Bazaar aesthetics: On excess and economic rationality. (May 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Deka, Maitrayee
• Is Part Of: International journal of cultural studies. Volume 24:Number 3(2021)
• Page Start: 470
• Page End: 484
• Publication Date: 2021-05
• Subjects: aesthetics -- bazaars -- commons -- excess -- piracy -- rationality; Culture -- Periodicals; Mass media -- Periodicals; Popular culture -- Periodicals; 306.05
• DOI: 10.1177/1367877920971640
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1367-8779

Abstract

For more than a century, social theoretical writings on consumer culture and commodity aesthetics have concentrated on the world of capitalist commodities and commercial spaces: on brands, shopping malls and global media culture. Popular commodity aesthetics have had a marginal presence in the literature. However, today, as the popular masses are entering commercial culture to an unprecedented extent, through cheap electronics, ubiquitous internet connectivity and accessible knock-offs, popular commodity aesthetics have increased in importance. In this article, I use fieldwork in Delhi's electronics bazaars to develop an inside perspective on the popular aesthetic of the bazaar. I argue that bazaars are characterized by excess: the excess of a seemingly chaotic architecture, household objects, and unhindered sociality. The excess is not simply a symptom of an underlying irrationality. It is deeply embedded in the social and economic life of bazaars and contributes towards the ability of small-scale commerce to endure and survive.