an exercise in risk culture. Th

e document had sections like ‘A nu-

clear weapon over Detroit or Leningrad’ where it sketched out scenarios
of nuclear explosions in metropolises. Another section, ‘Other Long-
Term Eﬀ ects’, spoke of radiation poisoning and the dangers. But there
was also another section fascinatingly titled ‘Incalculable Eﬀ ects’. In this
section, discussing the environmental and agricultural (speciﬁ cally food
production) eﬀ ects of nuclear war, it declares: ‘It is not possible to esti-
mate the probability or the probable magnitude of such damage’ (Oﬃ

of Technology Assessment 1979: 775).

Take ﬂ ying as a second example. As the plane taxies on the runway

preliminary to take oﬀ , the stewards explain to us the safety features of
the aircraft.

In the ﬁ rst instance, the extent of damage from nuclear war cannot be

predicted, according to a document prepared by experts.

In the second,

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

we are given exact modes of ensuring safety if something disastrous were
to happen. Both deal with risk.

Risk is hazard, and is predominantly characterized as a negative as-

pect of life (as opposed to the risk-taking of, say, adventure sports).

Every product you buy entails a certain amount of risk. Th

is risk is

built into the system-product. When you switch on your personal com-
puter, there are several things that can go wrong—from the moment of
your typed-in command to what appears on screen. Ulrich Beck (1992,
2000), who ﬁ rst popularized the ‘risk society’ thesis, argues that risk is
a

structural feature of any system in the industrial age—though more

recent critics have traced the idea and ideology of risk back to the early
modern period in Europe (15th to 16th century) when authors and
painters depicted apocalypses and disasters concomitant with utopias
(see Glimp 2008). A system produces hazards that cancel out the estab-
lished safety systems or the calculations of risk. In other words, despite
the safety devices and attempts to calculate the possible dangers in a
system, hazards exist and disasters happen on a scale that we cannot
exactly predict.

In the case of nuclear disaster, with examples of Hiroshima-Nagasaki,

ree Mile Island and Chernobyl in our mind, we visualize the risk of

this form of power. We read possible scenarios of nuclear war. In the case
of the stewards’ ﬂ ight safety instructions (and the manual), we are si-
multaneously, and implicitly, called upon to reﬂ ect on the risks involved
in say, landing on water, shortage of oxygen, etc.

Ulrich Beck goes on to argue (giving us less cheer in the process!)

that we have moved beyond the mathematical models of predicting
risk. Indeed, it is interesting that we can think of risk only in the context
of safety mechanisms and predictions.

What allows us to reﬂ ect on risk is,

ironically, the safety features.

inkers on risk culture have suggested that we are increasingly

aware of risks. We are increasingly aware of more and more things that
can harm us. What is important is that risk is a matter of perception
and interpretation. Risk awareness is a way of seeing things: Is this likely
to harm me or my family? However, this awareness of risk does not
remain the same over time for either an individual or a society/culture.
For instance, an adolescent on a motorcycle ﬁ nds speed exhilarating,
even as he is aware of the risks of high-speed driving. However, as a

Packaging Life

middle-aged driver, this same person is aware that risk is

shared—by

his family members. Socially, and with developments in science and
medicine, our awareness of the nature, degree, cause and palliative for
risk has changed. From the germ theory of disease in the 19th century
to the discovery of genetic anomalies that can induce diseases, we are
made aware of a million possible risks to our bodies. We live in a set of
economic, social, cultural and political conditions where there is a sense
of uncertainty. Th

is uncertainty is often manufactured for us in the form

of representations of disaster, or risk deﬁ nition.

Other thinkers have argued that risk awareness is a particular mode

of understanding the self and the world: the self is what is at risk in the
world (Lupton 1999). Th

is means that the endangered self (the self-

at-risk) has to act in order to alleviate the risk. Risk is linked, there-
fore, not only to the sense of danger, but also to the call for individual
action. Risk entails the responsibility to act so that risk is averted or
minimized. On a larger scale, a community, culture or group might
also be called to action in order to thwart and avert what it perceives
as a risk.

Imagination and the Becoming-real

e Max New York Life Insurance advert that ran on Indian TV in

2008 showed a woman racing through her home calling out to ‘Sanju’,
ostensibly her partner. She does not receive a response and is growing
frightened by the minute. Rushing out on to the terrace garden she
perceives a spilt teacup and the listless, slack ‘body’ of Sanju in the arm
chair. Fear writ large on her face she approaches, hesitantly, afraid of
what might see. She taps him on the shoulder and says softly, ‘Sanju?’
Her expression suggests that she does not expect him to respond because
he is lying there dead. He leaps up and says, ‘You frightened me.’ Th

entire rhetoric of the ad looks at a

future when such terrible things as

losing your partner might actually happen to any one. Insurance is the
bubble-wrap that we need to acquire to safeguard our lives.

Take as another example the debate around Lotika Sarkar, the

87-year old, former distinguished professor of law, who has now lost

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

her home to (allegedly) conniving ‘friends’. Th

e case made headlines

through early-mid 2009, and

e Hindu carried a detailed report on it

(Sunday Magazine,

e Hindu, 5 April 2009), tying it in with analysis

of the conditions of the elderly in India. T. Ramappa writes in this con-
nection:

Unless this [elderly] person makes a proper legal disposition of the
property, with honest and competent legal advice, while he/she is still
physically and mentally alert, he/she will not leave a legacy for his
son but a problem in the form of litigation by competing claims of
relatives or land-grabbers. (Ramappa 2009)

e writer invites us to imagine a situation of property disputes

here, and the warning of such a risky condition is implicit in the
narrative. Th

is is what invokes fear, and an awareness of the risks

involved.

Insurance companies thrive on the fear that the future can always be

frightening, terrible and disastrous. United India Insurance depicts a
sheathed sword and declares: ‘At United India Insurance, every risk has a
cover that ﬁ ts perfectly’ (

Outlook Traveller 2007). Th

e ambiguous rheto-

ric suggests that the sword itself is an insurance (as a weapon), or that
the risk of being cut by the sword is minimized by sheathing it. In fact,
an interesting feature of risk is that it is always so in the

future. Risk is

something that

can happen, that may happen. Th

erefore, central to risk

analysis in ﬁ nance or science is the probability of something disastrous
happening, and mathematical models are put in place to study, say, the
stock market to

calculate risks. And, having calculated it, one prepares

possible means of averting or reducing it. It was interesting to see the
eﬀ orts made by ﬁ nance companies during the global ﬁ nancial crisis of
September–October 2008. ICICI Prudential sent out SMSs to assure
customers that their market credibility and liquidity remained intact.
Th

e SMS read:

AAA (Ind) rating by Fitch Ratings as on September 30, 2008—the
highest possible ﬁ nancial rating that can be provided to an Indian
company.

Packaging Life

100

And:

ICICI Pru Life has been ranked as the ‘Most Trusted Brand’ amongst
private life insurance companies in the ET Brand Equity Survey
2008.

is becoming-real feature of risk has two basic moments. One, as-

certaining and recognizing the probability of an event. Two, visualizing-
imagining the probable

magnitude of the event’s outcome (Douglas

1994: 31). Th

us the woman who expects to ﬁ nd her husband dead in

the chair not only imagines such an event, but also has to, suggests
the ad, realize the enormous

consequences attendant upon her partner’s

decease.

us, risk is always in the process of becoming-real. When it manifests

—actually happens—it is not risk any more; it is a disaster (Beck 1992,
2000; Van Loon 2002). Th

is future-orientation of risk is central to our

perceptions of it, our actions to alleviate the degree of risk and our rep-
resentations of it. Th

us, after the Gurgaon school shooting of December

2007, the editorial in

e Hindu noted in its editorial of 14 December

2007:

Not changes in the law, but strict enforcement of existing regulations
and the exercise of great responsibility by gun licence holders should
be the ﬁ rst steps if Indian schools are not to endure similar horrors
in

future.

It is important to understand here that risk is inextricably linked to

imagination. ‘Representation’ of risk is basically the stimulus to imagine
risk.

• Insurance companies ask us to imagine high education costs for

our children, death, loans for marriages and home ownership.

• Medicine expects us to imagine what can go wrong with any of

our assorted body parts.

• Financiers expect us to imagine the disasters that might come to

mutual funds or the stock market.

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

101

e task of ‘packaging’ risk is primarily to do with this

imaginative

component. Th

e rhetoric of advertising or science is geared towards pro-

voking us to

imagine scenarios. Th

us, when the Life Insurance Corpora-

tion of India asks you to take a ‘[l]ife risk cover i.e. ﬁ nancial protection
to the family in case of an unforeseen event,’ what it wants you to do is
to foresee, in your mind’s eye, an ‘unforeseen event’.

Risk culture relies

on this paradoxical seeing of the unforeseen, and cleverly appeals to the
cultural rhetorics of the family, where the family is projected as something
of unimaginable value. Death or accidents are always to be prepared for.
Ironically, therefore, the unforeseen is what is constantly seen (or shown
to us).

Risk culture is the invention of scenarios of disasters based on the calcu-

lation of probabilities. As for instance in the write-up on insurance in
a prominent magazine: ‘Insurance plans for children are designed to
provide the much-needed security for their future in your absence’ (

Week, 22 March 2009, p. 56).

In this invention of scenarios, medicine, propaganda and commerce

are aligned with literary and artistic creations. Where the latter seek to
create (usually) beautiful or perfect worlds, the rhetoric of risk asks us to
imagine disasters. ‘Packaging’ risk is this process of setting a context for
imagining disaster. Th

e language of risk is basically, like literary texts, a

language that begins with: ‘what if ’ or ‘imagine’.

Information and Risk

Risk awareness and risk control are possible only when we

recognize the

threat and its causes. Th

is recognition of risk entails a very important

move via language: the risk factor has to be made

visible. Risk is there-

fore about

communication.

Historians of medicine have shown how the sanitation drives of 19th

century Europe were inspired and informed by the discovery of germs
(by Louis Pasteur and others after him) as causal factors in illness. With
the germ theory of disease, there was a heightened awareness that the
risk to health comes from invisible things, that is, bacteria. Scientiﬁ c
writing, both scholarly and popular, therefore, described the sources of

Packaging Life

102

tuberculosis, plague, cholera and other diseases. Th

ey also identiﬁ ed lo-

cations of such diseases and vectors (leading to a genre called medical
geography), where, for instance, they mapped the tropical lands as car-
rying cholera and malaria.

Risk never appears to us in its pure form. Our awareness of risk is

made possible through a process of

mediation where experts, informa-

tion and advice mediate between intangible threats and us (the site of
danger, the possible victims). Risk culture is a culture of mediation,
where mediation is the packaging of speciﬁ c elements

as risks.

• Scientists provide information about the causes of a particu-

lar disease, or at least [as was the case with the famous Bovine
Spongiform Encephalopathy/Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
(vCJD) in the UK in the mid-1990s] speculate on pathogens,
transmission mechanisms and cure.

• Th e government puts together data from scientiﬁ c organizations

and test reports before embarking on an oﬃ

cial course of ac-

tion.

• Th e media picks up both the scientiﬁ c and government opin-

ions and publicizes them.

• Other actors—priests, politicians, interest lobbies and pressure

groups—also begin to participate.

• Th e layperson receives all this mediated information.

In any risk or threat situation, these are various ‘actants’ that func-

tion together. Such actors constitute a

network where laboratories, the

pathogen, the state, the media, the moralists and the layperson come
together. What is crucial is that there is no one strand that we follow
when we read a report on say, obesity or AIDS. We, the lay people, are
involved as actors in a process that rely primarily on communication
and information exchange. Risk is delivered to us through this process
of communication that could be scientiﬁ c, mystic, religious, legal, ad-
ministrative-bureaucratic and plain commonsensical.

Apocalyptic vi-

sions are oﬀ ered about global warming, AIDS, globalization, nuclear
war, aliens and practically everything.

What I am proposing, following Robert Stallings (1990) is that

even though the risk event itself—the tsunami of 2004, the Bhopal gas

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

103

tragedy from 1984—is not constructed,

it survives through a process of

mediation and communication. Media creates the anxiety, fear and threat
around an event, and keeps it alive. As Stallings puts it, risk is ‘cre-
ated and recreated in discussion of events that are seen to undermine a
world taken for granted’ (Stallings 1990: 82). Risk is this series of
texts—scientiﬁ c, imaginative, dystopian—produced about past events
and possible events. Th

ese texts bring to our consciousness (and the eye)

hidden and possible dangers. Th

rough these texts, an immaterial, invisi-

ble source of threat is rendered visible for us to recognize and act against.
Risk culture is about this process of

translation—from the intangible

and invisible into the visible and concrete. Th

is translation involves a

particular set of processes where experts (the scientiﬁ c community, ana-
lysts and commentators) inform us (the lay public) about the threats
in store for us. Th

rough translation, ‘sequences of events, of causes and

eﬀ ects’ are made visible (Van Loon 2002: 51). Translation is the media-
tion of risk. Mediation also means that the same technoscience both re-
veals and conceals the risk. Th

us, software engineers, hardware engineers

and the software itself tell us what can possibly go wrong with our PC,
and, simultaneously, tell us how we can avert the risk. Th

us, experts can

evoke scientiﬁ c sources to grant certain legitimacy to the representation
of risk, while also suggesting modes of using the same sources (Micro-
soft Help!) to alleviate the threat.

Risk perception is, thus, about

communication, and the media plays a

large role in this act. It selects what items to report, interviews ‘experts’,
structures the debates around the events, and in general cultivates an
atmosphere where the potential threat remains visible. If risk culture is
based on communication, it means that there is a

language of risk.

The Language of Risk

Risk is a matter of perception, and our awareness of risks is dependent
upon how certain situations are made visible to us.

Take for instance, our warning-sign cultures:

• Cigarette packs and their statutory warning signs.

• Medicines and their Schedule H warning.

Packaging Life

104

• Th e beating heart in advertisements for safe cooking oils.

• Toothpaste advertisements and their wriggly worm-like

things.

Each of this is a

representation of risk. Some suggest dangers of use

(cigarettes, medication). Others suggest sites of potential risk (cooking
oil adverts). And yet others show us graphic images of risk (toothpaste
advertisements). Th

us, the wriggly worms in the toothpaste advertise-

ments

represent the risk to our oral cavity. We recognize these wriggly

creatures as things that can cause infection, induce pain, and generally
make life miserable. Th

e advertisement shows us the cause of dental di-

sasters by pointing to these wriggly creatures. Th

e advertisement speaks

the

language of risk. Disease is the rhetoric of risk. In other words, risk

is a matter of representation, language, rhetoric and discourse. We have
to be made aware of through particular kinds of signs—statutory skull-
and-bones signs indicating poison or danger are the most common—
of the risk factor. Th

ere is, in short, a language of risk. Th

e wriggly

creatures—of no identiﬁ able species, or even remotely resembling the
actual causal agents of tooth decay—are imaginative representations of
so-called ‘dangerous’ life species. Th

ese visual representations are the

texts that generate risk culture, and risk consciousness. Th

ere is no risk

without a language, or a discourse.

e language of risk informs perceptions of risk, both individual

and collective. It is important, therefore, to decode the language of risk
because risk entails a course of action. Risk identiﬁ cation and risk aver-
sion are political acts, loaded with great signiﬁ cance for individuals or
groups identiﬁ ed as potential criminals, for instance, or as threats to the
social order. When post-9/11 the US government identiﬁ ed Arabs as
potential threats to America, it condemned a mass of people to a specif-
ic category: risk factors. Even popular TV programmes like

Crime Scene

Investigations (also CSI: New York and CSI: Miami) and a series of short-
lived science ﬁ ction TV programmes dealing with aliens invading the US

changed their rhetoric after 9/11, shifting focus from crime solving to
questions of justice and punishment of criminals—all of which contrib-
uted to the discourse of threat, risk, fear and of course increased surveil-
lance and military intervention (Dean-Ruzicka 2009; Takacs 2009). As
a practical-material consequence increased surveillance, documentation

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

105

and legislation made the lives of ordinary, law-abiding Arab Americans
diﬃ

cult. Here we see how risk operates:

A sense of risk → Identiﬁ cation of risk cause → Action to control risk cause

is sequence has to do with language and discourse because the law, so-

ciety and the individual must feel threatened enough by this risk-cause
in order to support surveillance and prohibitive–punitive measures. Th

fact that all discourses are schismatic—evidenced by the protests against
identifying/categorizing all Arab Americans as potential terrorists—does
not change the main argument: there are cultures and cultural condi-
tions in which particular people/groups are identiﬁ ed as risks.

Risks provoke action depending upon the nature of the risk and its

process of acquisition. Regina Lawrence (2004) looking at the emergence
of obesity discourse in the US suggests that the perception of health risk
varies if the risk was acquired voluntarily (for example, through smok-
ing) or involuntarily, if it aﬀ ects one or many, and whether it originated
in the individual or the environment. Lawrence notes that health risks
that are involuntary, universal, environmental and knowingly created
are more conducive to public policy debates and changes. Th

us, the

campaign against smoking in public places across the world was spurred
by the discovery that many people were

involuntarily at risk from pas-

sive smoking. On the other hand, the discourse against obesity has seen
the health risk of fat as something acquired by the

individual. Ultra

Violet radiation sickness demands a greater campaign because all of us
are involuntary victims to the ozone layer depletion and it aﬀ ects large
numbers of people.

Demythifying Risk

All cancers are genetic in origin…. A cancer occurs when something caus-
es a mutation in the gene that limits cell growth or DNA damage.

– ‘Tackling Risk’,

e Hindu, 4 June 2008, p. 3

e ﬁ rst requirement for a risk culture to develop is the rendering into

simple terms the process of threat and disaster.

Packaging Life

106

As lay people, we are not really concerned about the ﬁ ner physiologi-

cal processes of our digestive, neurological, circulatory or reproductive
systems. Th

erefore, we are also unaware of what can go wrong with each

of these except in vague terms like ‘heart attack’ or ‘indigestion’. Th

a ‘heart attack’ (a misnomer, as physicians would tell you) or ‘indiges-
tion’ involves a long and often extremely complicated process where
the physiological operations of the circulatory or digestive organs and
system break down is something we do not know about. Th

e physician

is the one who actually details the risks involved. X-rays, blood tests, ul-
trasounds and biopsies are agents that bring our risks home to us. What
they do is demythify our bodily processes for us.

e epigraph to this section is an example of how complex processes

like genetic mutation, cell growth or cell destruction are rendered intel-
ligible, or demythiﬁ ed. Demythiﬁ cation is integral to risk cultures. It

ex-

plains the causes of risk, the sources from where risk emanates or spreads,
the misconceptions about the risk, the preventive-curative mechanisms
that one can adopt to avoid/alleviate risk. Most importantly demythiﬁ -
cation makes risk part of our everyday life. Demythiﬁ cation works at
several levels, and caters to a wide spectrum of people and groups.

us a volume portentously titled

Bioterrorism: Psychological and

Public Health Interventions (Ursano et al. 2004) gives a more informed
reader a detailed account of anthrax, pneumonic plague, small pox and
other agents of biowars. Reprinting information from a Blue Book from
the Centers for Disease Control and its Biological Diseases/Agents List-
ing of April 2002, the editors map public health planning measures,
populations at risk after bioterrorism, possible mental health outcomes
after a bioterrorist attack and treatment or global warming. Global
warming, therefore, can best be seen in the map of annual mean change
in temperature over the last 1,000 years. While the graphs prepared by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001 may
not be readily comprehensible, a lucid commentary (McGuire 2002) on
the same graphs, targeted at the non-specialist reader does demythify for
us the process of climate change. Science becomes a mode of cloaking
danger.

Probability and statistics are modes of rendering into numbers

the depth of risk involved.

A key element in this demythiﬁ cation is the increasing availability

of statistics, maps, models and charts about any potential risk. An early

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

107

newspaper report on obesity in India informed us that ‘a whopping
10–14 per cent of the adolescent population worldwide is aﬀ ected by this
disease’ (Datta 2003). Th

e United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

helpfully organizes AIDS statistics from around the world in a
country-wise format.

e National Aeronautics and Space Adminis-

tration (NASA) releases maps of global warming for 2007.

Such sta-

tistics and maps serve the purpose of communication, and allow experts
to act at a distance.

It is crucial to identify the nature of such representations. Th

data and their representations (maps, graphs and statistics) are them-
selves

impervious to change or alteration (that is, the said graphs stay

this way). But, these graphs can also

travel into various contexts. Th

link up with prognostications of doom, the administrative machin-
ery, newspaper and media coverage of global warming and inform the
debates even among lay people. In other words, maps and hard data
are cogs in the mechanism of communication where they retain their
nature but can be transported between ﬁ elds. Th

ey combine with other

elements—reports, commentaries, counter-claims, artistic representa-
tions, political speeches—to eﬀ ect an entire discourse, public debate
or uproar about the risk, but all the while retaining a measure of
immutability. Such data can be used by professionals, commentators
(a good example here would be Al Gore’s ﬁ lm on global warming,
An Inconvenient Truth, which makes extensive use of hard data and
maps), prophets of doom, media, hysterics, the informed reader, art-
ists, administrators and policy makers. Data and maps here are what
Bruno Latour (1988) called ‘immutable mobiles’: they are mobile pack-
ets of information that serve communication, but themselves remain
untouched by the mechanics or processes of transmission. Immutable
mobiles are central to risk cultures because they constitute the language
of risk.

Risk comes to us mediated through such processes of communica-

tion. Th

e language of risk, I suggest, is the eﬀ ect of a

convergence. We

rarely meet a discussion of risk that does not involve ‘immutable mo-
biles’ (hard data) to which has been added expert opinions, media repre-
sentation, political-administrative opinions and the layperson’s version
of it. All of these

converge to create this culture of risk, and it becomes

increasingly diﬃ

cult to disentangle the various strands:

Packaging Life

108

• Where does a particular ‘bite’ of information come from?

• How much of this information has been mediated by experts,

the media or the state?

• Under whose authority has a particular bit of knowledge been

circulated?

• What are the ‘irrational’ myths about/around this bit of

knowledge (for example, the common misconceptions about
AIDS)?

Obesity discourse about youth, for instance, mixes opinions from

WHO, hard data about obese youth, graphical representations of fat
people, opinions from nutritionists, and the lay-but-informed parents.
Studies show how there is, because such a discourse, an

increasing de-

mand for surveillance of children prone to obesity as integral to ‘public
health’ studies, even though counter-arguments against such a mecha-
nism of intervention that has potential psychological risks also circulate
(Lake 2009). Th

ese demands are based on the

circulation and appro-

priation of the ‘immutable mobiles’ by various groups—the scientiﬁ c
community, parents, newspapers, health writers, the state, etc. Every
group appropriates particular versions of the ‘immutable mobiles’ and
generates its own language of risk and concern.

e paradox of the language of risk is that maps, stats and tables

such as mentioned earlier appeal to the rational, reasoning human—
who reads the future in ‘expert’ or reliable stats, but this very reasoned
response has to be edged with anxiety.

What generates anxiety is not

always a hysterical report on nuclear war. Hard scientiﬁ c data such as
the one Al Gore presents asks us to collaborate with the scientists in
recognizing—via a process of statistical

reasoning, mathematical logic

and

rational thought—the risk. However—and this is my key point—

for risk discourse to be eﬀ ective it

cannot stop at reasoning, logic and

rational thought. Th

ese must be accompanied by emotions.

e language of risk thus moves between twin poles of:

• ‘hard’ data to which we need to respond as rational human be-

ings who can ‘see’ the disaster waiting to happen and

• intense emotional responses to impending doom.

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

109

Watching AIDS victims or the tsunami disaster, we need to under-

stand the medical and geological conditions as ‘informed’ readers, but
at the same time, react emotionally to these sights.

Risk is clearly a mix

of the ‘objective’ and the aﬀ ective, and the language of risk has to work at
both levels. Th

us, to return to the MAX New York Life Insurance ad, the

woman who reacts

hysterically to the possibility of her partner’s death

must be

rational enough to put away money.

Embodying Risk

I have already spoken of risk culture as something that requires transla-
tion as a component of mediation. Th

is translation more often than

not requires the embodiment of intangible and invisible risks. Th

is is

most often seen in cases of health risks. Good health can be embodied
through representations of people having fun. Th

us frolicking men and

women or families at leisure are embodiments of good health, careful
lifestyle and risk aversion. Th

e language of health risk, I suggest, requires

a body. Embodiment here is taken to mean the giving of a body, casting
risk

as a body.

• Th e beating heart in cooking oil adverts gives us the bodily locus

of life—the heart.

• Th e processes of decay of our oral cavity require a ‘body’—the

teeth and gums—to be represented.

• Th e man who, chasing the petty thief who has just snatched his

wife’s purse in the TV ad, is soon exhausted. It is immediately
connected to a weakening heart.

e disease-causing bacteria or the weak physiological process (both

invisible) manifest and take shape here as the tiring body and the decay-
ing tooth.

What embodiment does is to take an intangible risk-cause or risk-

aversion event/thing and places it as a body for us to see. Risk, as noted
before, is a new way of dealing with the self and the world. Th

e body

is the primary site of our interaction with the world. If the world poses

Packaging Life

110

risks—from tobacco smoke to pollution to bacteria—then the ﬁ rst point
of contact with this risky world is also our body. Th

erefore, it becomes

necessary for us to better equip the body to deal with the world. Em-
bodiment is this process through which we re-do our body’s negotiation
of the world via a recognition of risk.

is embodiment is often used metaphorically. For instance, the

advert for Agarwal Packers and Movers depicts a man rowing across
shark-infested waters (

e Hindu, 2 June 2008, p. 4). His expression

of concern at being surrounded by creatures that would, in all prob-
ability, consume him is the concern for his body, his self. Here the
threatened body stands in for the threatened

body of goods an individual

or family might possess. Th

e man’s transport across the shark-infested

waters is a metaphor for the risks involved in transporting personal
belongings.

Embodiment can also work at the level of the nation or race. Th

image of the body politic that emerged in early modern England often
saw the nation’s body politic as being under threat from Jews, foreign-
ers, Catholics—all of whom were symbolized as diseases (Harris 1998).
AIDS, as numerous critics have noted, often carried connotations of
national identity (Das 2004; Waldby 1996). Th

us, India becomes the

body that is being invaded by AIDS in this early account:

AIDS in India is not in the nature of an invasion but merely a mild
incursion and can be stopped from extending its deadly grip if appro-
priate action is taken swiftly. (Nisha Puri, cited in Das 2004: 176)

e same essay was categorical in identifying the cause: ‘AIDS in this

country has been brought in by foreigners’ (Das 2004: 176).

Samuel Huntington, the author of the notorious ‘Clash of Civi-

lizations’ theory (in his book of the same title) is clear that America,
American identity, and the American way of life is at risk as a result of
immigration, multiculturalism that has diluted the American ‘creed’ of
democracy, individualism and liberty. America might become something
else altogether, he warns: ‘We Americans [in the wake of 9/11] were
not sure what we were, and uncertain who we were becoming’ (Hun-
tington 2004: 11). Th

roughout his new polemical work, Huntington

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

111

treats America as a unitary, coherent body at risk from internal as well as
external risk. He sees the American national and cultural body as frag-
menting, changing shape and invaded. A parallel closer home would be
Raj Th

ackeray’s vitriolic attacks on non-Marathis, where he represents

Marathi culture and Maharashtra state as being under threat. In ral-
lies across Mumbai in May 2008, Th

ackeray spoke ‘against the north

Indians saying that he will not allow them to destroy Maharashtra’s
culture’.

One report stated:

He [Th

ackeray] appealed to the local populace of Maharashtra to

preserve the rich culture and language of the state and to ensure the
economic and social growth of the local people. He even blamed the
Marathi speaking people for the confederacy by the north Indians to
control the Marathi culture. (Ibid.)

e national body, or the body politic, in both Huntington and

ackeray, are imaged and imagined as being at risk.

In the case of computer and information technology-related risks,

risk reproduces itself, like the virus. Ironically, computer viruses use the
very software put in place by the risk-management system to replicate.
Cyberrisks, as Van Loon points out, cannot be traced to an origin be-
cause cyberrisk works on the principle of dissemination. Th

is means

risk-management in the case of cyberrisks is of a wholly diﬀ erent order
(Van Loon 2002: 160). It is signiﬁ cant that even in such a case, we need
an identiﬁ able ‘cause’, one that possesses a body, albeit a body of code.
Th

is is the computer virus, which takes on the form of a rapidly prolif-

erating, lifelike ‘body’ that enters/invades the body of the PC to wreak
havoc. Th

is becomes yet another instance of the embodying of risk.

Risk, very clearly, needs a body.

‘Emotional Imaging’ and Moral Panics

Risk solicits a response. Th

e nature of this response depends greatly on

the language of risk: How is risk mediated for us?

Packaging Life

112

Emotional Imaging

Risk, in addition to legal, scientiﬁ c and political responses, more often
than not, generates an emotional response. Risk is primarily, I suggest,
an aﬀ ective phenomenon. Risk discourse’s eﬀ ectiveness depends on how
much

aﬀ ect it can generate. Social theorists have observed that the role

of newspapers has changed from investigative journalism to ‘emotional
imaging’ (Boyne 2003: 33). Th

is has major consequences for risk cul-

tures.

If risk is projected as something distant but disastrous, then our re-

sponses are suitably muted. If there is a global risk theme such as climate
change or attacks by aliens, then it requires a relevance to a

local con-

text for it to generate adequate responses. Th

us, converting the globe or

Earth into ‘home’ in the rhetoric of environmentalism (in the 1990s)
was a brilliant move. To describe the Earth as being at risk is not likely
to evoke the same degree of hysterical response as saying ‘your

home is

at risk’. It might be possible to develop an empathetic identiﬁ cation
toward a distant disaster or risk but in an age of ‘compassion fatigue’ we
have quickly tired of these. What brings global warming as disaster close
to us is not the plight of penguins or melting ice caps, but that

we now

experience hotter summer days. Hence, adverts that focus on risk invari-
ably use the cultural rhetorics of the family or home. When in a recent
ad for Lizol cleaning ﬂ uids, the lady ‘doctor’ posing with a bottle of the
product asks, ‘Is your family living with germs?’, the question is directed
at all responsible members of a household, called to worry about at all
members of the

family (Good Housekeeping, March 2009, p. 83)—and

thus plays upon our emotional attachments.

Risks need to be culture speciﬁ c in order to arouse strong emotional

responses. Such emotional responses are very often constituent of ‘moral
panics’.

Moral Panics

e Pune rave party, resulting in the arrest of 270 youths (including

students, a few foreign nationals and software engineers) in March 2007
sparked oﬀ a variety of debates. Here are a few of the responses:

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

113

At the heart of the present crisis of the urban youth lies the
insuﬃ

ciency of traditional models of ethics to govern lives of the

young in contemporary India, prompted by late capitalism and a
dominant consumer culture. (

e Hindu, Metro Plus, 28 March

2007)
It made one puke to learn that Pune city, once the seat of learning
and erudition in Maharashtra, has now become a centre for ‘rave par-
ties’ of the student community. Drugs on the soil made sacrosanct by
the likes of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Lokmanya Tilak and Veer Savar-
kar is what our youth has made of modernism born of globalisation.
(Lavakare 2007)
Th

e youth should not waste their surplus income on things that

ruin their health and our culture. (Letter to the Editor,

e Hindu, 8

March 2007)

On 12 December 2007 at the Euro International school in Gurgaon,

Haryana, 14-year old Akash Yadav and 13-year old Vikas Yadav shot
and killed a 14-year old student Abhishek Tyagi

. NDTV reporting this

incident said: ‘Th

e recent incident lays claim to the rising instances of

juvenile crime in the national capital region’ (Pandey and Kain 2007).
Responses to the incident immediately went into moral panic mode,
ﬁ nding various causes, from globalization to the spread of the media.
Here are a few:

Without a shadow of doubt, we are well on our way to globalisation.
Th

ere will be no looking back now.

e incident shows how children are being groomed by their par-

ents and teachers, how inhuman they are becoming, and what eﬀ ect
our media have on our children. It is unfortunate that the electronic
media have done more harm than good to society.
Teachers and parents together with the media should share the
blame for Tuesday’s incident.
Children lack good role-models both at home and school. With
neither parents nor teachers to emulate, they are swayed by the media
which project umpteen number of negative role-models. (Letters to
the Editor,

e Hindu, 13 December 2007)

Packaging Life

114

It was of course inevitable that somebody identiﬁ es the culprit: the

West. So we have: ‘Teenage gun culture of the West is taking deep root
in the minds of our young’ (

e Hindu, 14 December 2007b).

ese are moments when a cultural crisis is perceived. At stake here,

as these comments suggest, are Indian morality, values and traditions
itself. Th

ere is no attempt to see beyond the moral dimension. West-

ernization, wealth and ‘liberalism’ are immediately identiﬁ ed as the cul-
prits. Th

us, the school shooting at Gurgaon, one respondent claims, is

partly the result of aﬄ

uence: ‘Students from aﬄ

uent families, in par-

ticular, are becoming more violent’ (

e Hindu, 14 December 2007b).

Another respondent echoes this view in a letter published the same day:
‘Th

e money aﬄ

uent school children spend poses another problem. Th

develop a tendency to view everything in terms of money’ (

e Hindu,

14 December 2007b). Th

is is a

moral panic.

Moral panics are connected to risk cultures because they build upon

a culture’s anxieties and speculations about the direction their culture is
taking. In other words, moral panics bring to the surface the hidden ten-
sions of a society caught in its transformative processes. In the rave party
case, what we see is an anxiety that young people now possess disposable
income unimaginable by their parents’ generation—and they seek to
spend rather than save this income. In post-liberalization India, there
is more disposable income available to those in the age group of the
twenties and thirties than ever before, and causes a major shift in social
and cultural dynamics. Th

e opinions expressed clearly reveal an anxiety

about this shift. What we have, therefore, is a moral panic, coded as:
‘What is India’s youth coming to?’

A moral panic is generated when a situation, individual or group

of people is perceived as a threat to a culture or society’s values. Such
moral panics often have a brief but highly visible presence in the media.
Th

e representations of the moral ‘crisis’ elicit response from so-called

guardians of morality: from politicians (who thrive on moral panics)
to priests, teachers and media persons. Solutions are oﬀ ered by social
commentators and ‘experts’. Th

is could include laws, new regulations

and awareness programmes. Eventually, the condition that created the
panic disappears, but might be resurrected any time there is another
such context.

In the case of the rave party we can see all of these features present

in the responses:

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

115

• A situation of yuppies with disposable income.

• Identiﬁ cation of ‘causes’.

• Extensive media coverage in all national newspapers.

• Comments from professors and lay persons alike.

Moral panics are almost always located in institutional contexts: me-

dia, the Parliament, pressure groups (Crichter 2003: 168). Th

ey are in-

tense while they last, but are short-lived.

Moral panics, argues Chas Crichter (2003: 174) usually consist of

the following elements:

• Th e source of the threat explained.

• Th e nature of the threat to the moral order.

• Likely victims of the threat.

• Campaigners against the threat.

• Remedies.

• Ultimate responsibility for protection from the threat.

e discourse of moral panics is also hierarchic (Astroﬀ and Nyberg

1992). It moves from a discourse about a speciﬁ c problem to a discourse
about the extent to which the problem aﬀ ects the innocent and consti-
tutes a moral threat, and ﬁ nally to the discourse about evil

in general.

is is a process of

saturation (Joﬀ e 1999: 92).

Saturation is when a particular event is invested with symbolic

meanings that circulate in that culture. Th

us, a rave party drug scene

is saturated with multiple discourses such as morality, youth culture,
money and westernization. Each of these has particular symbols that
come together to saturate the description, responses and interpretation
of the Pune scene. Th

ese symbols include: consumerism, drugs, Western

music, dancing. Each of these symbols, as we note in discourses against
global culture among Indian youth, stands for the evil that is the West.
Th

e West rarely comes to the discourse for its art forms, country music

or advances in clinical medicine. Instead we see McDonald’s, rock and
roll, punk and Hollywood ﬁ lms as ‘inspirational’ in diverting Indian
youth. Th

is is saturation, where otherwise incongruous elements enter

the discourse to ensure particular responses to the event. Th

is saturation

Packaging Life

116

converts the singular event into a moral panic, and identiﬁ es evil at a
larger general level.

In the rave party case, the debate moved from the 270 youngsters

caught to ‘Indian youth’ in general. Th

e case becomes symbolic—

actually a synecdoche, a part standing for an entire whole—for the cor-
ruption of Indian youth itself. A rave party comes to stand for the de-
pravity of youth across India as a whole. Th

is larger discourse is one

about evil identiﬁ ed earlier. It is no more the Pune rave party we are
speaking of here. Rather, we are speaking of a malaise that aﬄ

icts a large

section of India’s population. Moral panics and their discourse of larger
or more widespread evil, rely on such an

inﬂ ationary rhetoric. It is only

by proposing that Pune is the proverbial tip of the iceberg that a general
social anxiety is opened up. Th

at is, in the subsequent debates about the

Pune rave party, very little of local, historicized or speciﬁ cs are (or have
to be) used. Using Pune as a launch pad, we can speak of ‘Indian’ youth
itself. Pune loses its speciﬁ city in the moral panic it generates. Th

is is the

crucial feature of risk culture—one event can always be used to speak of
larger social evils. It is in the nature of moral panics that the actants in
the process—from the media to social commentators to lay persons—to
open up the debate beyond the immediate case. In order to do so, the
rhetoric of risk often does something else: it sees the case as part of a
larger pattern. It sees the case as one more event in a series of evil events.
Every disastrous event is linked with former ones, and used to predict
future ones. Risk discourse takes a single discrete event—an utterance—
and converts it into part of a gigantic text. Here, what we see is the
construction of a large

text, an archive of disasters and risks.

e recent cyclone in Myanmar (May 2008, Cyclone Nargis) evoked

comparisons with the 2004 Tsunami, any industrial disaster brings back
Bhopal and Chernobyl (1986).

It is by locating the present event as part

of a

continuum that social anxieties circulate. Th

us, a letter to the editor

e Hindu following the Gurgaon school shooting was emphatic in

seeing the incident as part of a series: ‘Th

e gory incident cannot be seen

as an isolated act of child rage’ (

e Hindu, 14 December 2007b). Moral

panics ‘package’ one crisis within a series of similar, or related, crises.

Moral panics and risk discourses often occur during moments of so-

cial transition. Th

e moral panic over the depravity of Indian youth, the

‘loose’ morals of the Indian woman or the criticism of the IPL’s T-20

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

117

tournament with its cheerleaders (though the last is not really a moral
panic, the responses it evoked through April–May 2008 shares charac-
teristics with moral panics) come at a time when we see massive changes
in economic independence of the Indian woman, the higher income
for youth and the new forms of entertainment–business–sports links.
Social theorists have argued that when older forms of social bonding,
relationships and aﬃ

liations break down and boundaries blur, there is a

moral panic that calls for a greater reinforcement of boundaries.

return to ‘spiritualism’, the revival of the older generation of national
leaders and the call for a greater introspection into ‘our’ traditions are
actually calls for greater border policing: ensuring that ‘our’ tradition is
not contaminated (that is, our borders invaded) by ‘others’.

Once the risk has been identiﬁ ed and embodied, ‘produced’ and

anxiety levels raised, the package now oﬀ ers another discourse—that of
the expert.

The Culture of the Expert

Risk, as we have seen, is about the interpretation of signs, where the
signs suggest danger.

• Th e climatologist tells us the consequences of the meltdown of

polar ice caps.

• Th e cardiac specialist tells us of the cumulative eﬀ ects of choles-

terol build-up in our arteries.

• Th e insurance company tells us of the liabilities one might incur

in educating one’s children.

Everything in risk culture depends on the process of evaluating the

degree of risk and the magnitude of potential damage. Evaluation, as
Mary Douglas persuasively demonstrates, is a political, aesthetic and
moral matter (Douglas 1994: 31).

If your electricity bills are high due to air-conditioning, then, sug-

gests the Bluestar ad, you need to call in the experts. Applying for a
housing loan from a bank, you have the bank’s oﬃ

cial architect, legal

expert and others examining the prospective home before they issue the

Packaging Life

118

loan. Th

ese are basically evaluations of risk—whether of high bills or

illegalities in construction—done by ‘experts’. However, even experts
are not always in agreement. Th

e degree of risk involved is often rated

diﬀ erently by experts. Th

e denialists of global warming, for instance,

claim that threats from the situation have been exaggerated. Th

ose who

deﬁ ne or interpret risks—the experts—are often aware of what other
such experts have been saying. In other cases diﬀ ering expert opinions
and scientiﬁ c uncertainty get glossed over in favour of a pre-determined
story (or metanarrative) of risk, causes and aversion modes so that a
public policy can be put in place. Th

us, even as scientists diﬀ er over the

link between UV radiation, global warming and enhanced cancer-risks,
these diﬀ erences are abandoned due to the dominant and agreed-upon
story of risk and preventive behaviour (for a study of this form of public
culture’s meaning making see Garvin and Eyles 1997).

Risk deﬁ nition and interpretation is a public debate (or discourse)

where opinions are often sharply divided. Even the personal view of the
experts can come into play here for the precise reason that s/he is an
‘expert’. In risk culture, therefore, even the private speech of the expert
becomes a critical component of public discourse. Th

ese studies and re-

ports symptomatize the culture of the expert where evaluation is at once
political, scientiﬁ c and social.

e ‘experts’ has now assumed diﬀ erent forms. New Age gurus,

quacks, mystics and illusionists also serve as experts to particular kinds
of people. Certain communities and communes (such as the Amish in
the USA) hold science in distrust. India’s continued reliance on Ayurve-
da and native systems of medicine (called alternative medicine) means
that ‘Western’ systems of technoscience and medicine are distrusted by
these practitioners and believers (say, Baba Ramdev). Th

e consequence

is that these groups and individuals perceive a greater amount of risk
in science. Studies have shown that those who continue to rely on folk
superstition or are converts to New Age beliefs often see greater threat
in science (Sjöberg and Wåhlberg 2002).

e ‘experts’ construct information by weeding out the ‘useless’ com-

ponents. Th

ey revise and represent the data for public consumption.

is scientiﬁ c ‘story’ of AIDS, obesity, global warming or nuclear disas-

ter then becomes a

social story. Th

at is, data and constructed storylines

of risk become public messages. When the National Family Health

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

119

Survey (2006) identiﬁ es men and women in Punjab, Kerala and Delhi
as more prone to obesity it locates a medical condition. However, it is
signiﬁ cant to note that the ‘scientiﬁ c’ study does not restrict itself to
nutritional values or Body Mass Index—what it does is to locate obesity
with speciﬁ c cultural contexts. Th

e Survey writes:

Obesity, the other side of poor nutrition, is a substantial problem
among several groups of women in India, particularly urban women,
well-educated women, women from households with a high standard
of living, and among Sikhs. (National Family Health Survey 2006)

e report makes a social point here—about standards of living—

and unites scientiﬁ c study with cultural commentary. A more recent
study, conducted by the Associated Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (ASSOCHAM) and reported by

e Economic Times on the

eve of Women’s Day, 2009, stated that 68 per cent of working women
in India suﬀ er from lifestyle diseases, including obesity, depression,
chronic backache, diabetes and hypertension. Th

e report quoted several

sections of the study:

Also hectic schedule of balancing workplace and home, along with
balancing between social and personal requirements, lead to women
ignoring their health. According to the chamber, 77 per cent of re-
spondents said they avoided routine check-ups.
Women play vital and multiple roles, especially those who are em-
ployed, as a balance needs to be maintained by them both at home and
workplace, thus ignorance of healthcare can have multiple implica-
tions on her surrounding environment such as her family, workplace
and social network. (

e Economic Times 2009)

e study references cultural, social and economic contexts of the

woman’s ailments. It links lifestyles (heavy work schedules, lack of exer-
cise and inadequate time for meals), socio-cultural conditions of domes-
ticity and family in order to paint a horriﬁ c portrait of women’s health.

Numbers are crucial to the culture of the expert because they suggest

a calculable probability, a convincing story rather than a messy subjec-
tive account. What is not given to the public discourse of risk is that

Packaging Life

120

these numbers and stats have been constructed out of a vast amount
of data. Th

e scientist asks: How can I best describe this condition from

the mass of data that I have? She/he therefore puts together a

narra-

tive with numbers that conveys the story she/he wants to tell. Expert
advice leads to political, administrative and social policy. Th

at is, the

culture of the expert is central not only to the recognition and public
awareness of risks, but also to practices that are used to avoid or mini-
mize them.

e ‘packaging’ of risk, relying upon the imaging and become-real of

risk, embodiment and the ‘culture of the expert’ also has one ﬁ nal ele-
ment: risk practices of blame-apportioning and risk aversion.

Risk Practices

e recognition of risk demands and generates responses in a wide

variety of forms, from administrative measures to mass hysteria. Per-
ceived threats are to be neutralized and measures put in place to avoid
similar things recurring in the future. Risk perception is therefore
never distinct from practice. In order to understand the mechanics of
risk and counter-practices, we need to understand how risk causes are
packaged.

Risk and Blame

It is important to realize that risk perceptions can be (and often are) en-
gineered by interest groups (such as politicians), elites (such as those who
worry about anti-social elements targeting the wealthy) and others (such
as Greenpeace that oppose nuclear power). Fundamentalist groups engi-
neer social anxieties in the face of events such as the Pune rave party by
suggesting that the event was the consequence of Westernization of our
youth. Th

is argument helps them to push their agenda of stricter moral

policing—often translated into restrictions on women—as a preventive
against ‘depravity’.

Very often, as thinkers have suggested, the elite gen-

erates moral panics to distract attention from a bigger crisis for which
they may be partly responsible (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994). Th

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

121

Ramar Sethu debate of April–May 2008, would be a case in point. Th

debate over the bridge—mythical or historically proven—occupied the
front page as newspapers follow the court arguments of S. Parasaran,
the Government of India and the emotionally-charged responses of
people. What is interesting is the

prediction of widespread social unrest

among Hindus should the government refuse to ‘protect’ the bridge.
Th

e arguments being made through furious letters to the editor mention

the fact that this is a matter of belief rather than historical veracity or
juridical decisions.

is is moral panic in the making, perhaps engineered by particu-

lar organizations that saw it as a plank for the 2009 general elections.
Th

e timing of this issue and related moral panic suggests this. What is

important is that this subject has come to occupy the imagination of
people across India. Th

e moral panic, here, cleverly deﬂ ects attention

from what ought to have been of greater concern: the inﬂ ation and rise
in prices of essential commodities [incidentally reported right below a
piece on Rama Sethu (

e Hindu, 8 May 2008, p. 10)]. Religion can

always be calculated to create anxiety, and, therefore, moral panic.

In this

case a cultural-religious risk becomes an eﬀ ective means of deﬂ ecting atten-
tion from economic risk.

However, it is not true that moral panics are exclusively engineered.

Risk debates and moral panics are never just elite-engineered (for politi-
cal gain) or a spontaneous expression of a cultural anxiety. In fact, the
elite engineering of risk or panic would not work without an underly-
ing cultural anxiety. Purely political explanations of moral panics are
bound to fail for the simple reason that any manipulation of a society’s
consciousness must appeal to an underlying sentiment, fear or anxiety.
Ideological manipulation—such as the irrational fear of our geographi-
cal and political neighbours—cannot work eﬀ ectively without building
upon current global trends of the fear of the ‘Islamic terrorist’, for in-
stance. When George W. Bush, the then President of the United States,
and Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State claimed in April–
May 2008 that global food crises stem from greater consumption by
Indians, he was again appealing to a First World anxiety: of immigrants,
the Th

ird World and the erosion of ‘white’ supremacy.

Without this

underlying grid of cultural-psychological anxiety, the text’s ideological

Packaging Life

122

manipulation or political engineering of mass sentiments will not signi-
fy risk. Th

is underlying grid or subtext is also a process demythiﬁ cation

of risk—this time through blame-apportioning.

I have already suggested that demythiﬁ cation is central to the public

imagination of risk. However, demythiﬁ cation is only

one component

of risk. A related move to demythiﬁ cation in risk discourse and moral
panics is the construction of identiﬁ able villains and causal factors. Th

is the other side of risk: blame or scapegoating.

Blame could assume the form of myth-making where mythic

causes—especially groups of people, sects and practices—are identiﬁ ed
as part of the writing of risk. In the 19th century, syphilis was associ-
ated with black women and prostitutes. Th

e names given to this disease

shows how blame is integral to risk. Th

e English called it French Pox,

the French termed it

Morbus Germanicus (German disease), the Floren-

tines called it Naples sickness and the Japanese knew it as Chinese dis-
ease. Th

e Indian called it

feringhee roga (white man’s disease).

In each

case the blame for the dangerous disease was attributed to an ‘Other’,
preferably one’s cultural and political enemy or rival.

While India does not become the US’s ‘Other’, the threat of the

immigrant-as-Other was the identiﬁ able subtext, the grammar if you
will, of George W. Bush in his speech, in the same way that he used the
Islamic-terrorist-as-Other for post-9/11 surveillance, war and excessive
militarization of the Middle East. Scapegoating is a mechanism within
risk discourse where the society is rid of its dangerous, unwanted or im-
pure elements. Th

is means sending away the presumed, attributed cause

of the chaos or disaster. By pinpointing a source within our culture as
the cause of the chaos, risk discourse absolves the culture itself of all
blame. Th

us Hindu fundamentalists would see the Muslim as the cause

of social unrest, thus ﬁ nding in the entire community a scapegoat for
everything. Th

e First World nations would point to immigrants as the

main cause of all problems plaguing them. Indira Gandhi used the fa-
mous image of the ‘foreign hand’ (a reference to the USA) as a scapegoat
for India’s crises. During the Nazi years, Hitler engineered hatred by
suggesting that the Jews were to blame for Germany’s problems. Of the
people arrested and sought for at the Pune rave party, a ‘red corner alert’
was issued for the

foreigner supposedly present there (DNA 4 March

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

123

2007). Raj Th

ackeray claims that Maharashtrians are unable to ﬁ nd jobs

because of North Indians. Raj Th

ackeray went on to claim, according

to one report, that ‘Uttar Pradesh and Bihar had a plan to take over
Maharashtra’ (Menon 2008). We have already noted how aﬄ

uence, the

media and the declining standards of school education have been seen
as causes of the Gurgaon school shooting. Another periodical,

Global

Politician, identiﬁ es India as posing a threat to Bangladesh in the form
of AIDS transmitted by Indian security forces posted in the Northeast.
It goes on to state:

is also reveals the truth that Indian soldiers are morally bankrupt

and India oﬃ

cially allows them to be bankrupt through commiting

[

sic] such immoral and illegal act of sexual relations. (Abedin 2005)

e process of blame apportioning is a puriﬁ catory ritual, where we

invest a person, event or thing with all the evils of that culture and im-
pose punitive measures on it.

In each of the cited instances, a causal

agent is identiﬁ ed and risk attributed to the agent’s very presence. It
appears that Th

ackeray wants the Maharashtra culture to be cleansed

of the non-Maharashtrians. Th

e letters to the editor after the Gurgaon

school shooting seem to suggest that aﬄ

uent people’s children might

have to be kept out of schools. Moral panics invariably work on this
principle of exclusion and eviction—and this is a group sentiment.

What is clear here is that risk is always already informed by a group

sentiment. Numerous social theorists have argued that when faced with
particular problems which have no antecedents, individuals draw on al-
ready circulating ideas and ways of thinking—in other words, let them-
selves be inﬂ uenced—by their group’s thinking (Joﬀ e 1999: 10). Very
often, the scapegoats—the ‘accused’—may have very little to do with
the crisis, but social engineering relies on the established stereotypes of
the ‘Muslim terrorist’, the violent Bihari, the treacherous Chinese, the
lawless youth, etc. Stereotyping ensures that a readily recognizable cause
is available to generate panic. A good example would be the witch hunts
that occur periodically in parts of rural India. Following is one report
on the condition:

Packaging Life

124

Police in Jharkand receive around ﬁ ve reports a month of women
denounced as witches, but nationally the ﬁ gure is believed to run to
thousands. Th

ese incidents usually occur when a community faces

misfortune such as disease, a child’s death or failing crops, and a
woman is suddenly scapegoated ….
Th

e belief is that shaming a woman weakens her evil powers. And

because these crimes are sanctioned by the victim’s community, ex-
perts say many of them go unreported. (Prasad 2007)

Women are routinely classiﬁ ed as witches and tortured and killed.

e report makes it clear that the assault on women classiﬁ ed as witches

is usually provoked by matters that have nothing to do with witchcraft.
Th

e following news item cites a development organization’s report on

the subject:

A Seeds [the organization] report explains that the ‘witch’ label is also
used against women as a weapon of control; branding a woman is
a way to humiliate her if she has refused sexual advances or tried to
assert herself. And the deep fear of witches can also be whipped up
to grab a woman’s land or settle old family scores. ‘It is easy for inﬂ u-
ential villagers to pay the ojha to have a woman branded to usurp her
property,’ states the report. (Prasad 2007)

Material connections between those blamed for the chaos would be

tenuous at best, or even non-existent, as the example just cited. Scape-
goating and blame-apportioning reveal the paradox in the packaging of
risk language.

e paradox of scapegoating is that while elites engineering moral

panics claim evidence for the material link between particular groups
and chaos, they are

actually appealing to sentiments and emotions.

On the one hand risk discourse seeks rational thoughts on probability,
cause–eﬀ ect sequence and ‘hard data’ (evidence). Yet, for Th

ackeray’s

rhetoric to be eﬀ ective, what he appeals to (and needs) is not a ratio-
nal response but emotional ones. Th

us, scapegoating is never a rational

move, or one based on empirical studies. It thrives on an aﬀ ective lan-
guage of blame.

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

125

e rhetoric of blame in the packaging of risk attributes evil, wrong-

doing, social unrest and economic crisis to an Other. Th

is could be an

Other who is

outside the immediate geographical or cultural milieu (as

in the case of Indira Gandhi’s ‘foreign hand’ or George Bush’s 2008 ti-
rade against India’s eating habits). What is frightening, however, is that
increasingly, risk discourse has turned

inwards, seeking the Other within

our own cultural, social and geographical set-up. Th

us the Th

ackeray

tirade is not against the ‘Other’ states of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar,
but against the UP-ites and Biharis

within Maharashtra. Th

e Bharatiya

Janata Party (BJP) ﬁ nds the Muslims

in India as the culprits for every-

thing—from population growth to terrorism.

Blame in risk culture

means that any individual can always ﬁ nd a scapegoat drawn from a
collective neurosis about the Other as a cause for her/his crisis. Since
risk involves mass communication, it is almost certain that several such
individual opinions (constituting a mass opinion or public space) can
come together to target an Other.

Blame is often connected not only with the elite that engineers risk

awareness and moral panics but also with the ‘expert’. Why do ads for
toothpaste, fairness creams, cooking oils, all require actors masquerad-
ing as doctors? Th

ere is an implicit assumption that once approved by

the medical fraternity, the product is ‘safe’. Th

e reliance on expert opin-

ion for everything, from food to foot and mouth disease, means that
the discourse of risk is tightly regulated by an institution—whether it is
the Indian Medical Association (whose stickers adorn the Eureka Forbes
Aquaguard) or the environmental scientists cited by Greenpeace.

Risk Aversion

Risk, as I have suggested, entails action. Avoiding risk is now a central
feature of public health, environmentalism and the stock market. Th

individual as well as the collective work toward minimizing risk: risk
is packaged as a condition that needs to be

managed. At an individual

level we have become managers—of our health, looks, lifestyle, future,
career and ﬁ nance. Th

is means avoiding risks in any of these areas. We

are asked to:

Packaging Life

126

• manage our cholesterol levels to avoid the risk of heart prob-

lems,

• manage our ﬁ nances to avoid the risk of debts and

• manage our weight to avoid the risk of obesity.

Lifestyle magazines, advertisements for various products and services,

banks, insurance companies, even the government oﬀ ers advice on how
to ‘manage’ these aspects of what once used to be everyday life. Th

ere is

a deﬁ nite politics here. If consumer culture promotes a politics of the
autonomous human subject who is free to make choices and take deci-
sions, risk cultures demand that the individual act to avert risk. Th

is, the discourse of risk encodes a politics where the individual is a free
agent, a manager and decision-maker who must do something about
imminent risk. It places the individual human subject at the centre.
Th

is is a cultural rhetoric of individual destiny, choice and agency, but

one which seems to grow out of a Western view of the individual-centric
world.

e discourse of risk, I propose, participates in

a discourse of mana-

gerialism—but a managerialism that is not only about organizations and
careers but about everyday life and the self. We are witnessing a ‘how to’
phenomenon now: ‘how to’ manage careers, relationships, professions,
leisure, politics, parenting, ﬁ tness, the body, etc. Lifestyle magazines
are cultural texts that provide a ‘How to’ for self-representation and
everyday life management (Hancock and Taylor 2004; Henry 2006).
Th

ey oﬀ er suggestions and ‘tips’ on style, ﬁ tness, gadgets, ﬁ nance, trav-

el and relationships in order that the individual—encoding the politics
of the individual free subject, of course—can manage these aspects
of everyday life better. Th

ey aim to teach us skills to do what we do

on a regular basis so that we can get better results everyday. Numbered
steps can presumably help you lose weight, get better sex, make more
money and occupy your boss’ chair. Th

e discourse of risk is often im-

plicit in the rhetoric of management, because to attain a ‘full life’, as
suggested by this rhetoric, one needs to avoid risks. While we work at
attaining all these, we also work to avoid sexually transmitted diseases,
cholesterol, bankruptcy, employer animosity and social antagonism.
Hence:

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

127

• Healthy people have a better chance of experiencing fulﬁ lment

in their careers, family and social life (as suggested in ads for
cooking oils and health food).

• Healthy children have a better chance of doing well at school (as

suggested by many health drinks ads).

In the Naukri.com ad, the man who can be abusive toward his boss is

the one who has taken the precaution of having another job ready. Th

risk he takes in abusing his boss is therefore one that has been hedged-in,
averted and minimized through a precautionary move.

It is important to note here that risk aversion is a task, or even a

duty. Contemporary social theorists have observed that risk discourse
has generated a new form of the human self—one that deﬁ nes life as an
enterprise of oneself (Robertson 2001). In other words, life is a project
one embarks on to constantly manage and work at, and thus, improve.
Th

e prudent man saves for the education of his children (Max New

York Life Insurance). Th

e prudent woman ensures a happy family by

serving non-oily food. In each of these, we see the individual embarking
on a project of self-improvement. Risk, thus, creates a new form of the
self: the

managed self, and demonstrates an ideological subtext of the

autonomous individual subject.

is projection of the managed self is also coloured by another ideo-

logical subtext: that of gender. Th

e cultural rhetoric of the family places

the burden of the family’s health on the woman. Th

e social expectation

(which is a political matter) that the woman is the one responsible for
the family’s health—and will therefore seek the healthiest oil—achieves
a signiﬁ cant alignment. Th

is alignment is of domestic consumption and

gender roles, and is thus an example of the

cultural politics of domestic

consumer culture. Th

e woman is projected as possessing a ‘domestic

autonomy’—the term is Pauline Hunt’s (1995)—and therefore, of in-
dividual

agency—in choosing health and healthy consumption, for her

family. She

manages her self when she manages the health of and alleviates

risks for her family.

e managed self is one that averts risk through the ‘right’ lifestyle

choices—from consuming Nutralite and Sugarfree to health insur-
ance. Th

e control of excess is central to risk aversion, and is a matter

Packaging Life

128

of conscious and individual

choice. In order to understand this concern

with fat-free oils, cholesterol and body-shapes, take the obesity issue in
India. Obesity as risk is framed within multiple discourses. Th

e ﬁ rst is

obviously medical-biological. Nutritionists and physicians will inform
us that a Body Mass Index (BMI) in excess of 30 indicates obesity. Re-
searchers caution us that ‘cardiovascular disease in Asians is associated
with insulin resistance and diabetes doctors

might need to evaluate new

biomarkers for heart

disease’ (Mudur 2003). Th

ese are

medicalized un-

derstanding and framing of obesity, and do not quite project it as a
lifestyle problem.

However, there are other discourses in which obesity and its risks are

not simply nutritional problems but a matter of lifestyle, and therefore
of individual choice.

I have already cited the National Family Health

Survey which identiﬁ ed obesity as a problem aﬄ

icting ‘particularly ur-

ban women, well-educated women, women from households with a
high standard of living, and among Sikhs’. Th

is frames obesity not with-

in a biological context alone (which would be the nutritional aspect),
but as a

cultural feature.

A 2005

Observer article by Amelia Gentleman (2005), citing a sur-

vey by the respected All India Institute of Medical Sciences, noted
the increasing ‘epidemic’ of obesity in India. What was interesting in
this article was the way obesity in India was framed in cultural, econo-
mic, social and biological terms. It opened with the following state-
ments:

India is facing an obesity crisis among its newly wealthy middle class
as millions of its rural poor still struggle for enough to eat. As the
country becomes richer, many people are becoming fatter and, like
Westerners, they are seeking medical help.

It noted that ‘Seventy-six per cent of women in the capital, New

Delhi, are suﬀ ering from abdominal obesity’. It then added:

e problem underlines the vast divide between India’s thriving

urban areas and the impoverished rural regions, where millions are
struggling to feed themselves. Around 45 per cent of Indian children
under ﬁ ve suﬀ er from malnutrition, says the World Bank.

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

129

And towards the end:

With obesity come related problems, from diabetes to heart failure.
An estimated 25 million Indians have diabetes, and this is forecast to
grow to 57 million by 2025. (Gentleman 2005)

e article marks obesity as a cultural problem—that of the new

rich, of indulgent lifestyles and economic prosperity. While it mentions
the medical-biological problems involved, the emphasis on obesity as a
cultural marker and a class-problem frames it diﬀ erently. One physician
quoted in the article says: ‘If you are rich, you can pick up a phone and
order a pizza. You have a car, so you dont need to walk anywhere.’

Another physician who treats obesity states: ‘People are snacking in

a new way. Many children no longer take lunch-boxes to school. Th

drink cola and eat burgers.’ Th

e article adds: ‘Families now spend more

than ever on eating out and buying processed food’ (Gentleman 2005).
Th

e entire article thus sees obesity-related risks as those that character-

ize particular classes who do not alter their luxurious, unhealthy life-
styles. In its conclusion, another article in the prestigious

British Medical

Journal, noted that ‘80% of their [Malaysian children’s] leisure

time was

spent watching television or on indoor

games’. Leading on from this

‘fact’ of children’s’ lifestyle, a physician declares: ‘We’re heading for a
disaster’ (Mudur 2003). Once again, the medical discourse of obesity
risk dovetails into a cultural critique.

A cardiologist writing in the edi-

torial of the

Calicut Medical Journal warned that lifestyle diseases were

no more the province of the aﬄ

uent First World. He noted:

In the yester years, life style diseases were diseases of the aﬄ

uent and

uncommon in the developing world. Gone are those days and now
they are an important threat to developing economies, draining a
good chunk of their scanty health budget. (Francis 2008)

Here, the doctor rejects the contention that lifestyle diseases do not

occur in India. Th

ere is an implicit suggestion that with aﬄ

uence and

development lifestyle diseases are also commonplace here. In some cas-
es, cancer and other feared diseases have also been projected as lifestyle
diseases (Musso and Wakeﬁ eld 2009).

Packaging Life

130

A diﬀ erent example that embodies the same cultural rhetorics of life-

style diseases comes from a report on AIDS in India’s call centres. Th

New Zealand Herald reported:

A new AIDS threat is rising in India’s numerous call centres, where
young staﬀ are increasingly having unprotected sex with multiple
partners in aﬀ airs developed during night shifts. (

e New Zealand

Herald, 23 June 2008)

All these articles, in many ways, become critiques of a lifestyle.

Some castigate India’s new rich for being inattentive to health mat-
ters and proper nutrition. In eﬀ ect, the discourse sees obesity risks as
the failure of the individual to watch what she/he eats. Th

is frames

obesity risk within the

individual paradigm—it is not involuntary, or

a disease that comes from the environment, but something that results
from an individual’s choice of lifestyle. In other words, obesity risk is
situated within the discourses of individual choice and the ‘managed
self ’ I identiﬁ ed earlier. Th

e ‘managed self ’ is the politics of consumer

culture—which posits an autonomous individual at the centre as a free
agent. In the case of the AIDS report, it attacks the call centre workers
for promiscuity and unprotected sex—once again a comment on the
lifestyle.

In the age of health and ﬁ tness consciousness—there is no newspa-

per or magazine that does not carry a ﬁ tness column today—the con-
scious adoption of a healthy lifestyle is not simply about the individual
managing of risk but

being a participant in a cultural movement. What I

am proposing here is a simple (enough) thesis:

By averting risk through

healthy living practices, consuming the right things, investing wisely and
dressing appropriately (to avoid what has come to be called ‘wardrobe mal-
function’) I ﬁ t into the culture of ﬁ tness and well-managed bodies and
subjects. Th

e stigma associated with obesity, for instance (something

pointed out in the

British Medical Journal essay cited earlier), is a cri-

tique of indulgence and a life of luxurious excess. Th

e frequent refer-

ences to India’s general poverty juxtaposed with the narrative of upper
class obesity in all these writings is also a criticism of those uncaring
individuals who consume in prodigious quantities while the rest of

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

131

India starves. Excessive consumption, therefore, marks out the obese as
a lesser ‘good citizen’!

Like the emergence of a ‘consumer citizen’—one who is a good citi-

zen because she/he consumes—the managed self is a good citizen—and
this is its politics.

She/he is suited to the age and culture: ﬁ t body,

ﬁ nancially sound, forward-looking and responsible. I see risk as central
to the creation of such a citizen. In other words, even

the individual

choice of a healthy lifestyle in order to avoid risk is a social and political
gesture because it becomes a part of a cultural ethos of ﬁ tness and prosperity.
Th

e discourse of individual choice is the politics of consumer culture

whereby an ideology of responsibility, duty, care and social role is mar-
keted to the so-called ‘free’ individual in order to persuade her/him to
make a choice.

In contemporary culture this ‘managing’ of the self and risk are pack-

aged and commodiﬁ ed. You manage your ﬁ tness, your ﬁ nance, your
child’s future, your marriage by taking recourse to various products and
services: safe cooking oils, insurance, household goods and appropriate
safety devices. Risk aversion culture, aligned with the culture of self-
management almost always comes packaged with other such elements
that can be purchased. Risk too is a commodity, and considering its very
nature, you buy more in order to keep risk at bay!

Risk is thus packaged for us in various forms—mediated by experts,

cast in a language of embodiment and emotion, driven by statistics and
hard data, calling upon us to imagine a future disaster, enabling a moral
panic through the identiﬁ cation of causal agents, and ﬁ nally, asking us
to ensure that threats are alleviated by taking charge of our self and lives.
Risk moves from being a threat to a justiﬁ cation for particular kinds of
action—what I term ‘bubble-wrapped’ life.

Notes

See http://www.eurekaforbes.com/products/healthcare/healthcare.php (accessed
on 8 May 2008).

A study of life insurance marketing in India notes that several advertisements
carried the message of the family’s safety and security (ICFAI Centre for Man-
agement Research 2006: 36).

Packaging Life

132

3 In a self-reﬂ exive way, I must also draw attention to the fact that this chapter

(and book) develops its proﬁ le by citing experts (scholarly journals), statistics
and evidence. Th

ese are what lend authority to this author, even as the author

critiques the culture of the expert!

  4  SMSs received by Anna Kurian, 4.30 p.m., 20 October 2008.
  5  See http://www.licindia.com/nri_centre.htm (accessed on 8 May 2008).
  6  During the 19th century India was mapped for its diseases. Medical geogra-

phies such as J.R. Martin’s

Notes on the Medical Topography of Calcutta (1837)

and J. Fayrer’s

On the Climate and Fevers of India (1882) pointed out ‘risk

areas’. In the 20th century, research has located health within speciﬁ cities of
place and culture (see Gesler and Kearns 2002).

7 I am working here with Bruno Latour’s Actor Network Th

eory in

Science in

Action (1987).

8 AIDS in particular has attracted a substantial portion of apocalyptic prophesy-

ing and rhetoric. See Düttmann (1996) and Long (2005).

9 See http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/gr-climate-changes-2001-syr.htm (accessed

on 8 May 2008).

10 See http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/india_statistics.html#45 (accessed

on 8 May 2008).

11 See http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/ (accessed on 8 May 2008).
12 For a reading of this rational-emotional component of risk discourse in the case

of nuclear power, see Corner et al. (1990: 112).

13 See

http://www.india-server.com/news/raj-thackeray-again-targets-north-788.

html (accessed on 15 April 2009).

14 Th

e ‘tragedy’ of the Myanmar ﬂ oods, wrote one report, reminded ‘the presi-

dent [of Indonesia] of the December 2004 tsunami’ (Higgins 2008).

15 For a summary of such interpretations of moral panics see, besides Crichter

(2003), Arnold Hunt (1997).

16 Th

e frequent debates on ‘appropriate’ clothing for women engineered through

violent protests and harassment of women by the Shiv Sena, the Bajrang Dal,
the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and more recently the Sri Rama
Sene in India, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan indicate that the wom-
an’s body (and its fashions) remains the locus of regulatory and regimentary
social norms. Th

is situation is, however, not unique to India, and recent studies

have shown that debates over what has been termed ‘porno-chic’ (women’s so-
called titillating clothing) is severely dichotomized even in Europe—where ‘de-
viant’ clothing for boys is seen as an instance of the freedom of speech, whereas
similar clothing for girls becomes the subject of potential social regulation (see
Duits and Van Zoonen 2006).

17 One letter warned that the government was likely to hurt ‘the religious senti-

ments of a billion people’ (

e Hindu, 9 May 2008, p. 10).

Life, the Bubble-wrapped Edition

133

18 Th

is was what Bush said at World Wide Technology, Inc., Missouri: ‘Th

ere are

350 million people in India who are classiﬁ ed as middle class. Th

eir middle

class is larger than our entire population. And when you start getting wealth,
you start demanding better nutrition and better food. And so demand is high,
and that causes the price to go up.’ See

e Tribune (5 May 2008) and Th

Hindu (4 May 2008).

19 For an account, see Susan Sontag’s classic work,

Illness as Metaphor (1990,

originally published in 1979). Also see Sander L. Gilman,

Disease and Repre-

sentation (1988) and Health and Illness (1995).

20 Scapegoating, as Mary Douglas famously argued in her

Purity and Danger

(1966), often results in the sacriﬁ ce of the scapegoat in order to purify others.

21 An accused BJP MLA blamed the Muslims for the Ahmedabad riots (

Times of India, 25 November 2003, available online at http://www.timesoﬁ n-
dia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/314286.cms, accessed on 8 July 2009).

22 Until 1985, in the USA, obesity was an individual problem, a matter of life-

style. In 1985 a National Institutes of Health panel declared obesity a public
health problem, thereby forcing the government to address it as a matter of
public intervention and health policy. However, the debates about obesity as a
medical condition have not been put to rest. Th

us, critics have asked questions

of obesity that merge the medical with the socio-cultural: ‘Is obesity the end
product of impairment, or is impairment itself? … Is obesity the result of an
addictive personality (where food is the addiction)? Is “addiction” a genetically
pre-programmed desire for food or the mere inability not to know when one is
no longer hungry?’ (Gilman 2004: 234).

23 Obesity discourse and the culture of ﬁ tness and slim bodies is a highly gen-

dered discourse. Women are under greater pressure to look good, and the rou-
tine debates about anorexic women in beauty contests suggests that fat and the
feminine remain cultural issues in most cultures. For a study see Susan Bordo,
Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body (1990).

24 Th

e term has been used by Mike Featherstone (1991).

Chapter 4

Life, the High-speed Edition

Cultures of Mobility

India Today Rides on Hero Honda.

– Tag Line, Hero Honda Motorcycles

Move On.

– Tag Line, Fastrack Watches

e Road Ahead and Business@the Speed of Th

ought

– Titles of Bill Gates’ books

obility is the dominant metaphor, theme and politics of the late
20th century.

• We speak of the upward mobility of the middle classes.

• Cellphones enable communication and entertainment on the

move.

• Naukri.com oﬀ ers us help in career mobility.

• Fastrack watches advise us to ‘move on’ in our relationships.

• Th e state prepares roadmaps for development.

• Capital ﬂ ows across the world in the age of globalization.

Mobility is sought after, desired, promoted, cheered and projected as

the most desirable condition of human life. It involves personal choices,
institutional support, policy-making, ﬁ nances, plans and technological
devices. Mobility becomes synonymous with success, development and
connectivity.

Mobility could be:

• Vectoral in the sense we are governed by both, speed and direc-

tion (say in road maps for tackling infectious diseases) or

Life, the High-speed Edition

135

• A random, rhizomatic networking of people via Orkut or Face-

book.

Mobility could be about the actual

physical act of transportation—

automobiles, mass transport systems, pedestrian traﬃ

c. Or it could

be a

metaphor to show changes in class demographics of a nation: the

middle class of an earlier age generating yuppies who ‘move up the
social ladder’. It could even be used to discuss relationships, as in the
Fastrack watches ad where it urges the young man to ‘move on’ from
a failed relationship (aired on TV in 2008). Young India, says the Air-
tel ad (aired on TV in 2009) ‘impatient’, shows speed, change and
ﬂ uidity.

Our images and metaphors seem to capture a fact of life itself: move-

ment. Images of roads, maps, travelling, speed and movement are all
around us. Th

e ‘high-speed’ edition of life that the title of this chapter

underscores is about both movement and its pace. Mobility is projected
—packaged—as something to be desired, something inevitable and
something beneﬁ cial and something that can be acquired. In this chap-
ter I explore some of the conﬁ gurations of mobility. I move across kinds
of mobility—from mobile connectivities in the virtual to the physical
aspect of automobile culture to cultural mobilities of food and styling
and ﬁ nally to what I take to be the main icon of mobility (both literal
and metaphoric): cosmopolitanism.

I want to see how mobility comes packaged to us in many diﬀ erent

contexts, in many diﬀ erent shapes, and with very diﬀ erent consequences.
My ‘inquiry’ is into the

manifestations of mobility in contemporary life.

e discourse of mobility, by which I mean the kinds of things that

are said about mobility, but also the

hidden metaphors, suggestions and

politics of mobility, is what concerns me here. ‘Packaging mobilities’ is
the process by which movement and change—for I assume, in Einstein-
ian fashion, that movement in space is movement in time, and that
motion is change—become desirable qualities, products, processes and
events in everyday life. ‘Packaging’ indicates the

promotion of mobility

as a desirable feature of human life, but also the fact that it comes to
us in very diﬀ erent

forms (packages). Indeed the word ‘pack’ itself once

meant ‘to

carry in any manner’ as in ‘to carry or convey in a pack’, indi-

cating mobility.

Packaging Life

136

Packaging mobilities demonstrates how we live in a

culture of mo-

bility, where every aspect of life seems to be permeated with images,
ideas, acts and metaphors of mobility. Th

eorists speak of ‘ﬂ ows’ (Castells

1996) and ‘liquid modernity’ (Bauman 2000) in this, the informational
age. Imperialism itself has been recast, without territorial limits or a gov-
erning centre in a de-centered, perpetually shifting condition of ‘empire’
(Hardt and Negri 2000). Th

is is the age of mobility and movement, of

diverse types, degrees and eﬀ ects.

Mobility, in short, is more than about simple, physical displacement

or motion. Increasingly, of course, mobility is informational (data,
images, music, capital) and in fact, critics have argued that automobil-
ity and information technology (now increasingly taken to also include
mobile phones with Internet capabilities) constitute two of the chief
forms of mobility that alter notions of the public and private: in short,
alter the conditions of home, work and social life, and the world itself
(Sheller and Urry 2003).

is chapter signposts some of the most signiﬁ cant of these forms,

manifestations and discourses of mobility: connectivity, consumption,
automobility, cultural mobilities and cosmopolitanism.

Mobile Connections

‘I can call you up from anywhere.’
‘Eighteen countries,’ he reminded me. Just in case, though he gave me
his number in Tokyo and his oﬃ

ce number in Tokyo. He gave me his fax

number “at home,” his fax number “at the oﬃ

ce” and his home and of-

ﬁ ce numbers in Hong Kong. He gave me his fax numbers in both places,
an 800 number for his voice mail, his mobile number, his mother’s fax
number, his oﬃ

ce fax number in London, and his E-mail address. He

even gave me toll-free number for calling his voice mail from Japan.
Somehow, that left no room in my address book for his name.

– Pico Iyer (2000: 113)

Connectivity is arguably the most dominant term in the late 20th
century’s culture of mobility. Metropolises across the world thrive on
connectivity: the connectivity of stock exchanges (perhaps the most

Life, the High-speed Edition

137

important of all), newsrooms, scientiﬁ c databases, entertainment chan-
nels and, ﬁ nally, personal communications. Manuel Castells (1996), in
his epochal works on the information age, has described this as the space
of ‘ﬂ ows’. ‘Flows’ imply movement, and is a good term to describe the
traﬃ

c of information, humans, cultures, products and capital in the late

20th century. It also implies connectivity—via roads, people and elec-
tronic communication—between places and regions. ‘Flows’ is about
mobility.

Connectivity is mobility because it captures the

movement, exchange,

intersection and crossing (legitimate or illegitimate, formal-institutional
or informal, political-collective or individual-personal) of news, ideas,
products, capital, identities and politics. Connectivity is the

transmis-

sion of concrete objects (via road or rail transportation) and ‘immaterial’
things such as sentiment (smiley icons transmitted via email or SMSs)
or data. Connectivity must be seen as a process that facilitates the move-
ment of goods, products or abstract qualities like sentiment. Connectiv-
ity, in other words, is about a process that creates

routes for goods, ideas,

news, money or sentiment to

ﬂ ow. In fact, the discourse of connectivity

sometimes explicitly references communications and networking as in-
tegral to national progress. Th

us the Indian Institute of Space Science

and Technology advertising for faculty positions has as its main visuals
a satellite launch, the earth with linked geostationary satellites in place
and two people in front of a monitor (watching the satellite launch).
Th

e tagline says: ‘Guide the Trajectory of National Progress’, suggesting

that communications and networking—mobility—are the key elements
in progress, itself mapped as ‘trajectory’, indicating directed movement
(

e Hindu, 2 June 2008, p. 7). Here, the cultural rhetoric includes an

appeal to a commonly accepted idea of national progress, development
and communitarian roles. Most signiﬁ cantly, connectivity must be seen
as a process that links places, people, ideas, objects, groups, nations and
capital through the act of movement (whether physical or electronic).
Mobility is, therefore, not simply the displacement of something from
Place A to Place B. Rather mobility is what

connects Place A and Place

B, or Individual A and Individual B. It is a process rather than a ﬁ nished
product that occurs between two or more points. Mobility from the late
20th century

could very well be a synonym for communication itself.

Packaging Life

138

Within this process of generating routes and forms of communica-

tion, two modes stand out as the most signiﬁ cant developments in late
20th century culture of mobility: the mobile phone and online social
networking. I take these two as iconic of mobile cultures because I see
them as paradigmatic of a new form of mobility itself: one that allows
individuals and groups to transcend—move across—geographical and
physical barriers to ‘be with’ somebody else elsewhere as never before.
Communication facilitates community, as Raymond Williams has ar-
gued (1961: 55). Synchronous communication—instant messaging,
cellphone conversations, Twitter—constitute a culture of mobility be-
cause they help individuals move across, over and beyond vast spaces,
cultures and nations. We

travel in the act of communication, even as we

stay in the same place. Mobile communications and electronic network-
ing are geographical modalities. Th

at is, they are modes of occupying

two geographical spaces at the same time—a radical act of mobility.
Instantaneity is the culture of this speed-of-light connectivity.

Cell Phones and Multiple Mobilities

What exactly does a cell phone provide us with? As numerous ads sug-
gest, one does not have to be out of touch from business, family or
love ever. A cell phone is connectivity that ensures what James Katz
and Mark Aakhus have termed ‘perpetual contact’ (Katz and Aakhus
2002: 301–18). Th

is is connectivity on the move. Mobile relationships

traverse space through the cellphone.

Mobile phones enable what I call ‘immaterial mobility’. I use the

phrase in two senses. First, immaterial mobility is the phenomenon
where your movement through space ceases to matter (except in terms
of signal coverage). Th

at is, your physical location, movement and pos-

ture have ceased to matter, except in a purely technical way: it is imma-
terial. In the second sense, I see cell phones as enabling a connectivity
without a movement. What moves is something immaterial: electronic
waves and signals. What moves is

information as signals, arranged in

patterns (data packets). A new form of mobility is literally at hand. It
involves the acting together of the material, technological, economic
and social structures of the information age (including the handsets, the

Life, the High-speed Edition

139

transmission towers, the band width, the Telecom Regulatory Authority
of India and its policies and the social contexts of communication), or
what is termed ‘informatics’ and the immaterial signals that constitute
information. Th

is mobility is made possible by the intersection of the

‘materiality of informatics and the immateriality of information’ (Hayles
1999: 193).

‘Immaterial mobility’ is the mobility of the information age, where

we move cocooned in an atmosphere of electronic signals, shifting be-
tween ‘alien’ signals (that is, not our own), while our handset plucks
out ‘our’ signal to set us on the immaterial route to connecting with
whoever we want to connect with. ‘Immaterial mobility’ intersects with
‘real’, material life and cultures of the everyday in very signiﬁ cant ways.
Earlier, mobile phones were devices used by people who traversed large
distances in the course of their everyday work—policemen, sales per-
sonnel, doctors. Th

at is, people whose jobs required excessive mobil-

ity where the ones who used mobile phones (car phones, initially, then
pagers). In other words, the mobile phone was a supplement to their
already considerable mobility. From the 1990s, this has changed, where
immaterial mobility is not necessarily connected to the routine mobility
of people’s everyday lives. Immaterial mobility is not a supplement but
a constituent of even routine mobility (evidenced by ordinary situa-
tions like people in supermarkets checking with their partners/families
at home as to what they should buy, or by the increasing social impera-
tive of ‘never leave home without it’).

Mobile phones are now more or less integrated into the everyday

life of people. Immaterial mobility therefore results in some interesting
developments vis-a`-vis everyday, routine mobilities. Th

e mobile phone’s

increasing convergence with Internet technologies, movie-making and
blogging makes the handset an interesting site of

multiple mobilities.

at is, immaterial mobility is the source of multiple mobilities in eve-

ryday life.

A mobile phone’s ‘immaterial mobility’ alters the experience of mate-

rial mobilities of work, home and leisure. Diﬀ erent spaces can be negoti-
ated in ways that were not possible earlier. People begin their work day
at home, and carry their homes with them on public transport, in their
cars and to their oﬃ

ces. Mobile phones oﬀ er a mobility of ﬁ xed spaces

where the home connects to the oﬃ

ce via the route of the phone. One

Packaging Life

140

can be connected with ‘home’ on the bus ride returning from oﬃ

ce.

us, ‘immaterial mobility’

provides spaces of home and oﬃ

ce, leisure and

work, a certain amount of mobility because the distance and distinction
between the two break down. Th

is gives us a

mobile geography, where

concrete places that one is physically traversing at that moment merge
with the virtual space to which one is connected while speaking. Th

at is,

I can simultaneously occupy the space of my home and the city street as
I travel to work. When I converse with somebody at home as I commute
to work I am carrying my home-space with me

virtually. I stay at home

even as I commute, I work even when I am commuting. Th

is mobile

geography does not do away with the concrete reality of the space one is
walking through; what it does, however, is to transform my experience
of it because I am in a virtual

elsewhere even when I am here. Every space

becomes a

hybrid space in this through a mobile geography because we

combine, say, the tactile experience of walking with the aural experience
of listening to a voice from elsewhere. In eﬀ ect,

I am at the same place

wherever I am because I am always available on my mobile phone.

Social relationships are signiﬁ cantly altered with mobile communica-

tions. It may not enable the creation of new social relations, but it goes
a long way in reinforcing existing ones. I see this function of instant
communications and social networking via groups SMSs as an instance
of

mobile sociability itself. It is now possible to be in constant touch

via synchronous communication, with another individual or an entire
group. Sociability is made possible even one is doing something else
(like work, for instance). What I call mobile sociability is this sense of
social bonding, networking and exchange between individuals or groups
(one to one, one to many, many to many) facilitated through a speedy
communications route. Th

e repeated references to staying in touch with

friends and family in the discourse of mobile communication embody
the cultural rhetorics of intimate connections.

Mobility is, therefore, intrinsic to new forms and a new quality of

sociability, and marks the emergence of a new cultural condition. In this
new cultural condition, one need never be out of the social network, no
matter what activity she/he is engaged in, her/his geographical location
or immediate social context. Mobile sociability also describes what is in-
creasingly visible in youth cultures. Intimate communities are sustained
through intensive networking. An individual is able to stay connected

Life, the High-speed Edition

141

with her/his aﬃ

liating group via the mobile. Th

is means, an individual’s

social identity is reinforced through communications. Mobile sociability
is therefore an intrinsic component of belonging, social identity and
aﬃ

liation.

Mobile phones also alter the private/public distinction with many

private conversations being conducted in public spaces. Work intrudes
into the home sphere through online work, and the home intrudes into
the work or social sphere when we take private calls. As social theorists
have put it ‘the information revolution has implanted zones of publicity
into the once-private interior spaces of the self and home’ (Sheller and
Urry 2003: 117).

Actualized in this informational age is, therefore, a

mobility that

creates hybrid spaces of private and public when it blurs the distinctions
between them.

Social Networking and Mobile Subjectivity

Rama Bijapurkar in her study of consumer India has argued that In-
formation Technology, Communication and Entertainment (ICE) are
instrumental in ‘shaping a new India’ (Bijapurkar 2007: 180). If this
is true, then one of the most signiﬁ cant developments in metropolitan
India is the mobility that characterizes social life.

MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, etc. have transformed the way individu-

als, notably youths, interact with each other. Social networking sites are
extraordinarily popular applications of information and communication
technologies (ICTs). According to the highly respected Nielsen survey,
the top 10 social networking sites collectively grew 47 per cent year over
year between 2006 and 2007 (AC Nielsen/Net Ratings 2006). Friend-
ship and the reinforcement of existing relations have been rated as the
main reasons for joining social networking sites (AC Nielsen 2008a).
In fact, the impact of ICE in contemporary India has been signiﬁ cant
enough for

India Today to speak of a ‘wired generation’ (Bobb 2006).

ICEs have transformed earning power (in terms of careers), recreation
and entertainment options and, most importantly, the sociability of
the young. And this sociability is dominated by a virtual existence and
traversals.

Packaging Life

142

Mobility, I suggest, is a characteristic of the new sociability. Mobile

phones, most self-evidently, constitute an important element in this
new sociability making multiple forms of communication available—all
on the move. Th

e conﬁ guration of social spaces through mobile commu-

nications, and the shifting perception of mobility through the access to
virtual social spaces is what this section is interested in.

Following Sonia Livingstone’s argument, I suggest that the ‘proﬁ le’

created on the networking site is less a root than a

route (Livingstone

2003). It is neither a proﬁ le complete in itself, nor one that presents a
coherent self. Proﬁ les in networking sites are

nodes for people to con-

nect to, link with in the form of responses and conversations. Com-
munication between people on a networking site relies very often upon
such proﬁ les. Th

us the nature of communication and its extent (people

reaching out to the individual) depend on the proﬁ le generated. To put
it diﬀ erently, the individual travels outward in the form of a mediated
(touched up, selective) proﬁ le on the networking site. Networking is the
process of extending one’s ‘proﬁ le’. If mobile phones facilitated mobile
sociability in radical ways, social networking expands on it.

e ‘route’ in social networking is constant activity—self and others’

—on one’s webspace. Scholars have argued that like blogs, these proﬁ les
constitute ‘continual activity of representing the self ’ (Livingstone 2008:
399). Th

e diﬀ erence between this situation and earlier eras is that online

communication involves a close interface between man and machine,
both involved in the act of communication. Such networked bodies are
cyborgs. Bluetoothed, networked and implanted (in some cases), the
humans of today are cyborgs. Th

ey are cyborged because they extend

their bodies, consciousness and themselves into diﬀ erent domains
(virtual) and time zones and across geographical spaces. Th

e social

networking site is a parallel world where relationships of this concrete,
ﬂ ush-and-blood one move ahead, reinforcing, collapsing or building.

Social networking often involves young people being online for sub-

stantial periods of time everyday. It could be argued that this constitutes
a new form of subjectivity itself. Subjectivity in networked (cyborged)
humans, as Hayles puts it, ‘is seen as part of a distributed system [the
cybernetic circuit]’ (1999: 290). Social networking, online commu-
nication and virtual lives depend on this extension of subjectivity and

Life, the High-speed Edition

143

identity into cyberspace. Th

e subject becomes

mobile because it is dis-

seminated, at once in the here and now and in the elsewhere of cyber-
space. Th

e person at the keyboard is both ﬂ esh-and-blood being and the

virtual avatar she/he manipulates in cyberspace. To return to Hayles, ‘It
is not a question of leaving the body behind, but rather of extending
embodied awareness in highly speciﬁ c, local, and material ways’ (1999:
291). I see this posthuman dissemination of subjectivity—enabled by
ICTs and online lives—as a new form of mobility because it

takes subjec-

tivity out of the grounded, limited body and extends it.

If, as in traditional communication theory, all communication begins

with the individual, and it is communication that generates subjectiv-
ity (Gunkel 2000), then what is the subject of communication in the
case of cyborg individuals who spend a considerable period of their life
in virtual environments? What is important is that cyborg individuals
emerge in the

act of communication. Th

at is, it is in the act of communi-

cation, creating and living online lives and networking that the individ-
ual’s subjectivity emerges. Th

is communicative subjectivity emerges ﬁ rst

as a networked self. Th

e networked individual—proﬁ le, responses, feed-

backs, and constant updating of the representation of the ‘self ’ online
—is not entirely a coherent self because much of this self depends on the
communication process online. Such a fragmented, connected, diﬀ used
online life creates what I call a

mobile subjectivity.

What I am signalling is a technologically enabled phenomenon

where subjectivity and identity increasingly depend on being

mobile—

constantly changing, updating,

connecting—in the circuits of communi-

cation, since (as I stated at the opening of this chapter), mobility is about
transmission, communication and connection. Subjectivity depends upon
being on the road or online.

Central to this ‘routes’ model that generates mobile subjectivities

is the feedback mechanism. As William J. Mitchell has pointed out,
‘swarms of SMS-equipped youth’ are not very diﬀ erent from bees,
schools of ﬁ sh or ﬂ ocks of birds. Th

e latter are held together in ‘for-

mation’ through short-range feedback loops. In the case of the SMS-
equipped youth, on the other hand, ‘the electronic feedback loops link-
ing their actions extend beyond their line of sight, maybe for many
kilometres’ (Mitchell 2003: 32). Th

is also means that now, more than

Packaging Life

144

ever before, subjectivity shifts from the individual to the social condi-
tions in which

communications takes place. Mobile subjectivity is this

condition of what I have elsewhere called the ‘hyperlinked self ’ (Nayar
2009a). Th

e youth (mainly) who connect (almost) exclusively through

SMSs and electronic networks make their subjectivities by sending their
selves

out of their immediate corporeal (bodily), geographical (spatial)

and locational coordinates.

So then we can move toward a deﬁ nition of such a mobile subjectiv-

ity epitomized in the avatar of Second Life or Facebook? Here is an au-
tobiographical deﬁ nition from a leading commentator on cyberculture:

For this particular early-twenty-ﬁ rst-century nodular subject, discon-
nection would be amputation. I am part of the networks, and the
networks are part of me. I show up in the directories. I am visible to
Google. I link, therefore I am. (Mitchell 2003: 62)

Connectivity is all.

Consuming Mobility

If life, as ad guru Santosh Desai puts it, ‘is not a condition but a prod-
uct,’ then it follows that products are manufactured, displayed, sold,
purchased and used (cited in Bijapurkar 2007: 178). In other words,
we all become consumers of a product called life (assuming we accept
Desai’s argument).

e world is increasingly ‘consumerized’, so much so that social theo-

rist Mike Featherstone has announced the emergence of the ‘consumer
citizen’ (1991). Indian youth represent, according to surveys and re-
ports, one of the world’s largest consumer markets. India topped the
2006 AT Kearney Global Retail Development Index, indicating a sharp
rise in spending on consumer durables, apparel, entertainment, vaca-
tions and lifestyle products. To use just one instance, Indians are spend-
ing 30 per cent more on vacations than in 2002.

India’s fast moving

consumer goods (FMCG) sector is the

fourth largest sector in the econ-

omy

with a total market size in excess of US$ 13.1 billion. According to

the highly respected AC Nielsen Consumer Conﬁ dence and Opinions

Life, the High-speed Edition

145

Survey (a bi-annual study, the most recent one, in October–November
2006 was conducted with over 25,000 respondents from 45 countries,
including 15 from the Asia-Paciﬁ c region),

India is at the top of the con-

sumer conﬁ dence index for the fourth time in a row (AC Nielsen 2006;
India Brand Equity Foundation 2007). India’s sudden emergence as the
world’s consumer capital led the India directory at www.mapsoﬁ ndia.
com to describe the country as a ‘shopper’s paradise’, going on to de-
clare: ‘[T]he whole country is a shopping mall’ (Maps of India 2007).

Time magazine announced a ‘new breed of consumer in India—young,
increasingly wealthy and willing to spend on everything from mobile
phones to speakers to French fries’ (Schuman 2003). Finally, of course,
it is interesting to see that mobility is coded into the very marketing
terminology of consumer goods: Fast

Moving Consumer Goods.

Consumption is linked to mobility in several ways. To begin with,

it has increasingly become tied to connectivity, even in India. Reports
show that more and more of the younger generation prefer to shop on-
line (AC Nielsen 2008b). And connectivity, as we have seen, is inti-
mately connected to mobility. However, consumer culture creates what
can be called

mobile consumption. My focus on mobile consumption

relies primarily on the organization of shopping within the city (malls,
in particular) and the features that link mobility with the act of con-
sumption.

Consumption, at a very basic level, is linked to the act of walking,

looking and browsing. Mobility is intrinsic to the shopping experience,
especially in contemporary mall cultures, and generates mobile con-
sumption.

e mall combines the stroll with shopping: you walk down

pathways in this controlled space and look in through shop windows
before deciding on a visit a store. Th

e mall is actually an enclosed, care-

fully monitored street (Backes 1997). Th

e earlier pedestrian on a city’s

thoroughfare is transformed into a stroller-cum-shopper inside the mall
(Abaza 2001).

e mall’s spaces of mobility are radically diﬀ erent from that of the

city because it is more organized—with marked pathways to walk on,
sit and sell. Designated places for rest, leisure and entertainment are in
sharp contrast to the traditional chaos of the Indian street (here there be
no cows!). It is also a highly secured and sanitized space. Th

e entrances

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146

are guarded and closed-circuit televisions (CCTVs) monitor all move-
ment. ‘Undesirable’ elements are kept out and potential threats quickly
neutralized by security guards. Unlike a ‘free’ street of the Indian city
where everybody, theoretically speaking, is entitled to walk anywhere,
the mall circumscribes mobility. Th

e mall has changed the space of the

city because what once used to be free, common space is now

privatized

when it is taken into the mall. Th

e mall also organizes the views encoun-

tered during this mobility. As I have argued elsewhere, malls constitute a
new form of hyperreal spectacle, a fantasy zone with little ‘locale’ (as in
local culture) and excessive cosmopolitanism (Nayar 2008b, especially
Chapter 4).

Rachel Bowlby in her study of modern shopping has noted that the

urban ‘passer-by’ when transplanted into the countryside (in literature)
is distracted from commercial and city concerns by the pastoral sights
(Bowlby 2000: 52–54). I suggest that mobile consumption within the
space of the mall

distracts the consumer from the normal conditions of

walking in a city—the buildings, the potholes, the traﬃ

c, the vehicles (in

India deﬁ nitely something to watch out for) and local landmarks—and
directs the attention mainly to store fronts and windows. I am proposing
here that

mobile consumption entails a diﬀ erent set of cognitive experiences

from that of walking in the city and heading to an old-fashioned store
(where one does not stroll

through).

is new set of cognitive experience of mobile consumption involves

a lesser awareness of the structures and technologies of visibility. Shop
windows bring the goods and products, and the fantasy worlds within,
into prominence while themselves becoming, literally and ﬁ guratively
transparent. We do not notice the windows, only the things within.
Hence, one of the most signiﬁ cant architectural features of malls is to
have as many reﬂ ecting, see-through surfaces as possible. Th

is is a key el-

ement in the structure of mobile consumption where we are invited not
to buy, but to ﬁ rst buy and consume with our gaze. If mobility in the
city is aligned with a combination of aural, olfactory and tactile features
and needs, then mobile consumption demands a primacy of the visual
and mobile consumption is primarily about visual cultures. Th

e shop

window is not simply aesthetic, it is persuasive, and seeks to

inﬂ uence a

change in your mobility: from walking away to walking into, mesmerized
by what your eyes behold.

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147

Yet, another crucial link between mobility and consumption in

the case of modern shopping comes from the organization of human
encounters. Malls invite strollers, those walking for the aesthetic pleas-
ure of looking and desiring, but not necessarily buying. It becomes a
place that organizes encounters with strangers, but under regulated
circumstances. Mobile consumption is also about these regulated en-
counters with strangers within the aesthetic spaces of the mall. Indeed,
shopping itself includes, to a great extent, secretly watching what

oth-

ers are buying. Th

e wistful look, the envying look, the appraising look,

the contemptuous look and the aimless stroll meeting strangers, is part
of the shopping experience, and, I suggest, a part of mobile consump-
tion. It becomes a form of sociality itself. Th

is new form of sociality

of mobile consumption approximates to what sociologist Zygmunt
Bauman has termed ‘proteophilia’. Proteophilia (derived from Proteus,
the Greek god who could change form at will) prompts aesthetic spacing
that encourages

play, aimlessness and wandering, in contrast to cityspac-

es that seek to impose order (Bauman 1993: 164, 168, 172). While
Bauman used the concept to describe strollers (or what are called
ﬂ âneurs) in the city, I believe the notion is easily applicable to strollers
inside malls.

e pleasure-seeking stroller inside the mall traverses multiple

forms—looker, purposeless wanderer, potential buyer and voyeur. Th

proteophilic mall

encourages aimless wandering, frittering away time, at-

tracted by the visual displays put on for us to consumer. Unlike the city
streets—other than in special ‘spots’ for lingering like Mumbai’s famous
Chowpatti or parks—and roads, the mall

promotes lingering. Mobile

consumption is proteophilic because it does not actively seek move-
ment from place A to place B, rather, it encourages

random movements

across the highly aestheticized space. Unlike a city’s thoroughfares that
are more or less ‘directed’,

mall paths are meant to be traversed erratically,

combining various directions, tangents and multiple trajectories. Mo-
bile consumption is not about ‘heading to’ particular destinations (just
observe the lingering walk of people inside malls), rather, it is ‘walking
around’ (a term used most often to describe this form of locomotion).
Mobile consumption is proteophilic because it is

aesthetic and ludic:

playful, often (but not always) purposeless and shape-shifting within
aestheticized and controlled spaces.

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148

I would now like to shift the focus on to another aspect of mobile con-

sumption. Th

is is also a shift from ‘micro’ patterns such as mall cultures

and their mobilities to larger global ﬂ ows of objects and consumers.

Globalization has meant, for many countries, the availability of

global brands and products. Commodities, as several studies have
shown, possess not only economic, but also symbolic and social ‘val-
ues’ (Appadurai 1986). Th

e intrinsic worth and meaning of objects is

something that often becomes hard to deﬁ ne—for instance, the self-
esteem generated by a Blackberry mobile, a BMW or a foreign holi-
day. Value is often culturally determined, and can be shared across a
peer group (thereby deﬁ ning what is ‘in’ or ‘cool’ among, say, college
youth). It is important to understand that ‘consumption’ in such cas-
es also involves the image or sign of the product: the Golden Arch of
McDonald’s—now, apparently, having surpassed the Christian cross as
the second-best known signiﬁ er on earth (Kinchloe 2002: 146)—or the
Nike swoosh.

is has, in some cases, had political consequences, primarily in the

battles against McDonalds and Walmart in various parts of the world
and the use of the presence of globally

circulating brands in the battle for

self-respect, nationalism, identity and local cultures. Mobile consump-
tion here therefore refers to:

• Th e movement of goods across nations and cultures.

• Th e consumption patterns that refuse to be ‘immobilized’ by

national or cultural identities and boundaries.

Globalization has sharpened these two ‘movements’ within consump-

tion. Th

us, in an earlier era, Gandhi and others linked

consumption to

national identity: Swadeshi was an attempt to restore the primacy to
home-made cloth rather than imported ones. Th

e BJP–ABVP combines’

occasional diatribe and violence against ‘Western’ wear or icons (from
jeans to Madonna to Valentine’s Day) are examples of the resistance to
mobile consumption. Or, to put it diﬀ erently, these are attempts to

im-

mobilize consumption via the attribution of particular meanings to globally
circulating goods and icons. Mobile consumption, characterized in the
globalized age by McDonald’s, Levi’s, Ford, Kelloggs and other goods,
clearly generates an

anti-mobile consumption movement. It is possible to

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149

conclude, therefore, that mobile consumption can easily be linked to is-
sues like self-determination (as Sandra Dudley has shown in the case of
Myanmar), national and cultural identity and social processes (Dudley
2002).

It is also signiﬁ cant to note that globally circulating cultures

get ‘indigenized’ and ‘localized’. As I shall argue in the section on
cultural mobilities, one of the key features of globalization is the way
in which global objects begin to acquire local features, colours and
meanings.

Automobility

e most visible form of mobility in contemporary cultures across the

world is the automobile. Indeed in ‘car cultures’ like the USA, it is the
dominant form of mobility itself. Magazines like

Autocar, Motoring and

Top Gear and advice columns in newspapers generate a discourse of cars
as icons of automobile culture in India.

e unveiling of Tata’s Nano in 2007 immediately altered the think-

ing about cars in India. Th

e Maruti, which transformed the Indian car

market in the mid-1980s, was promoted as the ‘small family car’. Th

Nano, whose pricing (at that time priced at Rs 100,000), makes it the
most aﬀ ordable car in the market, is being described as ‘the people’s car’
(

e Telegraph 2008). Debates about its impact have been raging since

the launch—with many sections arguing that it would clog the already
congested Indian roads.

Here, I am less interested in the automobile

per se than in the con-

dition, consequences, discourses, nature and contexts of

automobility,

even though my examples are mainly drawn from car cultures. Follow-
ing contemporary social theory, I believe that we should stop treating
the car simply as an object.

Instead we need to see it as a complex in-

terlocking system involving machines, humans, infrastructure, cultural
views and social conditions. In other words, an automobile must be
seen as an instance of

automobility, where automobility involves cultural,

social, technical and political elements in a dynamic relation. Th

e ‘packag-

ing’ of automobility involves the plotting, combining, conﬂ ation and
negotiation of several elements that impact upon the everyday life in

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150

crucial ways. Admittedly not all the elements are relevant or visible in
all cities or locations, but they remain in the peripheries, waiting to be
actualized. I see automobility as linked to, generating and facilitating
many other aspects of everyday life:

• Mobile autonomy (agency and autonomy).

• Th e autonomous geography of mobility (geography).

• Mobile eﬀ ects (the mobile consumption of places).

• Aﬀ ective mobility (emotions).

• Th e automobilization of space (the changes in the social, cul-

tural and political deployment/organization of space around the
automobile).

Automobility is packaged in multifarious forms: in technical

magazines such as

Autocar (India) or Motoring, advertisements for vari-

ous models, reports and advice on vehicles in specialized columns in
newspapers, car scenes in ﬁ lms, newspaper reportage and writings on
road conditions, new vehicles and traﬃ

c problems. Th

ese discourses of

automobility—the ‘package’—often encode speciﬁ c notions of power,
class, gender, age and cultural identity. Th

us, most car ads showcase

youthful owners than senior citizens, male drivers rather than female
ones, and heterosexual families rather than queer ones. Th

ey encode spe-

ciﬁ c ideas of emotional appeal and lifestyle. Th

ere is, therefore, a politics

of automobility, some of which this section explores.

Mobile Autonomy

Automobility refers to the dual condition of autonomy and mobility,
any autonomous mode of mobility (Featherstone 2004: 1). It was ﬁ rst
used to describe engine-drawn machines of transport, and has increas-
ingly come to refer to cars. Autonomous mobility, or what I shall call
here

mobile autonomy (derived of course from automobility’s roots) has

several components that extend my earlier arguments about mobility
being more than about simply displacement.

e car itself, as studies of

the US youth culture have shown, represents freedom and agency, but
also ‘draws young people into a culture of spending … since their desire

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151

for freedom more often than not carries signiﬁ cant social and ﬁ nancial
costs’ (Best 2006: 138).

ree ‘cultural logics’ of the car are visible in India.

e ﬁ rst cultural

logic is of

elitism and class distinction of the 1960s and 1970s (with only

the Ambassador and the Fiat’s Premier Padmini being the main players
in the market). Th

e car was a unique feature, a source of pride and a

marker of class. From here, the cultural logic shifts to a relatively cheap-
er and more eﬃ

cient model with the mass-produced, function-driven

(rather than stylized) Maruti in the mid-1980s. Th

is is the

cultural logic

of functionality and utility, or what David Gartman has called ‘mass in-
dividuality’ (2004: 177).

With liberalization, we enter the third phase of automobile culture.

Foreign vehicles manufactured in India, easy ﬁ nancing, higher salaries
in the 1990s meant that there was a rapid expansion of automobile
culture. We now see a veritable explosion of varieties in this phase: sports-
utility vehicles (the notorious SUVs), eco-cars (the electric Reva), mul-
tipurpose vehicles, hybrid cars, saloons and the continuing presence of
the ‘small car’. It is also the period of saloon cars with luxurious ﬁ ttings
and more technological features. Th

is cultural logic is one of

exclusivity

or diﬀ erence perhaps as an answer to the popular (ubiquitous), utilitar-
ian Maruti. Th

e low-end Maruti faced competition from the Indica, the

less-successful Daewoo even as high-end varieties from Ford, Toyota,
Honda and Hyundai radically transformed the landscape of motoring.
Middle-segment cars like the Swift and the WagonR continue to com-
mand a substantial following. Th

e Nano threatens to make one more

shift—to the lower middle class by manufacturing what is arguably the
cheapest car in the world.

It must be remembered that of the several political issues associated

with consumer culture, the autonomous human subject is perhaps the
most pervasive (Hearn and Roseneil 1999). Th

e automobile ﬁ ts into

the larger (discursive but also material) context of individualism. Th

automobile represents a ‘privatization of mobility’ (Gilroy’s phrase),
where it diﬀ ers substantially from mass transportation systems like bus-
es, trams and trains (Gilroy 2001: 89). In this, it marks a step in the seg-
mentation of places. Cars divide people, just as mass transport systems
bring people together. Automobility in such cases is a ‘fragmentation of
the social’ (to adapt Chris Jenks’ phrase, 2005). When we think of the

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152

card-playing community on local trains in Mumbai, the acknowledge-
ments of regular commuters on a route on buses or trains elsewhere,
and the sheer hustle and bustle of a mass transport system we can see
how mass transportation promotes a

community-feeling, a democratiza-

tion of the public space through a participation in a group act. In sharp
contrast, automobiles with their ‘privatization of mobility’ enables the
user to withdraw from active participation—bodies together, conversa-
tions with fellow travellers—in the public space. Instead, what we have
with the automobile is a self-contained experience and navigation of the
public space—closed oﬀ , secured, governed less by the vagaries of the
transport system and other travelling bodies. Automobility here refers to
the autonomous

agency that one acquires when driving a car (subject of

course to the traﬃ

c and other road conditions). In terms of the social or-

der, automobility marks a signiﬁ cant individualism with its withdrawal
from the mass. Such a discursive move is a political one, for it signals a
politics of the

individual.

is withdrawal from the mass

and the acquisition of autonomous

agency—what one could term

mobilizing agency—is ironic because the

term ‘mobility’ originally had connotations of the

lower class ‘mob’ to

be distinguished from ‘nobility’ (Jain 2002). Th

e ‘automobile’ here is an

interesting shift from these earlier meanings because it represents an
exclusivity (a nobility of being mobile, if you please!) rather than a ‘com-
mon’ mob. It is within this discourse of exclusivity and power that we
can read Honda Accord’s ad campaign for its new model. Th

e visual,

in hazy green, shows light streaming down from the cloud and falling
exactly on the moving car, resembling something out of science ﬁ ction
(alien landings) or a divine light on the chosen. Th

e text reads: ‘Enjoy

bold performance in the all-new Honda Accord. LEAD.’ Exclusivity,
motivation, power and ability are all encoded in the semantics here; the
moving car, the selective lighting, the reference to ‘bold’ and ‘lead’ (

Hindu, 28 May 2008, p. 22). In the new dynamics of Indian consumer-
ism the cultural rhetorics of success, achievements, personal fulﬁ lment
dictate the language of this ad.

Automobility is in contrast with the commonality of the mass. Th

exclusivity of automobility might very well be linked with the increasing
alienation of the younger and metropolitan generation—except those

Life, the High-speed Edition

153

involved with political parties—with political

culture, as contemporary

news reports seem to suggest (Pradeep 2006). Th

is exclusivity of mobile

autonomy is, ironically, in contrast with the excessive connectivity of
the electronic age.

It could be argued that the resistance to and anxieties over the Nano

(from 2007–2009 till date) proceed from this potential erosion of the
exclusivity of automobility: a low-priced car would mean that plumb-
ers, carpenters, grocers—the working classes, normally dependent upon
either their two-wheelers or

public transport—would also be au-

tonomously mobile. And indeed, this did prove the case when Maruti
Bhandare booked a Nano on the ﬁ rst day of bookings, reported on 11
April 2009. And Bhandare is a cobbler from Mulund, Mumbai (

Hindu 11 April 2009).

Autonomous Geography

e car is not simply a machine that transports us from Place A to Place

B. Once upon a time this may have been the case: the car was an auton-
omous agent of mobility. What the car has now come to mean is mobile
autonomy of a wholly diﬀ erent order. Th

e car is any enclosed potentially

mobile space that allows one to enjoy multiple communications and
entertainment platforms in private (Featherstone 2004: 2). Radio and
Compact Disc (CD) players, TV, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs),
mobile phones and, in the case of police vehicles, cabs or ambulances,
two-way radios are now integral to the car. What I propose here, extend-
ing and expanding Featherstone’s argument, is that mobile autonomy
is more than about physical displacement. Mobile autonomy in the car
is the mobility of the phone, the TV and the PDA. It means enjoying
music, carrying on a conversation, getting one’s work done, preparing
for a domestic shopping expedition—

all on the move.

Automobility, as I see it, is the

convergence of mobility with dif-

ferent forms/devices of entertainment and communications. Th

is is

the new mobile autonomy bestowed upon us by the car. Th

e car be-

comes the centre of all your communications (with either home or
oﬃ

ce) or a space of relaxation and entertainment. In short, a

mobile

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154

communications and entertainment centre which is

autonomous of the

place in which the car is situated at the moment—a sort of

autonomous

geography of mobility.

On my way to the place of work every morning (I usually use public

transport, if I can say this without sounding self-righteous) I often pass
cars (saloons) with people working in the rear seat: phone to their ear,
laptops open, ﬁ ngers darting over the minimalist keyboard or working
things out on the small screen of the PDA. Th

e automobile has just

become a space of work:

mobile oﬃ

ces. Th

e TV installed in the head

rests of cars converts the car into an entertainment lounge for those
sitting in the rear. What I am calling mobile autonomy is the

ability to

enjoy the pleasures of entertainment or engage in the rigours of work while
being disconnected from any place such as home, work or the theatre. Th

home, theatre and opera travel

with you—they have all been collapsed

into the autonomous space of the car—and you are free (autonomous)
to use and enjoy them. Entertainment has gone mobile with(in) your
car. Th

e automobile is increasingly packaged as something that extends

your work, home and leisure space—where you can do your ‘regular’
routine, whether it is listening to music or working. Th

e host of ad-

ditional features and the discourses of luxury in car adverts transform
automobility into a desirable experience that replicates or even enhances
the comforts of your life.

It is important to note that the driver experiences a certain amount

of autonomy by being inside the car. What is ironic is that with increas-
ing computerization, the driver’s autonomy becomes dependent upon
the computer chip. Weather sensitive wipers, light sensitive headlights
[the Adaptive Headlight System or Andrew File System (AFS)], speed-
sensitive cruise control and fuel ﬂ ows, reversing sensors, distance and
impact sensors, Global Positioning System (GPS) monitors, warnings
about seatbelts, doors and windows all make the driving experience
radically diﬀ erent. Th

e driver needs to rely less on her/his cognition and

recognition of the conditions—turning on the wiper when it starts to
rain, for example—and lets the car take over. If the automobile presents
an autonomous mobility, then what we can see emerging is a new or-
der of autonomy: the machine becomes autonomous of the driver’s in-
structions or commands and responds on its own. Concomitantly, the
driver’s autonomy—agency and control over the machine—is eroded as

Life, the High-speed Edition

155

the car-driver linkage takes a diﬀ erent turn. Nigel Th

rift has proposed

that the intelligent human driver—non-thinking machine distinction
breaks down when the car begins to think because of its software (Th

rift

2004). ‘Intelligent cars’ means, in Jörg Beckmann’s words, ‘a shift from
automobility which functions around

independence to the autopilot

hybrid which suﬀ ers

isolation’ (Beckmann 2004, emphases added). By

‘isolation’ Beckmann means the withdrawal of the human driver from
the conditions in which s/he is driving: the car engages with the condi-
tions and responds accordingly on her/his behalf. Th

e driver becomes an

automaton, driving according to dictates of car software—an increasing
reduction of the autonomy component of automobility.

Mobile Effects

e automobile also generates a new order of experience. In India, one

has to only drive a few kilometres on the National Highways to discover
this. Th

e highway bursts with life:

dhabas, small eateries, petrol stations,

tea vendors, fruit sellers, tyre and vehicle repair workshops, hotels, bar-
bers, cigarette stores line the highways in most places. Such a system of
automobility represents a whole new order of ‘circulation, communica-
tion and consumption’ (Merriman 2004). I see this as a system where
being mobile on the highway means intersecting your life, however tem-
porarily, with a diﬀ erent order. Th

e space of mobility here is the space of

driving through multiple cultures, communities, languages and natural
settings. Automobility here is the

mobile consumption of places.

ere is another crucial way of seeing the link between automobiles

and place. Kevin Hetherington deﬁ nes places as ‘mobile

eﬀ ects’: ‘a non-

representation that is mobilized through the placing of things in com-
plex relation [

sic] to one another and the agency/power eﬀ ects that are

performed by those arrangements’ (cited in Merriman 2004: 146). An
automobile thus mobilizes places by connecting them. Places come into
being through the intersection of multiple kinds of mobilities: commu-
nication networks, transport networks, migration of people, the automo-
biles and the circulation of goods and services. Places circulate and are
constructed

through these processes. Places are, in a sense, a via of mo-

bilities. Automobiles thus generate

mobile eﬀ ects: they generate places.

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156

Automobility is also packaged as a mode of acquiring a personality,

and discourses and representations of automobility use stereotypes and
iconic images. Th

e Innova ads on Indian TV (2007) depicted Aamir

Khan playing multiple roles, all while driving the Innova. Th

e new In-

nova ad, with the vehicle in bright red, suggests the aggressive, inde-
pendent career woman, as reﬂ ected in her choice of the massive car. Th

latter is also an unusual ad because in most car ads, women are only
wives, mothers or partners, rarely independent career women. Such ads
clearly position the car as object or possession, along with the woman
inside it, though never in the driver’s seat. Th

e male is obviously in

control, of the car as well as the woman. In the Scorpio ad, the man at
the wheel beats the women, and seems to be gloating. Th

e intrinsic link

between maleness, mobility and vehicle is forged where he seems to win
the race with such ease.

In the Mitsubishi Pajero ad, a lion looks suspiciously at two porcu-

pines, quills all ﬂ ared. Th

e tagline says: ‘If you were there, you could

see it’ (

India Today, inside back cover, Tourism Special edition, August

2007). Th

e vehicle is advertised as ‘ready for anything’, and suggests that

you could actually drive into the wilds to see such scenes. Ford’s SUV,
Endeavour, has a one-word tagline: Freedom. It is depicted standing
on a desolate and icy terrain. Th

e write-up reads: ‘Unleashing the New

Ford Endeavour’. It is further described as possessing ‘beastly power’,
‘raring to go’, and ‘armed with revolutionary torque’ (inside back cover,

India Today, Tourism Special, August 2007). Th

e four-wheel drive, the

terrain and the language of violent power are indicative of the tough-
ness of the vehicle that allows one to go anywhere. Maruti’s Grand Vi-
tara announces that ‘the world is your playground’, thus showcasing
unhindered mobility—play, exploration and wandering. It asks us to
‘make the world your personal playground. Play it your way’ (

e Hindu

Magazine, 30 September 2007, p. 8). In all these cases, freedom to
travel—be mobile—is linked with the automobile that helps you ignore
the conditions of mobility, or create conditions of personal mobility,

long as one is within this automobile. ‘Freedom’ here is the autonomy of
the vehicle that is crucially independent of terrain.

e car is no more a simple mode of transport: it is a style state-

ment, it is about one’s personality and individuality. Even the Nano,

Life, the High-speed Edition

157

considered more a utility vehicle than a style statement, cannot af-
ford to sacriﬁ ce the appeal aspect (or the ‘Wow!’ factor, as it is now
called). Th

us the write-up on the Nano says: ‘styling is one area where

there is no compromise’ (

Autocar India, 9.6, 2008, p. 11). Autocar

reporting on Mercedes’ 20,000th car describes the vehicle as a ‘prized
brand’, thus suggesting that it is not economy or ﬁ nance alone, but
lifestyle and cultural capital that are linked with the automobile.

order to add to the vehicle’s contribution to one’s individual identity,
users take recourse to many fringe (non-essential to the driving experi-
ence) acts. Th

ese can include bumper stickers (I see, on a daily basis,

a Scorpio with a bumper sticker that announces ‘Fuhrer’), emotional
declarations (‘Dad’s Gift’), witticisms (‘Heh heh, not so close, I am
not that kind of car’), extra chrome ﬁ ttings that add to the bulk (espe-
cially noticeable in the case of larger vehicles like Innova and Scorpio),
musical ‘reverse horns’ (which could range from devotional tunes to
Vande Mataram) or other body modiﬁ cations. I am suggesting here
that an automobile enables its owner/user to extend her/his personal-
ity on to the public visibility. Th

e owner/user may not be known to

the other road users, but the vehicle does the talking through these
signs inscribed on the car itself. Th

e owner may not even be visible

(if, illegally, the car has darkened windows), but the car is rendered
hyper-visible with these accoutrements. Th

e car becomes the vehicle

for imposing or at least making visible, one’s identity upon the public
eye. Or, as Hyundai Verna puts it, ‘An eye-catcher and a stare-grabber
par excellence.’

In other words, the automobile enables the identity/

personality of the person to move out, or extend, from within—the
private, family-space, intimate space—to the outside, to traverse roads
and public spaces, to be in the public eye. Of course the Scorpio makes
this a gendered thing when it urges you to ‘muscle other cars into
submission’, with the new model, ‘armed to the teeth … with new
muscles that turn other cars into submissive wimps’ (

India Today, 20

April 2009, p. 13). In all these cases it is not about the car alone, but
the car and the self.

e automobile facilitates a

mobility of identity itself. When you trav-

el in a specialized car that stands out in the mass of cars in public space,
you inscribe your identity on that space too.

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158

Affective Mobility

Part of this identity within the discourse of automobility is the emo-
tional aspect of the automobile. Th

e pride one takes in the vehicle, the

self-conﬁ dence or the sense of family are, in most adverts, linked to
the emotional ﬂ ows that circulate around the car. When the Hyundai
Verna asks you to ‘feel it’, it suggests that there is an emotional link
between man [

sic] and machine. Th

is conﬂ ates the discourse of auto-

mobility with that of aﬀ ect, even as it merges the material (car) with the
emotional-psychological, and proposes that driving is not simply an ex-
perience of mobility but one of

aﬀ ect as well. An apposite way of viewing

this emotionalizing of the car in cultures of the automobile would be,
in Mimi Sheller’s terms, as ‘automotive emotions’—the ‘embodied dis-
positions of car-users and the visceral and other feelings associated with
car-use’ (Sheller 2004: 223). Th

e drive is almost always converted into

a physically and emotionally satisfying experience: Hyundai’s ‘Feel it’,
Honda Accord’s ‘Th

e power of bold performance’ or the sheer colour-

coordinated luxury suggested by the Hyundai Getz ad.

In the case of big cars, what get emphasized are

size, luxury and pow-

er. In the case of smaller cars such as the Maruti or the Santro, we are
given

maneuverability, mileage and comfort. Th

ese are variable discourses

of automobility that are designed to appeal to speciﬁ c desires in you: the
need for power and size rather than economy, or the desire for comfort
and economy rather than brute force. Most, of course, sexualize the
experience of driving. Th

us Stanley car upholstery places a burgundy

red saloon car on a dark background. Th

e car is lit from the inside, but

everything else is in dim light. Th

e tagline reads: ‘Experience her like

you never have: fully dressed’. Th

e gendering of the vehicle is aligned

with the sexual (‘experience her’), and both accentuated with the ‘fully
dressed’ (

Autocar India, 7.5, 2006, pp. 14–15). Once again, the dis-

courses focus on the aﬀ ective elements.

When the Maruti promotes itself as a family car (and most car ads

show a

family) it once again foregrounds the emotional ties, or what

Daniel Miller appropriately termed the ‘humanity of the car’ (Miller
2001b: 1–5). It is almost as though mobility is about

connections—espe-

cially emotional—between individuals and the form of transport. Th

us,

Life, the High-speed Edition

159

the Hyundai Santro advert shows how the wife calls on her cell phone
and gets the home decorated when on their ﬁ rst drive in their new car.
Th

e car becomes the cause for celebrations, an emotional moment for

all. Cars are now packaged as enabling

particular emotions, and pleas-

urable sensations. In ads with parents taking children for a spin (the
Maruti Omni where the daughter practices her tabla inside the vehicle,
for example), the car represents a concentrated space of emotions.

e car seems to be one element within a family’s ﬂ ows of emotions,

almost as though it centres the aﬀ ective energies of the family. If, as
material culture studies argues, objects possess ‘narrative elaborations’
(Hoskins 2006) when emplaced within the life stories of humans, and
if objects and humans are constitutive of each other through a series of
‘object protocols’, as I have argued elsewhere (Nayar forthcoming), then
the car possesses an aﬀ ective ‘narrative elaboration’ within the life story
of the family. In other words, a material-technical object becomes in-
strumental in the ‘immaterial’ emotional mobility (ﬂ ows) of the family,
even as emotional ﬂ ows eddy around the car. Th

is is what can be called

the

aﬀ ective mobility of automobility: the discourse that converts a car

into an object of emotional attachment, but one which facilitates the
emotional ﬂ ows within a family to circulate in particular ways so that
the family as a unit is emphasized.

Announcing to the world that the car was ‘Dad’s Gift’ is a way of

declaring sentiment, and thereby humanizing the car. Road rage—a
common feature of city driving today—is also a signiﬁ cant aspect of
the aﬀ ective

mobility of the automobile. Descriptions such as ‘the thrill

of driving’, the ‘

joy of the road’ or the fear of a dangerous route (seen in

the Mountain Dew ad where two men have to drive a jeep down a steep
mountain), all capture the emotional component of automobility. Th

ere

are other subtler references to the aﬀ ective element of automobility in
the discourse of cars. Th

e repeated semi-erotic gestures of tactility—

caressing of the upholstery, the sleekness of the vehicle’s body—charg-
es the car as a sexualized object that demands an emotional response
(arousal, desire). When the girl on the motorbike races Shah Rukh Khan
in the Hyundai i10 ad, the classic paradigm of the desirable man is reas-
serted—and linked with the well-established image of the ‘most famous
man on earth’, SRK—once again. ‘Next time I will catch it,’ she declares

Packaging Life

160

at the end of the race (which she loses). Th

e semantics of the ad deliber-

ately collapse SRK with the car: What is the object of her pursuit—the
car or SRK? Th

e sleekness of the car stands in some kind of ambigu-

ous, perhaps homologous position of the sleek, leather-clad woman (the
leather of course is racing costume, but also represents some exotic kind
of sexualized look). Th

e woman is the prototypical predator—and she is

obviously not Indian—from whom SRK manages to escape due to the
sheer superiority of the car. Th

is is the

aﬀ ective mobility of the i10.

In similar fashion, a ‘masculinization’ of the car is visible in the

Maruti SX4, whose tagline runs ‘Men are back’. A write-up introduc-
ing it described it as ‘stylishly muscled’. It then goes on to highlight
the car’s features almost exclusively in terms associated with the male
body, with a smattering of odd feminized terms like ‘this babe’. Th

terms include: ‘bullish brawn’, ‘strong presence’, ‘meaty steering wheel’,
‘bulging haunches around the wheel wells’, ‘seriously tough cookie’. Th

essay itself (or rather ‘test report’ as it is called) is titled ‘Brainy, hardcore
bruiser’ (Darukhanawala 2007). Th

e sexualized, gendered and violent

connotations explicitly link the vehicle with the male.

Material and tactile sensations translate into emotional pleasure. Th

car here seems to embody emotions. Or, as Mimi Sheller puts it: ‘…
“feelings” are embodied and performed in the convergences and colli-
sions between emotion cultures and material cultures’ (2004: 223). Th

crucial word is of course, ‘embodied’: emotions—individual or famil-
ial—are embodied in the car. An aﬀ ective mobility has emerged.

The Automobilization of Space

Automobility cannot be seen as the inherent feature of the car alone. It
is the mixture of humans, machines, roads and places (Sheller and Urry
2000). Road signs—traﬃ

c signals, ‘No Parking’ and other signs, govern

the use of the vehicle in any place.

• Th e state issues documents (driving licences) that authorize you

to drive.

• Th e state penalizes (sometimes) you for breaking the law while

driving.

Life, the High-speed Edition

161

• Roads and infrastructure (bridges, crossings) facilitate driving.

• A car does not drive itself, it needs a human (or a computer)

driver.

We need to see automobility as the consequence of the conﬂ ation or

intersection of all of the above. Th

is also means that the experience of

automobility is dependent upon the following:

• Quality of the machine.

• Road conditions.

• Rules governing driving.

• Nature of public space.

e experience of driving in the more ordered spaces of say the USA or

the UK—though UK perhaps has the most sign-posted and instruction-
ridden roads anywhere in the world—is radically diﬀ erent from that in
Indian cities. Tim Edensor, thus, points out that motoring in England in-
volves a near-constant view of steeples and church spires, and the motoring
landscape becomes a ‘faithscape’. In case of India, Edensor (2004: 114)
lists, among others, the following features of the road conditions that
govern the experience of driving:

• Excessive and unnecessary use of horns.

• Lack of regulation and even widely-observed conventions (rear-

view mirrors, for instance).

• ‘Biggest vehicle’ syndrome.

All this means there is rarely uninterrupted driving. Edensor’s de-

scription of the situation is worth citing in full:

Because of the varied speeds and multi-directional routes adopted by
road-users, pedestrians and animals, car drivers in India have to be
constantly aware of the ﬂ ow of bodies and vehicles which criss-cross
the street, veering into and emerging out of courtyards, alleys and
culs-de-sac. Th

ese roads contrast with the highly regulated, single-

purpose … spaces of Western highways, where conformity to rules
and modes of centralized regulation endure. (Edensor 2004: 114)

Packaging Life

162

is is the Indian automobility, so to speak. We cannot, clearly, speak

of ‘automobile culture’ but rather ‘automobile cultures’, just as Daniel
Miller speaks of ‘car cultures’ (Miller 2001b). Th

ere is, as Tim Edensor

suggests, a link between driving and national identity (2004).

A common feature now of railway stations in metropolises is the

reorganization of space around the automobile. For instance, the rail-
way stations in Hyderabad and Chennai allow cars to proceed right
up to the main entrance while autos and two-wheelers have to park at
a considerable distance. Parking is arguably the most beleaguered
aspect of road and urban planning in Indian cities today. Since 2006,
hardly a week has passed when parking, traﬃ

c congestion and vehicular

air pollution have not been subjects of news reports and analysis by
everybody from the Police Commissioner to the ‘common’ road user
in Hyderabad city, and a few campaigns to close business establish-
ments without adequate parking (

e Hindu 23 November 2006; 14

September 2007;

e Hindu Business Line 21 September 2007). Th

us,

automobile use is very deﬁ nitely linked to the infrastructural and social
contexts.

Indian cities also seem to be closing oﬀ spaces for pedestrians and

slow-moving vehicles. Most complaints about road conditions are gen-
erated by vehicle users rather than pedestrians or hawkers. It seems that
an

automobilization of public space is underway in Indian metropolises.

And this has nothing to do with the automobile per se, but the cultural
and social logic of car cultures.

Automobility here is governed by, and is the consequence of, par-

ticular regimes of power and disciplining that regulates where speciﬁ c
forms of vehicles and modes of mobility (slow vehicles, walking) can be
‘performed’. Automobility is here a

performance that is subject to direc-

tions (road rules), the stage (infrastructure, organized spaces for parking,
a hierarchy of parking), the characters (policemen, traﬃ

c wardens, park-

ing lot attendants, drivers, vendors) and multiple

scripts. Th

ese ‘scripts’

are: road signs that tell you where to go or park, the speed you can drive
at, the directions for walking or particular destinations, the prohibitions
(‘No Entry’, ‘Army Vehicles Only’), the transactions—we can call them
conversations—between the vehicles on the road (and sometimes abu-
sive exchanges between drivers) and the choreographies of pedestrians,
diﬀ erent kinds of vehicles and structures. Automobility is a

performance

Life, the High-speed Edition

163

that accounts for all of these: scripts, stage, rules and characters. What is
important is that all of these are culture speciﬁ c, and every culture devel-
ops its own scripts and rules, just as the characters who drive vary from
country to country (the polite hand-wave in the UK to the aggressive
New York taxi driver to the bully in the Scorpio in India).

Automobility is, as this section has demonstrated, a conﬂ uence of

various ideologies (class, gender, privatization), desires (power, control),
stereotypes (masculinity/femininity, sexuality) and disciplinary regimes
(autonomy, road signs, the law). Th

e culture of automobility is thus not

restricted to the material object of the automobile but is a set of

processes

and

events—of mobility—that emerges because of the convergence of

social, technical and cultural processes.

Cultural Mobilities

Culture travels, cultures travel. All cultures except the very remote have
been inﬂ uenced by other cultures. From architecture to cuisine, philo-
sophical ideas to costumes, cultural forms adapt, adopt, inﬂ uence, ap-
propriate, indigenize other cultures. Assimilation and travel are integral
to the growth and change in cultural forms. Th

us the Mughals brought

the marvellous Islamic/Persian-style architecture to India, even as kings
like Akbar sought to understand Hinduism in order to create a syncretic
religion. In the USA, ‘cool’ began to adapt African-American ‘hip hop’
styles in the 1990s (Pountain and Robins 2000), ‘chicken tikka masala’
—a dish that is not really found in India—was declared ‘Britain’s true
national dish’ by the then UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook (in 2001),
an ironic throwback to the historical fact that England set out on its
colonial mission with the initial aim of getting a slice of the spice trade
(BBC News 2001). Christopher Columbus was also driven, we now
discover, by the desire to acquire cinnamon, and when spice rates fell
due to greater imports, its use as a luxury item

declined among the upper

classes around the mid-17th century (Braudel 1981: 222; for America,
see Dalby 2001). To go further back, the European Renaissance of the
14th–16th century was at least partly driven by the massive exchange of
artistic ideas across cultures, both European and Asian (Hoerder 2002).
And of course McDonald’s is now everywhere. Th

e top grosser in Brazil,

Packaging Life

164

Japan, Russia and South Africa are all American or American/British
ﬁ lms (Sayre and King 2003: 29).

But how does one study the mobility of cultures? One way would be

to speak of the new

spaces of cultural artefacts like cuisine or fashion.

To locate a cultural artefact in a new geographical and cultural space
is to map that artefact’s journey. Th

us, ‘chicken tikka’ seems to have

travelled from India to Oxford Street, London and beyond, and as at
least one commentator discovered was being exported to India (BBC
News 1999). Another way would be to see how people consume dif-
ferent kinds of food when they are travelling. Is experimenting with
alien, exotic and ‘foreign’ cuisine a part of the travel (mobile) experi-
ence? Th

ink of the adaptation of jeans with the Indian

kurta as a fashion

trend among college youth, and you have another example of a cultural
artefact that has travelled and been assimilated.

In order to explore the mobility of culture—what could be called the

circulation of culture—I shall look at speciﬁ c artefacts and events that
seem to move across spaces and cultural sites to occupy (colonize), or be
assimilated and indigenized by local cultures.

Food Mobilities

I’ve been listening to a language of which I understand only one word—
ravintola. It means restaurant.

– Anjum Hasan, on Finland (2007b)

What is the link between food and mobility? Food constitutes an im-
portant element in our negotiations with geography and hence, of mo-
bility. Smells of the kitchen indicate its location in the house, for ex-
ample. Eating sections are variously labelled (from college canteens to
the ‘mess’ to the plush hotel dining room), and enable one to negotiate
space. Travel columns and guides inform us where we can eat and drink
in any place.

Perhaps the ﬁ rst word a traveller acquires in a new country (as the

epigraph to this section shows) is the one for restaurant! Tourism is in-
trinsically connected to food. Advertisements and billboards announce
eating places on streets, at points of transit and transportation. Places

Life, the High-speed Edition

165

are linked within these topographies and geographies of

production and

consumption. Food geographers look at the sites and political economy
of food (global production zones, marketing, transportation, import
policies, pricing, crises and famines)—but that ‘macro’ analysis is not
my intention here. Another way of looking at food geographies is at the
very local level: the supermarket, the shopping mall and the entertain-
ment centre with its food outlets.

Take as a simple instance the sales of products like alcohol or ciga-

rettes in supermarkets. Is alcohol something we can pick along with the
groceries? Why are the cigarettes (usually) kept separately often in closed
shelving? Why do we need separate stores for retailing alcohol? Th

ese are

regulated spaces of food, geographies of consumption where the con-
sumer citizen can only go if she/he meets certain criteria—mostly age,
since alcohol and cigarettes are not sold to people under a ‘legal age’.
Specialized stores selling

halal meet, beef or pork constitute a diﬀ erent

geography. Th

e ‘India store’ or ‘Chinese’ outlet in European and Ameri-

can cities constitutes a diﬀ erent organization of food consumption and
retailing. Th

e farm produce sections in the commons—held on particu-

lar days—are also a special form of food geography.

Food consumed at various levels—the body, home, community, city,

region and nation—enables the construction of identities: individual,
community or group, regional and racial. When Aparna Karthikeyan
explores Starsbourg, she is drawn to the

local market: ‘Row upon row of

wooden cabinets, selling oh, just about everything … crisp pretzels and
fragrant crepes, smoking tureens of mulled wine, roasted chest nuts in
twists of paper …’ (Karthikeyan 2008). She thus marks a country with
its local oﬀ erings of food. Food consumption thus locates us within
particular

geographical (home, community/neighbourhood, region and

nation) as well as

cultural spaces (diaspora food, cosmopolitan food).

Food, Mobility and Liminal Spaces

Food, as theorists have argued, is

localized in terms of both production

and consumption. Hotels, the kitchen, dining rooms are geographies of
consumption where designated places exist for eating and drinking. Th

ese

are

destinations for consuming food. You go to a hotel, the mess hall or

Packaging Life

166

the canteen for food. Th

at is, these are

vectoral routes of mobility around

food and consumption: people move with a sense of direction towards
the eating place. But what of eating places between places—eating cen-
tres that are not destinations themselves but occur between the point of
origin and the destination, an eating place en-route to other places whose
signiﬁ cance is precisely in the fact that they occur between places?

Take, as an instance of this kind of eating place the ubiquitous road-

side

dhaba in India, invariably called ‘Punjabi dhaba’ or sometimes more

expansively ‘North Indian

dhaba’ even when it is in the deep south. Th

dhaba is a fascinating intersection of cultures without being aﬃ

liated to

any one. It mixes time and space because it lacks a particular cultural ‘lo-
cale’. Th

dhaba represents only movement, displacement and cultural

mixing. It is a transit space where mobility and its sudden interrup-
tion (lunch or dinner halts for long-distance buses, transport trucks and
other highway travellers).

Dhabas are not connected to locality or his-

tory; they seem to be linked only to the fact and space of transport, or
mobility. And they are spaces of food consumption. Th

dhaba, I pro-

pose, is an excellent example of ‘food mobilities’ (Sarah Gibson’s term)
where the space of eating is intimately linked to, aﬃ

liated with and an

adjunct of the space of mobility rather than any other space (Gibson
2007). It is the ultimate liminal—border crossing—space attached to
people only in terms of food produced and food consumed. Th

e com-

mon appellation of ‘Punjabi’ or ‘North Indian’ further de-localizes it.
Th

e people who come there are also not attached to it except as consum-

ers. Th

ere is no attempt to locate the

dhaba in any other context (unlike,

say, a historical building or a museum or even a street in a new town).
Th

dhaba is at once a place and a non-place, and the site of the intersec-

tion of food and mobility.

Go-go Food

Food is as much about what is eaten as about

where it is eaten. Th

is, the spaces of consumption are as signiﬁ cant as the nature of food
consumed. Railway or airline food—food on the move—evokes par-
ticular kinds of responses (often revulsion). ‘Packaged’ food served on
trains and ﬂ ights are foods to be consumed while technically mobile.

Life, the High-speed Edition

167

is is some kind of ‘oﬃ

cial’ food, as opposed to the food you might

buy at stations—which are

local. More importantly, as writers on food

have noted, it is food consumed within constraints of time (when they
choose to serve you) and space (of the train or aeroplane’s seating/din-
ing arrangements, as well as the space of the tray). Now of course we are
warned by the Indian Railways ‘not to accept food from strangers’—the
warnings are voiced through public address systems, printed on tickets
and inscribed on ﬂ yers/notices inside the compartments. Food laced
with sedatives having established themselves as a technology of robbery,
food consumption while mobile has become a fraught exercise. Food
mobility includes such (mobile) experiences of consumption.

e idea of a proper meal, the home as the place of ‘proper’ food,

cooked dinners as opposed to eating out or take-away and the implicit
suggestion of ‘impersonal’ food-service in restaurants/hotels constitute
important elements in the packaging of food mobilities. Hospitality is
therefore a discourse that is woven into the fabric of food mobilities.
‘Family rooms’ in Indian hotels respect this (Indian?) need and ritual to
dine with the

family. It assumes that such spaces within the otherwise

commercial, de-localized and impersonal spaces of the hotel are memo-
rials of home.

Hotels and restaurants advertise their smiling waiters and cooks,

ready to wait upon the customer. Cheerful personnel promise to make
your away-from-home experience as ‘homely’ as possible. Travel, de-
clares Trident Hilton Hotels, ‘should bring your family together,’ before
suggesting that their hotels ‘oﬀ er a wide range of activities in a family-
friendly environment’ (

Outlook Traveller, 7.12, 2007, p. 25). Food mo-

bility is part of this ‘range of activities’, and is about the experience of
home away from home, of being able to consume impersonally cooked
food in settings that recall home comforts. Shahpura Bagh in Rajasthan,
Amita Bhaskar discovers, has the ‘homestyle pleasures of an orchard pal-
ace’. Here, the ‘personal touch … distinguishes everything’, and a ‘red-
faced guest’ is surprised by ‘chocolate cake and champagne’ in honour
of his birthday, ‘something casually mentioned during the day’ (Bhaskar
2007).

is need to ensure that mobility—that you are not really in your

home—is erased through personal(ized) attention and emotion engi-
neering eﬀ ects (such as the surprise birthday cake mentioned earlier)

Packaging Life

168

makes the

fact of mobility a key implicit moment in the construction of

the hotel as a food space. Th

e references to ‘warmth’, ‘home-cooking’ or

‘friendly’ are gestures at making mobility invisible in the act of food pro-
duction and consumption.

ese are, to return to an earlier argument,

about aﬀ ect. Marital responsibilities (especially gendered ones), domes-
tic spaces and the ritual of eating at the family dining table are care-
fully ‘tweaked’ when the liveried waiters take orders and serve food, the
ritual of eating is coded (table manners) and money is oﬀ ered. Th

e ‘aura’

around the food is partly the eﬀ ect of these framing devices. Food mo-
bilities are intimately linked to hospitality because mobility is packaged
as non-movement (you do not move from home to ‘outside’ because the
displacement does not carry a concomitant change in food production
or consumption). Food mobilities are in eﬀ ect, the

connections estab-

lished between ‘home’ and ‘away’ through this process of eating.

Consider the ‘take-away’ food phenomenon that has reconﬁ gured

the Indian consumption pattern. ‘Take-away’ is food on the move. It
enables one to check the menu, order, pay and collect without so much
as [in the case of drive-in McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chickens
(KFCs)] as leaving the comfort of the car. Th

is is food for the road, on

the road. Th

e outlet is a food provider, but is otherwise a non-place de-

localized from everything. Th

e absence of even eating spaces in ‘drive-

thru’ outlets marks them out as sterling examples of the food mobilities
I am speaking of.

In terms of geographies of consumption, the take-away and the drive-

thru radically transform the spaces of eating. Similarly, snack-foods—
chips (perhaps the most popular snack food), drinks, sweets, biscuits,
etc.—made available in easily disposable containers (cups, packets, bot-
tles and such) enable eating on the go.

Food Borders

ere is a more nuanced linkage of food and mobility. Food can evoke

disgust and revulsion because food, as social theorists have argued, is a
bridge between the self and the world: we incorporate food from the
outside, we take it in and it becomes a part of us (Deborah Lupton,

Life, the High-speed Edition

169

cited in Gibson 2007: 6). Food is itself, therefore, a marker of

mobility

because it travels from the outside to the inside. Th

e frontier between inside

and outside breaks down through this mobility of food.

is argument about food borders could be extended to cultures.

Food has traditionally been a marker of diﬀ erence (of cultures, regions,
races, even nationalities). In the age of the great voyages and discovery
travellers—the 16th and 17th centuries—travel journals had extended
descriptions of food in their account of foreign cultures. During this
age, food descriptions were used to reinforce attitudes toward foreign
cultures. Th

us, the austerity of Turkish food was seen as contributing to

their military discipline (in the Ottoman Empire), and the Irish cuisine
as a marker of their bestiality (Suranyi 2007). In the great African nov-
els of Chinua Achebe (

ings Fall Apart, Th

e Arrow of God, No Longer

at Ease) for instance, we discover the signiﬁ cance of the kola nut for
the community—both as a food item and as a symbol. Th

e take-over

of Britain by the chicken

tikka masala, ostensibly an Indian dish, was

termed as ‘synonymous with breakdown in traditional British values
and rise of multicultural Britain’ (BBC News 2001).

Food can stand for particular places. Chitrita Banerji’s

Eating India

(2007) is an attempt to map the culinary geography of India: the spe-
ciﬁ c cuisine of every state. K.T. Achaya’s books on Indian food (1994,
2002) also attempt to trace the unique history of particular food items
in a region’s culture. A food item and a place (region, state, geographical
area) thus become synonymous with each other: Kerala and ﬁ sh, Bengal
and milk sweets, Tamil Nadu and

rasam, England and ﬁ sh and chips,

Japan and sushi, Italy and pasta, Maharastra and

bhakri. Tarla Dalal’s

cookbook supplied with Samsung microwave ovens (Dalal 2002) marks
idlis as ‘traditional recipe … from South Indian kitchens’, but does not
feel it necessary to identify the ‘green peas dhokla’ (on the very next
page) or ‘paneer bhurji on toast’ as originating in any particular state/
region—thus suggesting that the

dhokla or bhurji are well-known and

do not require a geographic label (Dalal 2002: unpaginated). It converts
speciﬁ c cooking styles and food items into universal categories—an ex-
cellent example of a literal food mobility. One traveller puts it this way:
the ideal vacation would be ‘spent in an elegant European city where
the chief activity is spending hours in cafés, drinking coﬀ ee and eating

Packaging Life

170

cake, reading, writing postcards, dreaming, etc.’ (Senapaty 2006: 72).
Note that the primary activity is food consumption. A deﬁ nite plus for
a getaway, for one writer is ‘outside of a ﬁ ve-star hotel, this is the only
pace where I’ve had decent scrambled eggs’ (Griﬃ

n 2007: 74).

is food-and-travel experience could take a more expensive and

expansive form when people actually take ‘food holidays’, setting out
to taste the cuisine of diﬀ erent places. [

Outlook Traveller ran a special

story on such a ‘food holiday’ (7.12, 2007)]. It demands, of course,
food guides—and there are plenty of those, such as ‘A foodie’s guide
to Singapore’ (Nadkarni 2007). Th

is is a more specialized form of food

mobilities: travelling to eat.

Cuisine’s spatial and cultural speciﬁ city can be treated as a marker

of dwelling, of

home for people of that place even when they move out

of that place. Food denotes the border between spaces, regions and cul-
tures. Food constitutes a strong emotional and cultural symbol even (es-
pecially?) when it travels beyond its ‘original’ spaces (in fact, the

Oxford

English Dictionary deﬁ nes ‘comfort food’ as ‘any food that is associated
with childhood or with home cooking’). What I am proposing here is:
food is often ‘packaged’ (metaphorically and sometimes literally), bun-
dled with sentiments, memories and aﬀ ects of an ‘original’ home and
cultural space, therefore implying that:

• the food originates in one place and

• it is displaced, moves across borders and arrives for consump-

tion in another.

e consumption of ‘Indian’ food in Europe, Italian pasta in India,

or more locally, ‘multicuisine restaurants’ where food from diﬀ erent
parts of India are available categorized according to region. Even small
towns in the USA have Indian restaurants. Th

us, Eureka in California

with a population of 42,000 has two Indian restaurants (John 2008).
Th

e South Indian restaurant chain, Malgudi, oﬀ ers food from the four

Southern States, with the menu organized around states and their par-
ticular foods. Writer Anjum Hasan in the column appropriately titled
(for my argument!) ‘

Moveable Feast’ (emphasis added) is surprised by

the ethnic menus on oﬀ er in Bangalore restaurants where she can choose
from exotic items like ‘crab masala fry’, ‘turkey fry’ and Mughlai dishes.

Life, the High-speed Edition

171

She explicitly situates such an explosion of multicultural cuisine to ‘the
collective nostalgia of the North Indian immigrants’ in Bangalore city
(Hasan 2007a: 112).

is food mobility ‘packaged’ as multicuisine menus means speciﬁ c

things:

• Food is consumed either nostalgically or ‘curiously’ (‘let me see

what Tamil curries are like’) in conjunction with their

places of

origin no matter where they are being consumed.

• Food marks the mobility (displacement) of both the food item

and the consumer.

us, ‘food mobilities’ refers not only to the product being consumed

but to the places and the individuals too. In other words,

food mobili-

ties signify the culture of travel, or cultural mobilities. Food and cuisine
become ‘fusion food’ where cultural borders break down in a meal, so
to speak. In a recent essay on Indian eateries in the USA, we discover
that asparagus was used to introduce the south Indian

uttappam to the

American palate, and other border-crossing items include lobster

vin-

daloo, chocolate idli souﬄ

é and

tandoori peaches (John 2008). You can

now get chicken

tikka masala made in olive oil or served with broccoli

pulao in the UK (Kumar 2007).

e consumption of food from many places—sometimes in the same

dish—is an instance of transgressing borders and travelling culture for,
as James Cliﬀ ord reminds us, culture is a site of ‘dwelling and travelling’
(1997: 31). When

Outlook Traveller (7.6, 2007) does a piece called ‘Liv-

ing it Up: Worldwide Luxury’, the cover visual focuses on a food and
drinks session in Masai Mara, Africa, thus linking luxury with food. In
some cases, people consume food because they remind them of ‘dwell-
ing’ (home and geographical locations of homeland) and

erase the sense

of travel and displacement (Locher et al. 2005).

Food Cosmopolitanisms

Yet it is not the consumption of food from particular places alone that
signiﬁ es food and cultural mobilities. I began this chapter with the

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172

proposition that mobility manifests in several and diverse ways in our
everyday lives. What I want to emphasize about these manifest mobili-
ties is that ‘mobility’ is not just the actual act of travel or displacement.
If we argue for mobility as only being about actual displacement, we
interpret travel itself very narrowly. Food and cultural mobilities are also
made possible through a diﬀ erent modality of displacement. Reading
or watching Jamie Oliver’s or Nigella Lawson’s cookery shows on TV, a
polemical programme on the increasing ‘coca-colonization’ of the world
or the visual of large helpings of food on American plates in Hollywood
ﬁ lms, is

modalities of food mobilities where food does travel to us. TV

and ﬁ lm, for instance, bring exotic food to our drawing rooms (if not
to our dining tables). A volume like

e Table is Laid: Oxford Book of

South Asian Food Writing showcases literary examples of food from dif-
ferent cultural and geographical spaces from South Asia (Th

ieme and

Raja 2007). Finally, details on packets of food products announcing
their ‘original’ spaces also constitute an important modality of food
mobility.

Anzac Biscuits are now marketed in India as Unibic. Th

e pack-

age has information that illustrates my argument. Th

ese biscuits were

ﬁ rst manufactured during World War I by the wives and mothers of
Australian and New Zealander soldiers to raise the latter’s morale. After
the War, they were sold to raise money for veteran support. Th

is legend

is retained in the Unibic, that is, Indian version too, but with an ironic
twist: the package now declares that Unibic donates 3 per cent of its
sales to support Indian

jawans. Th

is mixed history is perhaps an extreme

example of the modalities I am speaking of here, but is quite illustrative
of the other kinds of food mobilities.

Another modality of food mobilities is the

metaphorization of the

world in terms of food. Shonali Muthalaly’s experience of Singapore is
recorded mainly in terms of her luggage and her

weighing scale, as she

puts it, indicating that she ate her way through Singapore (Muthalaly
2007)! In order to see and experience Nice properly, writes Maya Das
Pillai, you have to give it the ‘wine treatment’: ‘sip, swirl and savour the
ﬂ avour slowly’ (Pillai 2007: 8). Pillai thus translates the entire travel
into a

food metaphor. In the same vein, Sadhana Rao describes Egypt

in a

food metaphor: ‘Heady Cocktail’ (Rao 2007: 8). Places are imaged

Life, the High-speed Edition

173

almost entirely in terms of food and its consumption: food becomes a
metaphor (and metaphor itself, etymologically means ‘to transport’) of
food mobilities.

I am arguing here for a kind of food-driven cosmopolitanization—a

gastronomic, or culinary, cosmopolitanism—of cultures today, made pos-
sible not just by the actual availability of diﬀ erent varieties of food items
from around the world, but also through the ‘travelling’ of

information,

visual images, symbols of food from round the world. Food mobilities are
an integral part of our globalization because they travel out to us, on
our screen, in our newspaper or, more materially, in the food product
we consume. It could very well be an

immaterial mobility of the food

made possible through its ‘packaging’ in the form of such information
or images.

Central to this packaging of food mobilities and food cosmopolitan-

isms is the culture of cuisine advice and training. Th

e magazine

Taste

and Travel, for example, runs a column, ‘Cuisine Watch’. As a case study
of this ‘culinary etiquette’, component of food mobilities in globaliz-
ing cultures the column is excellent material. In a piece on sushi, the
article begins (in a header text in large print) with the mysteriousness of
sushi for most Indians: ‘Most [Indians] might not know the diﬀ erence
between o-toro and choo-toro.’ With this, the agenda is made clear: fa-
miliarization with the exotic cuisine of another culture. But

why should

Indians know about sushi? Th

e answer is provided in the same header a

few lines later: ‘Sushi is on the up and rise, especially amongst the slick,
well-heeled globo-Indian’. Food mobility has been associated here with
class, wealth and power: the knowledge of sushi is necessary if you need
to project yourself as part of this club. Th

is is followed by sections titled

‘sushi explained’, ‘sushi locator’ (where can you ﬁ nd sushi in Indian
cities?) and a detailed pictorial representation of ‘sushi etiquette’ (

Taste

and Travel, 3.2, 2006: 44–47). Th

is is the

political subtext in the packag-

ing of gastronomic cosmopolitanism. Sushi is ‘packaged’ as a desirable
item to be consumed, where the ‘meaning’ of sushi becomes ‘exotic’,
‘luxurious’, classy and, therefore,

classist. It is packaged as an exotic item

whose origins must be known by/to the ‘well-heeled globo-Indian’.
‘Packaging’ mobility here is the packaging of food as a central element
in the globally travelling Indian. Sushi and the associated food mobility

Packaging Life

174

are the

signs of this travel. Sushi and gastronomic cosmopolitanism is the

glamourized packaging of:

• political-economic elements like class,

• the cultural codes of elitism and

• the ideology of knowledgeable global citizenship.

Food, here, gestures at a new social order.
It could be argued that while local food might be an exotic attraction

for tourists, it is the availability of cross-cultural cuisine that makes a
place truly touristy. Th

us, one of the chief attractions of Macau as a tour-

ist destination, according to one writer, is its ‘cross-continental cuisine’
(Podder 2008). Travellers in Africa’s Masai Mara might be fascinated
by the exotic appeal of dining under the open skies with old-fashioned
lamps and waiters in local costume (the cover of

Outlook Traveller’s sixth

anniversary special issue). But the drinks on the table are identiﬁ ably
Western (Gilbey’s) to suit the palate of the Western tourist.

Food cosmopolitanism, like food mobility, is a tension between the

desire to try the exotic and the comfort of something familiar. Th

packaging of food is perpetually caught in such a bind of mobility.
On the one hand the hotel, tourist resort and travel destination need
to oﬀ er the traveller something local and exotic. On the other hand
it cannot be only exotic and local foods that are served: the traveller
might also, invariably, want something closer to ‘home’. Th

is is the

reason why any hotel in tourist destinations will advertise multicuisine
menus.

Moving back to the materiality of food, the consumption of exotic

cuisine has been likened to ‘cultural food colonialism’ by some thinkers
(Heldke 2001). Food adventures are always initially exploratory: they
are driven, like the colonial explorers of the 18th and 19th centuries,
by the desire to experience the Other, the diﬀ erent and the strange. In
a sense they consume and domesticate the Other through the act of
incorporation (though the incorporation may have unexpected eﬀ ects
on the stomach of the colonizerconsumer). I tend to agree with this
idea of ‘cultural food colonialism’ with a proviso. It is indeed a domes-
tication of the Other, but this domestication often involves a

partici-

patory, mutually-transformative and transactional process within food

Life, the High-speed Edition

175

mobilities. Th

e packaging of food mobilities today often highlights the

indigenization of the Other. Chettinad toppings on pizza, McDonald’s
burgers with local ﬂ avours (in China, it comes with not only Sichuan
sauce, but the outlet itself hoists the Chinese and not the American ﬂ ag)
constitute the nativization of the global dish. Th

is packaging also creates

local and culture speciﬁ c products: the

halal burger for Muslim consum-

ers, the McLak salmon burger, the ‘oriental’ chicken salad (Kinchloe
2002: 132, 167) and Indian

masala ﬂ avours for Lay’s chips are examples

of this indigenization process. Colonialism, in its most virulent form,
often took recourse to stereotypes of purity, of guarding against the
mixing of races. Contemporary ‘cultural food colonialism’, in contrast,
actively promotes hybridization, collage and mixing of ﬂ avours, though
Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, KFC, all represent a

neo-colonialism in and of

themselves—and has been critiqued as a form of both economic and cultural
imperialism (Kinchloe 2002; McBride 2005). ‘Cultural food colonial-
ism’ as I see it is about hybridization, and in this, it becomes a crucial
instrument of food cosmopolitanisms. In other words, it becomes an
example of food mobilities.

e adoption of Indian curry as UK’s favourite cuisine is also an

example of the cultural cosmopolitanism made possible by food. Di-
asporic cultures and their literary writings are full of food (I am thinking
of writers like Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Jhumpa Lahiri here),
where food from ‘home’ (India) exists in a problematic relationship with
burgers, pasta and American foods. Here food is a cultural icon and a
means of staying connected to India. One consumes India even abroad
through food.

Food and Imaginative Geography

Another such sign of cultural mobility via food cultures is the recipe
column in cookbooks. When a cookbook introduces out-of-the-routine
recipes for things like, say, lobster, the immediate task may be to provide
information about this dish. I propose that the consequence of such
columns over several magazines and columns is food mobility.

If part of the theme and discourse of mobility is connectivity and

communication then exotic recipes and informational narratives on

Packaging Life

176

food enable us to travel. Recipe books and columns constitute the

im-

aginative geography of food. Th

ey tell us:

• where to get the particular dish or raw material,

• how to cook,

• how to serve,

• what it will look like and

• what it might taste like.

is means, even before the actual material act of incorporating the

particular food item, we have a foretaste of it. What I have called the im-
aginative geography of food is the anticipation and expectation of par-
ticular ﬂ avours, tastes and styles of food. Such an

imaginative foretasting

—a taste in advance—is a mobility of odours, tastes and sights. It links
us to what will happen if we do particular things. Th

us, a piece on cook-

ing lobster tells us: ‘It

will leave your palate tingling, your tummy full’

(‘Lobster Lore’,

Savvy Cookbook, April 2007, pp. 46–51, emphasis add-

ed). More obvious forms of such imaginative geographies of food would
be the section on ‘international’ cuisine and ﬂ avours, exotic dishes in
other parts of the world and cookbooks that pay special attention to
local ﬂ avours (particular wines in France, or the food of the Australian
outback). Cookbooks and food columns are a

culinary mapping of the

world, a discourse that readies you for a new kind of mobility:

• within the space of your kitchen/home when you prepare and

consume these dishes,

• through reading and the imaginative consumption of these

dishes and

• help you anticipate the pleasures (or terrors) of travel in speciﬁ c

places.

Food and Sensual Geographies

If travel enables one to ‘enjoy’ homely food, then it follows that travel-
lers seek food that they can enjoy. In other words, they seek pleasure.
Now, why would a magazine be called ‘taste and travel’? Reﬂ ecting on

Life, the High-speed Edition

177

the conjunction of these two events/processes/experiences in the same
sentence, one comes to a simple conclusion:

taste is central to all travel.

What one sees, where one chooses to go, what one buys as souvenirs and
what one eats are governed by taste. Taste is

sensory pleasure within tour-

ism, and has been so since the earliest times, but gathers its preeminence
in the 16th and 17th centuries when ‘gentlemen’ travelled in Europe—
termed the ‘grand tour’—as part of their education (Chard 1999).

Sensory pleasure is of course the key element in travel (education

might be a part of it), and food occupies a central place in sensory pleas-
ure for humans. Th

us, Brinda Suri, writing of Haridwar, records her own

gastronomic experience: ‘A cheesy fettuccini arrabiata by the Ganda was
both strangely out of place and sneakily indulgent’ (Suri 2007). Travel
essays in Indian newspapers, as Anna Kurian has argued, speak of exotic
eating but rarely mention the problems faced when we travel to a diﬀ er-
ent place (Kurian 2009).

Outlook Traveller, Taste and Travel and columns

in other magazines emphasize the exotic appeal of a diﬀ erent dish, but
rarely speak of the revulsion, disappointment or the simple longing for
‘home’ or ‘native’ food. Food mobilities are about the sensory imperative
of food in travel: the desire for gratiﬁ cation and the deliberate elision of
discomfort in such writings. Food mobilities are about the

gastronomic

pleasures of being mobile. In fact, I would argue that food mobilities are
the assertion of a certain measure of freedom to indulge taste-buds and
gastronomic desires. Th

e extremely lavish descriptions that character-

ize food experiences in travel narratives suggests a

rhetoric of excess, a

rhetoric that seems to be pre-determined just as the excess is: one is
determined to enjoy and indulge on the tour.

Food mobility, here, is the discourse of exotic food and taste that

anticipates the sensory pleasure of travel. Th

is sensory pleasure of tasty

food complicates the experience of both food and travel. Food mobility
expands the boundaries of our known, familiar and preferred tastes on
the occasion of travel. Experimenting with diﬀ erent cuisines is exposure
to new tastes. If travel itself is the experience of the strange and the new,
the sensory pleasure of food on the tour gives us a certain amount of
stability. Th

e ‘edge’ of the new place and strangers is blunted by the

sensory pleasure of good food. Food enables us to meet the alien culture
through the act of consumption or sharing. If food breaks the border
between the self and outside through the act of incorporation, it also

Packaging Life

178

generates a sensory pleasure that breaks down the barrier between the
self and the strange/new world one is travelling in. We incorporate the
strange and the new. Th

is is the reason why travel guides direct us to

places of

good food. Experiencing the Other is contingent upon the

pleasure of the Other’s food rather than its horrors. In this intimate
act of consumption we prepare ourselves to deal with the completely
unfamiliar Other.

Cosmopolitanism

Drive Global.

– Tag Line, Hyundai Getz

In Pico Iyer’s account of his global locations and identities,

e Glo-

bal Soul, he meets a man from Lahore in a Toronto bar. Th

e man

had been educated at Vassar, and his girlfriend was a Christian from
Hyderabad, in southern India. His girlfriend’s parents had grown up in
Mysore (southern India), moved to England, then to Kansas and then
to Nova Scotia, ﬁ nally settling down in a village full of other Christians
from Mysore (Iyer 2000: 168). Th

is description is of a citizen of the

world, whose roots might be in one place, but has blossomed in several.
Mixed origins and multi-locational in terms of education, professional
demands, property ownership and family demographics, usually multi-
lingual, the citizen of the world is an increasingly visible category.

In a connected world, the upper-segments of professionals, especially

in metropolises, are all hyper-mobile [undoubtedly, this global identity
business is mainly for the well-heeled (Featherstone 2002: 1]. Equally at
home, driving on the streets of Mumbai and ordering dinner at an Ital-
ian restaurant (a process that requires understanding of what the dishes
are) in Manhattan, the yuppie generation of the 1990s is a citizen of
the world. Th

ey can identify brands, food, rock stars, classical music

and own international consumer products from round the world. Th

eir

work takes them all over the world, and often log ‘frequent ﬂ ier’ miles
for doing so. Th

ey have preferences in airports and hotels, and possess

mobile phones ‘SIM’ cards for various places, and a credit card that
serves all (or most regions) on earth. Th

ey are the cosmopolitans.

Life, the High-speed Edition

179

Cosmopolitanism has been a major political concept since the

European Enlightenment, and has returned in a big with globalization.

However, more than the political notions and theories of the ‘citizen of
the world’, I am concerned with

cultural cosmopolitanisms and, spe-

ciﬁ cally, with the link between consumer culture, cosmopolitanism and
mobility.

But it is not just the people who become cosmopolitan: places and cit-

ies are also increasingly cosmopolitan. Salman Rushdie painted Bombay/
Mumbai as a great cosmopolitan city in

e Moor’s Last Sigh when he

wrote:

In India all Indias met and merged. In Bombay, too, all-India met
what-was-not-India, what came across the black water to ﬂ ow into
our veins … all rivers ﬂ owed into its human sea. It was an ocean of
stories; we were all its narrators, and everybody talked all at once …
(Rushdie 1996: 350)

Sujata Patel argued that the change of name from ‘Bombay’ to

‘Mumbai’ by the Shiv Sena in 1995 ‘erase[d] a multi-ethnic and mul-
tilingual cosmopolitanism being nurtured in the city, that of a bour-
geois class-based modernity, substituting it with a populist oriented
ethnic and religious identity’ (Patel 2003: 4). Globalization results in
new ways of the everyday life—from shopping to food products avail-
able in supermarkets. Everyday life becomes

cosmopolitanized when

you can now purchase a Hyundai car, munch Pringles while doing
so, wearing a D&G dress and Jimmy Choo shoes, checking stocks
on your Sony Vaio and the location of the nearest Pizza Hut on your
GPS, even as a call on your LG mobile intrudes. Consumer research
has established that cosmopolitanism is a ‘consumer orientation’, and
deﬁ ne it as a condition wherein when people regard the world as their
market place, consciously seeking to consume products, places and
experiences originating from cultures other than their own’ (Caldwell
et al. 2006: 126).

Everyday life is about the mobilities of these (global, other-cultural)

products and services

into and around your everyday life. A segment of

the population in metropolises across India becomes

cosmopolitanized:

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180

• Youth—with similar tastes in music, ﬁ lms, fashion.

• Lifestyle advocates—with interests in ﬁ tness, aerobics, Pilates

and the culture of wellness.

• Corporate executives—who travel abroad, or work for extended

periods abroad.

Another category would be that of the global

activist: people work-

ing for the environment, AIDS matters, the tribes and indigenous
peoples, etc.

Cosmopolitanism has been ‘packaged’ as a desirable condition main-

ly by culture industries and global capital because it enables the expan-
sion of markets. Th

e much-desired global mobility of products generates

proﬁ ts for corporations situated in First-World nations. Cosmopolitan-
ism must, therefore, be treated not only as a consumer choice, but also
as a political economic condition of uneven power relations. Th

is con-

sumer ideology is the concealed element in the glamour ‘packaging’ of
the cosmopolitan ideal.

Here is a deﬁ nition of globalization that gestures at cosmopolitan

cultures: ‘Globalized culture admits a continuous ﬂ ow of ideas, infor-
mation, commitment, values and tastes mediated through mobile in-
dividuals, symbolic tokens and electronic simulations’ (Waters 1996:
126). Global marketing strategies and management principles govern
the working of corporations, advertising, sales policies and even the
structure of stores. Global capitalism transforms people all over the
world into consumers by:

• generating wants and desires,

• oﬀ ering desirable images (of say, celebrities and fashionable or

ﬁ t bodies),

• inﬂ uencing their wants through these images and

• oﬀ ering products that apparently fulﬁ l those wants.

is, of course, serves the interests of global capital because ‘wants’

represent potential consumers. Consumer culture can be seen as a medi-
um through which global capital ﬂ ows. But it is also a medium through
which cultural ‘ﬂ ows’ are

made possible.

Life, the High-speed Edition

181

How does mobility get aligned with and packaged as cosmopolitan-

ism? In order to explore this question we need to take into account
the diﬀ erent kinds of processes, eﬀ ects and trajectories of cosmopolitan
mobilities.

‘Mundane Cosmopolitanism’ and Mobility

As noted earlier, a supermarket or mall is a key element in cultural glo-
balization through their wide array of international brands, products
and services. Consumption itself becomes a marker of globalization
(Lukose 2005). We are now familiar with Quaker Oats, Kellogs’ break-
fast cereal, Nokia phones, MTV, Th

omas Cook holidays in Europe

[there is, in fact, a globalization of leisure itself, as suggested by Horner
and Swarbrooke (2005)] and quiche.

With global connectivity, increased world travel and availability of

consumer products and practices of eating and shopping, everybody
becomes cosmopolitan. Th

is is characterized as ‘mundane cosmopoli-

tanism’ (Hebdige 1990) and ‘banal cosmopolitanism’ (Beck 2002). I see
‘mundane cosmopolitanism’ as an instance of the great cultural ‘ﬂ ows’,
the swirl and eddy of products around us:

• Hollywood movies

• French fashion

• European food

• American sports

But

also:

• SRK in the global celebrity arena

• Hindi movies in the US

• Yoga exports

• Th e ‘curry’ in UK

Cosmopolitanism is increasingly the

mobility of products in our eve-

ryday lives. ‘Mundane cosmopolitanism’ is not about Arundhati Roy
delivering a talk in New York City or Mahatma Gandhi being voted

Packaging Life

182

the ‘man of the millennium’. It is

not about the making of the Indian

constitution through a process of inﬂ uence and assimilation from other
constitutions. It is

not about Indian activists in Greenpeace, the partici-

pation of Indians in global relief measures or protests in Kerala against
the Iraq war.

‘Mundane cosmopolitanism’ is the

agglomeration of the global with-

in our reach through the mobility of products and services from across the
world. It is the routine mobility of images, services and products within
an aﬀ ordable (at least in metropolises) in our everyday life. It is impor-
tant to see this cosmopolitanism as being a

routine because the routine

is often invisible. It is integrated into the everyday life and rhythms of
an individual or family’s cycles of consumption and pleasures. Globali-
zation is brought home to us in invisible ways through the

mobility of

products and services where they become a part of the choices we make
routinely in supermarkets, on an evening out with the family or a device
we wish to buy.

‘Mundane cosmopolitanism’ is about mobility because it extends

our consumer and culture

reach. We move beyond ‘Digjam Suitings’ or

Binny textiles to multinational products in malls. We shop for products
online, and they are delivered from warehouses abroad. ‘Mundane cos-
mopolitanism’ is about mobility also because it moves our extent and
purchasing options beyond territory. We move out, literally, of the old
retail store. Multiplexes show us the very latest in Hollywood and world
cinema, and move us out of the older ‘talkies’ (in Hyderabad, where
I live, numerous old cinema houses are defunct or being torn down
to make way for multiplexes), where the multiplexes themselves repre-
sent the space of cultural mobilities, a cosmopolitan space of cultural
consumption. All this makes us

consumer citizens of the world. Within

the space of four ﬂ oors of a mall, I

move between worlds—American

Gap to Finnish Nokia to Australian Foster’s. My shopping experience
is a cosmopolitan one because I routinely buy and use products that
are designed, produced and marketed from beyond Indian borders. It
marks my mobility as a consumer when I do so, even if I am not alerted
to (or politically troubled by) the demise of

khadi (except for high-end

varieties), the destruction of the

swadesi consumer experience of native

textiles and the declining presence of ‘purely’ Indian products.

I am a

Life, the High-speed Edition

183

mobile consumer of the world’s products even as the products move towards
me. Th

is is the political subtext to the meanings (or myths) that circulate

around the term ‘cosmopolitan’ today.

It is important to understand that this mobility of consumption with-

in ‘mundane cosmopolitanism’ is not a distinct cultural sphere. Urban
studies has shown how the circulation of

symbolic, that is, objects that

are seen as being primarily about value, prestige, pleasure and entertain-
ment (cultural artefacts such as ﬁ lms or music) rather than about utility
(say, furniture or clothing)—forms is intrinsically linked to the

economy

(Scott 2001). Th

at is, cities become sites of global economies through

the circulation of cultural goods: Hollywood ﬁ lms in Indian theatres,
Indian yoga in Manhattan and Shah Rukh Khan everywhere.

Culture in-

dustries of the media (ﬁ lm, television, publishing), fashion-intensive con-
sumer goods sectors (clothing, jewellery), services (advertising, tourism,
entertainment) and creative professions (graphic arts, web-designing)
are crucial to a city’s

economy. When advertisements speak of ‘global

Indians’—also a fashion line—they treat it as just a cultural process and
product and quietly de-link it (for public culture) from the economies
of the city that generate, depend on and proﬁ t from these products.
‘Unpacking’ cosmopolitanism alerts us to the determinedly consumerist
element within the glamourization of the ‘global’ or the ‘multicultural’.

is commodiﬁ cation of symbolic goods—where these products and

services are sold and bought like any other commodity—is integral to a
city’s growth and expansion in the late 20th century. In other words, we
can now redeﬁ ne the city as a space of economic ‘ﬂ ows’ and mobilities
where economy and culture are linked in the process of:

• local manufacturing (‘under licence from …’),

• creative industries and marketing (advertising),

• social investment (fashion values, prestige cultures of a product)

and

• producing and marketing consumer pleasures.

Each of these processes must be seen as instances and instantiation of

global cultural and economic mobilities. When Gap can determine the
fashion scene in college campuses in India, or Ralph Lauren inﬂ uences

Packaging Life

184

the up-market clientele with its ‘seasonal’ designs, what we have is

mobile culture that is incorporated into the routine rhythms of a city elite’s
consumerism.

‘Mundane cosmopolitanism’ is this mobility oﬀ ered to a consumer

through these processes of globalization, the new forms of economy
(dependent upon

symbolic goods rather than utilitarian goods). What

is fascinating about ‘mundane cosmopolitanism’ is that we rarely see
the circulation of symbolic forms, whether ﬁ lms or a Shakira album
as being about

economy. In other words, what sustains the circulation

and mobility of consumer-pleasing symbolic goods is an

invisible mo-

bility of economic ﬂ ows. We do not see or understand the global trade
agreements, the take-overs (except in rare cases such as the arrival of
Walmart), the mergers, the lay-oﬀ s, the end of subsidies and the slow
erosion of local shopping and products in the glamourized world of
‘mundane cosmopolitanism’. To put it another way, ‘mundane cosmo-
politanism’ is a glamourized, packaged

mobility of symbolic and cultural

forms that masks more devious, insidious and unsettling mobilities of glo-
bal capital. By making and marking cosmopolitanism as a consumer’s
routine paradise through the oﬀ er of multiple foreign brands, contem-
porary global capitalism erases the dangerous mobilities of exploitative
labour, one-sided trade agreements and unethical corporate policies. It
is also important to note that it is not simply about elite mobility, but
what the geographer Doreen Massey terms a ‘politics of mobility and
access’: Who can travel, where and how. Does the migrant labour and
the skilled software engineer travel as similar kinds of ‘cosmopolitans’?
(Massey cited in Eade 1997: 10). Assuredly not; and one just has to ob-
serve immigration oﬃ

cials at international airports to see the diﬀ erence

(a point made by Salman Rushdie in his essay ‘Step Across Th

is Line’

[2002: 428]).

‘Mundane cosmopolitanism’ is also an interesting form of mobility

where the intimate and the domestic intersect with the global and the
universal. Mobility of products and services

into the home, family or an

individual’s personal choices often takes into account the local culture,
traditions and customs. Th

is means, ‘mundane cosmopolitanism’ ac-

counts for traditional preferences of the family or the individual. Th

us,

foreign coﬀ ee brands or Maggi noodles as options are constrained by the
family’s customs: ﬁ lter coﬀ ee,

idlis or paranthas as breakfast?

Life, the High-speed Edition

185

‘Mundane cosmopolitanism’ has to negotiate these intimate or do-

mestic contexts and conditions in which men, women and children
acquire or use these products and services. Pollock et al. (2000) have pro-
posed that the intimate sphere is linked with cosmopolitanism because
the private sphere is increasingly connected with the public realm. Ex-
tending this argument, the ‘home oﬃ

ce’ constitutes a link of the home/

intimate with the world/public. In this, the intimate sphere informs and
negotiates the public domain on an everyday basis. Th

e sphere of do-

mesticity is no more disconnected from the public. Hence, cosmopoli-
tanism cannot be seen as a feature of the public sphere alone. Also, with
the intrusion of the public/global/foreign into the domestic sphere on a
day-to-day basis (as noted earlier)—the ‘mundane cosmopolitanism’—
we need to locate cosmopolitanism as a feature of domestic life too.

‘Vernacular Cosmopolitanism’ and the Mobilities of the Local

So far we have seen how cosmopolitanism is packaged as a desirable cul-
tural and social condition which masks the hidden contradictions and
iniquities of the trade-industrial-political system. Th

e global movement

of a Sony or a Kelloggs is more than just the mobility of a product—it
is the mobility of a chain of processes, from migrant labour to low-wage
Th

ird World worker to global capital’s take-over of local markets and

manufacturers.

However, signiﬁ cant ‘counters’ or even appropriations of such a cos-

mopolitan mobility of consumption also exist. Non-elite forms of travel
and trade in post-colonial nations constitute such a counter. Migrant
workers—low-skilled or even unskilled workers: the Filipino nannies in
UK, Malayali nurses in USA, Pakistani and Indian labourers in the Mid-
dle East—bring with them their own cultural contexts. Th

ey are mobile

cultural ‘packages’ that also assimilate the culture of their chosen place
of work, but do not quite abandon their ‘root’ cultures. In the Middle
Eastern context, for instance, the Pakistani labourer and the Indian one
might embrace the immediate setting and culture of the Arab world and
become ‘cosmopolitan’. Th

ey constitute diﬀ erent ethnic groups within

the Gulf, making it a

cosmopolitan place. Yet, their religious traditions

and customs are not entirely abandoned. Such a migrant, working-class

Packaging Life

186

or minority presence alters the very nature of cosmopolitanism. Th

is is

‘vernacular cosmopolitanism’.

‘Vernacular cosmopolitanism’ is the question of whether ‘the local,

parochial, rooted, culturally speciﬁ c and demotic may co-exist with the
translocal, transnational, transcendent, elitist, enlightened, universal-
ist and modernist’ (Werbner 2006: 2). Th

e vernacular upsets the

elit-

ist cosmopolitan. It marks the insidious, subversive and often violently
rebellious cultural interaction—which has been named ‘discrepant cos-
mopolitanism’ to indicate its violent reprisal of elite or homogeneous
cosmopolitanism—with the super-imposed (as in, brought in from the
outside rather than adapted from below or within) cultural artefacts or
frames (Cliﬀ ord 1997).

Cosmopolitanism is an

outlook that relies on the recognition of dif-

ference. It is a ‘way of seeing the world’ that recognizes the diﬀ erences
in culture and tolerates them (Fine 2007: 134). It refuses to see the
world in terms of ﬁ xed categories, and instead locates inter-subjective,
common and shared ‘moments’. When the vernacular, the local and the
non-elite negotiate with the global, we have a diﬀ erent kind of cosmo-
politanism.

‘Vernacular cosmopolitanism’ would be exempliﬁ ed by not only the

resistance to Walmart or Reliance Retail in India, but (and perhaps more
accurately) by the appropriation of the global by the local. Every fash-
ion line has a native equivalent that is modelled after the global one.
Backpacks with brand labels such as Diesel or JanSport are available in
every single city in India—all manufactured

locally. Cinema and music

piracy constitutes an infringement of global copyright conventions (it
might be possible to see international copyright conventions and Intel-
lectual Property Rights as an attempt at forging a cosmopolitanism of
sorts) at local levels. ‘Vernacular cosmopolitanism’, like Cliﬀ ord’s ‘dis-
crepant cosmopolitanism’ (1997) is often violent and bitter. Th

e scarf

issue in France (2004) was such a ‘discrepant’ or ‘vernacular cosmopoli-
tanism’ where a thus-far assimilated migrant community—Muslims in
France—revolted against what they saw as an enforced cultural code
(BBC News 2004).

is marks a wholly diﬀ erent order and modality of mobility. I see

‘vernacular cosmopolitanism’ as a mobility that thwarts another mobility:

Life, the High-speed Edition

187

resistant mobility. ‘Resistant’ mobility is a counter-mobility where local

cultures, modes of production, marketing and consumer networks step
in to prevent the dissemination or even channels of circulation of global
brands and signs. Instead—as is the case with ethnicization of global
brands by smaller stores and manufacturing units, or even with local
patronage among ethnic communities outside India—they create alter-
nate mechanisms of disseminating the same products (and thereby alter
the proﬁ ts) or create diﬀ erent products itself by appropriating the

styling

of the global brand. Pnina Werbner has shown, as a version of what I
am calling the ‘resistant mobility’ of ‘vernacular cosmopolitanism’, how
working-class cosmopolitans from Pakistan created routes of travel for
cosmetics, food, jewellery, clothing and even brides. Th

ese, Werbner

argues, created ‘global pathways’ that forged transnational marriages
and connections between Pakistani families spread across the world
(Werbner 1999). I expand on Werbner’s thesis to suggest that while
such ‘global pathways’ are linked to cosmopolitan contexts, they also
mark oﬀ a trajectory within the cosmopolitan map. Th

ey mark oﬀ a

space of travel, consumption and identity within a cosmopolitan ethos
of consumerism because they

reconﬁ gure the objects that travel. What

I am calling ‘resistant mobility’ within ‘vernacular cosmopolitanism’ is
not a rejection of the global brand as much as a negotiation where local
brands and products try to retain their customer, or modify the glo-
bal brand to serve the interests of the economically underprivileged.
If cosmopolitanism is a mark of the elite, then

the resistant mobility of

‘vernacular cosmopolitanism’ appropriates a global brand (made available
by cosmopolitan deals and mobilities) to produce cheaper versions for the
non-elite. Th

e widespread circulation of JanSport bags, Ray-Ban sun-

glasses or Nike shoes priced at a few hundred rupees in Indian cities
is resistant mobility—a mobile consumption pattern that upsets and
subverts the cosmopolitan stores of the mall.

Mobility is then packaged for us in diverse ways. It is metaphor and

context, a politics and a cultural condition. Th

e high-speed edition of

life is one where mobility of various kinds—travel, movement, speed—
is the desired life form. Automobiles and shopping, cultural mobilities
and cosmopolitanism are manifestations of mobility in our everyday
lives. ‘Packaging’ here is the form mobility takes for us: driven by the

Packaging Life

188

logic of consumer culture, the ideologies of capitalism, the technologies
of communications and the politics of globalization, mobility remains
the dominant theme of contemporary life and culture.

Notes

It should be clear that I am speaking of urban, empowered mobilities here.
Other mobilities—refugees, exiles, prisoners, soldiers, the displaced immigrants
—are not part of this study. Th

e refugee or the exile represents mobility of a

particular type, and reveals the cultural (and economic) politics of both the
originating country as well as the ‘receiving’ one. One needs to only look at the
Bangladeshi immigrants in the Northeast, the Narmada displaced, the tribals
of Kerala who are losing their lands, the animosity towards the ‘north Indians’
engineered by Raj Th

ackeray to understand the savage nature of some of these

other mobilities. Such mobilities demand an ethical reading of the cultural and
other politics of immigration and travel. For a thoughtful study of the refugee
as an ‘ethical ﬁ gure’ see Aihwa Ong (2003). I am grateful to Akhila Ramnarayan
for drawing my attention to Ong’s work.

One of the things this chapter does

not do in its study of mobility is the culture

speed. Speed, as Paul Virilio and others have argued (1994, 1995), is integral

to late 20th century cultures.

3 Th

e revision of Descartes’ maxim is from Mark Amerika’s

Grammatron (see

http://www.grammatron.com/htc1.0/dialogue.html.).

See the special issue of

eory, Culture and Society. 2004. 21(4/5) for some of

the best work on ‘automobilities’. Also, see the work of John Urry in

Sociology

beyond Societies (2000) and Daniel Miller (ed.), Car Cultures (2001b).

5 Th

e autonomy of the car is also, like all technology, raced and gendered. Social

theorists have shown how when women learn to drive they very often double
their workload because then it is the woman who ends up ferrying children to
school or doing the shopping (Jain 2002). Similarly, ‘driving while black’, as
Paul Gilroy (2001) has shown, makes them prone to over-regulation through
policies of racial proﬁ ling.

I take my cue for the ‘cultural logics’ of the automobile from David Gartman’s
‘Th

ree Ages of the Automobile’ (2004).

Car pooling and shared cabs of business process outsourcing services (BPOs)
mark exceptions. Th

e former is a community of people who do not use indi-

vidual vehicles but a community of individuals who know each other already
(unlike mass transport). Th

e second is again a form of community-formation.

I am grateful to Anna Kurian for drawing my attention to these new forms of
privatized mobility.

Life, the High-speed Edition

189

8 See http://www.autocarindia.com/new/Information.asp?id=2062 (accessed on

7 June 2008).

9 See http://hyundaiverna.co.in/verna.asp?pagename=design (accessed on 7 June

2008).

10 For a study of the rhetoric of car advertisements, see Joanna Th

ornborrow

(1998).

11 Th

ere are literally dozens of essays on the gendered discourse, the stereotyp-

ing of woman’s work and the division of labour embodied in cookbooks. See,
for example, Neuhaus (1999), Newlyn (1999), Zafar (1999) and Eves (2005),
among others.

12 A cosmopolitan is a ‘citizen of the cosmos’. Th

e Stoics in ancient Greece spoke

of it. Th

e Buddhist

sanghas, according to some thinkers, were an early example

of cosmopolitanism (Dharwadker 2001: 5–6).

13 Major studies of the political consequences and processes of cosmopolitanism

include: Pheng Cheah and Bruce Robbins (eds),

Cosmopolitics: Th

inking

and Feeling Beyond the Nation (1998), Daniele Archibugi (ed), Debating
Cosmopolitics (2003), Ulrich Beck, Th

e Cosmopolitan Vision (2006), Robert

Fine,

Cosmopolitanism (2007), among others.

14 Scott Lash and John Urry speak of the ‘footloose’ nature of the professional-

managerial classes of the advanced societies (1994: 29). See also Jörg
Dürrschmidt (2000): 60–90.

15 However, it must be noted that even ‘Indian’ products were manufactured

on machines imported from other nations—right from Tata steel to Reliance
fabric.

Conclusion

Unpacking

his book has argued that our experience and perception of
health, success, comfort and luxury, mobility and cosmopoli-
tanism are mediated by intersecting, interpenetrating and even

conﬂ icting discourses circulating in the mass media. Th

e persistent

theme of the book has been the link of conditions of everyday life to
consumer culture, especially in the informationalism, glamourization and
managerialism that constitute the contemporary discourses of health,
risk, comfort and mobilities. Th

is is ‘packaging’, the process of meaning-

making for particular ends.

Packaging Life underscored the centrality of

representation, narrative, image-making and rhetoric—‘packaging’—in
enabling discourses to circulate.

e semantic scope of the term ‘packaging’, as used throughout the

book, works with its adjunct meanings and connotations: ‘bundle’ and
‘deliver’. I have used it to refer to the bundling together of ideas and
products, where ideologies of consumerism are entwined with those of
self-care or notions of cosmopolitan fashion are aligned with local pride.
I have also used ‘packaging’ in its sense of ‘transportation’—the ‘delivery’
of ideas and meanings through images in multiple media forms to the
consumer, citizen, community and individual. ‘Packaging’ is a term I use
to describe a deliberate, organized act of

communication—narration—

and the vehicle of

meaning production, delivery and reception, where

multiple ideologies, purposes, eﬀ ects are bundled together.

Health comes to us packaged as a culture of care and cure when a

‘low calorie edition’ of life is projected as the most desirable form. Th

packaging generates a ‘healthism’ where a particular condition of the
body is projected and promoted as desirable and acquirable. Healthism
promotes, I demonstrated, an ideology where the care of the self was a
personal responsibility, especially in the age of lifestyle diseases. Health
is a state of the body whose norms, limits and deviations are ‘packaged’
for us, and whose ‘achievement’ becomes a consumer ideal.

Conclusion

191

e chapter on comfort traced a shift from comfort to luxury. In the

late 20th century, the chapter argued, the emphasis is on Utility Plus.
‘Stylization’ is central to this condition where the product and the self
are both ‘branded’, and luxury becomes an intertextual narrative where
brand- and self-narratives merge seamlessly, each feeding oﬀ the other.
A de-moralization of luxury has occurred where indulgence is no more
immoral, rather it is a constituent of a successful personhood. Products
and services are ‘sacralized’ through a bestowing of singularization, in-
cluding an antiquarianism, where objects are transported and valued
across spatial and temporal zones to produce polychronic, ‘untimely’
and multi-spatial artefacts.

e chapter on ‘packaging risk’ argued that everyday life is increas-

ingly depicted as risk-ﬁ lled—and, therefore, proposes a ‘bubble-wrapped
edition’ of life. Th

e discourse, of risk, I proposed, participates in

a dis-

course of managerialism—but a managerialism that is not only about
organizations and careers, but also

about everyday life and the self. Th

packaging of risk also includes, I demonstrated, expert cultures, where
the solution to the imminent risk is provided by the expert.

In the last chapter, I examined a dominant form of public culture:

the culture of mobility. We live in a ‘culture of mobility’ marked, pri-
marily, by connectivity

as mobility—generating what I have termed the

‘high-speed edition’ of life. It explored the multiple mobilities of cell
phones, social networking and mobile subjectivity and the apotheosis of
mobility in the late 20th century: cosmopolitanism.

If I were to summarize in a phrase,

Packaging Life is a study of the cul-

ture of management—managing the self, identity, homes, impressions
and styles, ideas, emotions, product-use and health. Th

is managerialism

is constructed subtly through narratives and representations. Th

e book’s

emphasis is clear: everyday life is informed through and through by
modes of representation in the mass media that ‘sell’ us products, services,
ideas and opinions about thin bodies, luxurious villas, social justice,
global warming and inspire, scare or ask us to

manage bodies, ﬁ nances,

leisure, families, mind, emotions, in short, the components of our eve-
ryday experiences. ‘Selling’ and ‘consumption’ here are taken to mean
more than just the merchandising and passive purchase-use of products
and services. In this book, it is taken to mean the making-available of
conceptual frameworks, belief systems and an envelope of opinions within

Packaging Life

192

which an individual or group’s thinking, actions, responses and emo-
tional states can occur and, more importantly, altered, sensitized, roused
and driven in particular directions. Th

ese conceptual frameworks help

us perceive the world, and are ﬁ rst made visible to us through narrative
and rhetoric—language—in ads, political speeches, cinema, product
biography and expert advice.

e task the book sets for itself is to probe the ways in which our

beliefs, opinions and products are packaged for us to consume, practice
and trust in. Th

e construction of conceptual frameworks (within repre-

sentations) that inﬂ uence the way we think, believe and see the world
whether in the domain of health, risk, comfort or mobility demands an
‘unpacking’ that exposes the regulatory grid and cultural politics of these
representations.

***

e process of ‘unpacking’ serves an explicatory purpose, decoding rep-

resentational practices that we have so far accepted as innocent, whether
it is the rhetoric of the expert, the ravings of the hysterical ‘the end-is-
near’ apocalyptist, the suaveness of the salesman or the glamorization
of thin by ramp-walking models. To ‘unpack’ is to render transparent,
and therefore, open to scrutiny, disbelief and, most importantly, inter-
rogation, those processes of meaning-making that convince us to buy,
believe, panic, diet and insure. To ‘unpack’ is to unfold the cultural poli-
tics that are secreted within entertainment, educational media, dollops
of information and the expert discourse of medicine or climate. It is
the name of the process of critical examination that tells us exactly how
promotional material, information brochures and advice columns build
on our fears, anxieties and desires in order to sell, convince, persuade
and believe; in short, to consume. ‘Unpacking’ is the exegetical process
of peeling aside the façade that makes consumers of us all—whether it is
to scapegoat a community, buy a product or mimic a model.

e decoding of representations, or what this book terms ‘unpack-

ing’, is ﬁ rmly positioned within the discourse studies component of
Cultural Studies. None of the everyday structures of thought or action
are unmediated or neutral; it is representation and meaning-making
that make them appear so. And therefore, ‘to unpack’

is an imperative if

Conclusion

193

we are to be alert to the cultural politics of public representations in cinema,
the soap opera, the health column or the men’s magazine.

‘Packaging’, as this book has demonstrated, encodes particular no-

tions of the family, the individual or ‘India’, even as it constructs ‘roles’
for individuals and collectives. It maps abstract values such as ‘comfort’
or ‘luxury’ onto classes and economic groups, onto particular spaces (ur-
ban culture) and practices (clubbing, global cuisine consumption), and
thus, engages in politically signiﬁ cant cultural rhetorics that organizes
individuals and groups into income brackets, consumer types and vote
banks. It smuggles ideologies of gender roles, class, success and wealth
into advice, reportage, entertainment and education. Forms of repre-
sentation in public culture blur or cement over the ideological grids of
capitalism, consumerism, exploitation or oppression. ‘Packaging’ is the
glamorous representation that must be ‘unpacked’ for the politics of
popular forms.

Constructions—a term to indicate meaning-making and representa-

tions—of aged people, the promotion of luxury as a desirable quality, or
the emphasis on material success often call into question, reinforce or
marginalize individuals or groups that do not ﬁ t into acceptable notions
and categories of ‘youth’, ‘successful’ or ‘stylish’, and thus, construct
power relations between people. All discourses are about power, and
are hence,

political in the sense that they seek/hope to inﬂ uence people’s

actions. Th

is could be the consciousness-raising campaigns against glo-

bal warming, the sympathetic-consideration of a medical condition, the
promotion of lifestyle changes via alternative medicine or the whipping
up of moral panics around the supposed corruption of Indian youth.
Th

us, meanings and representations have a concrete interventionary role

in people’s thinking and actions—whether in the purchase of a product
or the political opinions about immigrants. Th

e promotional culture of

consumerism relies on the construction of categories and notions, and
is therefore, an exercise in power, for it catalogues, discerns or discrimi-
nates among individuals and groups. Promotional culture, or ‘packag-
ing’, appropriates prevalent ‘cultural rhetorics’ in order to persuade its
audience. Cultural rhetorics is political for the underlying cultural codes
rely on speciﬁ c notions of family, gender, class or leisure in order to rein-
force, subvert or reject power relations between genders, classes, groups
or communities. Th

e woman ‘responsible’ for the health of her family

Packaging Life

194

is deemed, as the chapter on risk showed, for instance, to possess a ‘do-
mestic autonomy’ that allows her to determine the health of her fam-
ily and thus, choose the right forms of consumption. Gender evidently
informs the cultural politics of domestic consumption. When the Idea
adverts with Abhishek Bachchan erase all caste, family, spatial and class
locations and substitutes these aﬃ

liations with numbers (the mobile

phone numbers), it indulges in a

political fantasy of the re-formation of

identities. What needs to be ‘unpacked’ in this advert is the packaged
naturalization of diﬀ erence into an illusion of equality.

‘Unpacking’ is the careful teasing out of these discourses so that we

never again look at everyday life and its discourses—the VLCC ad, the
helpful insurance salesman or the invitation to luxury—as ‘innocent’.
‘Unpacking’ is the generation of

dissident reading practices so that we

learn to scrutinize these rhetorical forms of promotional, advice or ex-
pert cultures for what they conceal. Unpacking cultural politics is a Cul-
tural Studies project. Th

e task for Cultural Studies, especially of the dis-

course-studies kind embodied in

Packaging Life (and which it packages!),

is this

unpacking of the political subtexts of narratives about risk, health,

comfort and mobilities in Indian public culture in multiple media and
genres. Th

ese narratives are embedded—or, more accurately, constitute

the very stuﬀ of—promotional, expert, entertainment and advice cul-
ture. Cultural Studies reiterates the need for a politically alert reading,
and

Packaging Life’s ‘unpacking’ calls attention to the question of pow-

er—in formations of gender relations, class marking, urban spacing or
media representations—of ﬁ nance, ideas, social organization, domestic
conditions and individual choices within these four discourses.

Such an ‘unpacking’ has to proceed from a speciﬁ c assumption from

within Cultural Studies: that acts of representation are political, that
narratives are embedded in discourses that have social manifestations,
and that rhetoric possesses considerable cultural power and eﬀ ects on
the individual, collective and social imagination. Th

e task of this ‘un-

packing’ is to see how such representations codify particular practices
of discrimination, support, emancipation or oppression as natural and
legitimize power relations among groups and between individuals.

‘Unpacking’ is the process of unravelling the ‘delivery’ mechanisms

and ‘bundled’ ideologies of public culture’s representations. It is to of-
fer an interpretive framework for reading those cultural practices and

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Index

affective mobility (automobiles), 158–60
autonomous geography, 153–55
automobilization of space, 160–63

biomilitary state, 29–36
brand biography, 62–65

care of the self, 19–23
comfort (definition), 46
comfort, culture of, 47–49
connectivity, 138–41.

See also multiple

mobilities

‘cultural borrowing’, 63–65
culture of care and cure, 13–23.

See also

perfectible body; care of the self

culture of the supplement, xxiii, 18,

50–54

de-moralization of luxury, 70–74
demythifying risk, 105–09

embodying risk, 109–11
emotional imaging, 112–17.

See also

moral panics

expert, culture of, 117–19

food mobilities, 164–78

food cosmopolitanism, 171–75
food and imaginative geography,

175–76

genomic art, 29

healthism, xii, xxii, 2, 10–13, 15, 16,

42, 190

Human Genome Project, 34–35

imagination and becoming-real of risk,

98–101

immaterial mobility, 138–41
information and risk, 101–11.

See also

risk language; demythifying risk;
embodying risk

informational culture of health, 6–10
immaterial mobility, 138, 139, 173.

See

also multiple mobilities

livability, 49, 50, 53, 54, 61

managing health, 23–42.

See also biomi-

litary state; technologization of health;
medical spectacles.

materials of comfort, 54–59
medicalization of the everyday, 4–13.

See

also healthism; informational culture
of health

medical spectacles, 37–42
mobile autonomy, 150–53
mobile effects (automobiles), 155–57
mobile subjectivity (social networking),

141–44

moral panics, 112–17.

See also emotional

imaging

multiple mobilities (cell phones),

138–41

mundane cosmopolitanism, 181–85

obesity (packaging of ), xii–xiii, 12, 17,

20, 22, 32, 105, 107

ornamentalism and luxury, 74–76

perfectible body, 14–19

About the Author

ramod K. Nayar was Smuts Visiting Fellow in Commonwealth
Studies, University of Cambridge (2000–2001), the UK, the
Charles Wallace India Trust-British Council Fellow, University

of Kent at Canterbury, the UK (2001) and Fulbright Senior Fellow,
Cornell University, USA (2005–06). Some of his most recent books
include

Seeing Stars: Spectacle, Society and Celebrity Culture (SAGE 2009),

An Introduction to Cultural Studies (2008), Postcolonial Literature: An
Introduction (2008), English Writing and India, 1600–1920: Colonizing
Aesthetics (2008), Reading Culture: Th

eory, Praxis, Politics (SAGE 2006)

and

Virtual Worlds: Culture and Politics in the Age of Cybertechnology

(SAGE 2004) besides books on the 1857 ‘Mutiny’, English Literature
and Literary Th

eory. Forthcoming are book-length works on cyberculture

and new media, a popular history of the Raj and postcolonialism.

Document Outline