{"product_id":"drama-of-democracy-political-representation-in-mumbai-9781517918941","title":"Drama of Democracy: Political Representation in Mumbai","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe performative arts of political communication and representation in Mumbai\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In an era of global political passions, many have wondered whether some sort of natural affinity exists between political style and substance. Does liberal democracy speak the language of rationality and sincerity while political emotion, imagery, and embodiment properly belong to authoritarianism? Taking an ethnographic approach to the relationship between political form and political content, \u003ci\u003eDrama of Democracy\u003c\/i\u003e explores the material substance of representations (things like heady crowds and rousing images) together with language-based forms of political communication, such as public oration and community meetings. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Drawing on a decade of research in the city of Mumbai, Lisa Björkman shows that embodied performance is the very site and substance of representation and demonstrates how Mumbaikars evaluate performative bids to represent. The ethnographic accounts demonstrate the extraordinary fluency in this evaluative work in Mumbai, where people from all walks of life are remarkably astute at navigating and assessing political signs and representations, endlessly discussing and debating possible meanings of the city's dense material-semiotic ecologies--whether words or images, cash or crowds, flyers or flowers. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e In Mumbai, Björkman argues, the evaluative criterion of representation is not whether something is sign or substance, or even whether people are deemed to utter truths or falsehoods. Rather, what matters is whether and how a performance activates and actuates the social relations and political subjectivities that it professes to display. \u003ci\u003eDrama of Democracy\u003c\/i\u003e highlights Mumbaikars' communicative fluency and theatrical acumen to offer a conceptual toolbox through which contemporary political churnings around the globe might be understood. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e Lisa Björkman is associate professor at the University of Louisville and senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. She is author of \u003ci\u003ePipe Politics, Contested Waters: Embedded Infrastructures of Millennial Mumbai\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eWaiting Town: Life in Transit and Mumbai's Other World-Class Histories\u003c\/i\u003e; and \u003ci\u003eBombay Brokers\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Minnesota Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51635446120722,"sku":"9781517918941","price":32.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_80c88581-65db-4b52-b8bb-aea73620f1a7.jpg?v=1759236403","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/drama-of-democracy-political-representation-in-mumbai-9781517918941","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}