The Politics of Cultural Practice

Thinking through Theatre in an Age of Globalization

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by Rustom Bharucha

Wesleyan University Press

Due/Published October 2000, 324 pages, paper

ISBN 0819564249

Is equitable global cultural exchange possible? Who determines this exchange and at whose expense? Can community and place survive the anonymity of the market and the patriarchy of the state? How can global practice provoke new modes of resistance in an age of globalization? The Politics of Cultural Practice offers a perspective on these and other questions that defies the homogenizing and antidemocratic forces of globalization.

Refuting the notion that the West is everywhere, Bharucha draws on the emergent cultures of secular struggle in contemporary India to engage with the volatile global issues of intellectual property rights, cultural tourism, and the marking of minorities on the basis of religion, caste, language, gender, and sexuality. An analysis of life, politics, and art in our globalizing world, his book demonstrates the power of the intercultural imaginary to radically shape the 21st century.

"Bharucha's critique of fundamentalism and globalisation employs theatre as the laboratory of inter- and intra-cultural practice. [It] highlights shifting alliances, roles, scenarios, and values--in India, in the Third World, and in the very neighbourhood of each of us, the readers . . . A passionate affirmation of the values of interculturalism and secularism."--Dragan Klaic, Director, Netherlands Theatre Institute

"The Politics of Cultural Practice is an exhilarating exploration of the peculiarities of Indian culture by one of India's most profound and insightful cultural commentators. The analysis of communalism, multiculturalism, Indian theatre and cinema, and Indian cultural politics and activism presented here is simply unrivalled. We are furnished with anew map of India, a re-imagined India. Bharucha's India is much more than a mere 'nation state'; it is a civilisation brought scintillatingly to life with all its contradictions, uncertainties and brilliance."--Ziauddin Sardar, Editor, Third Text, and Visiting Professor of Postcolonial Studies, The City University

"A graceful and compelling study of how transnational and global forces operate. The postcolonial critique seems to emerge from the conditions, rather than to be imposed upon them. Bharucha's unique mix of personal anecdote and critical theory makes the theory readable and the example important."--Sue-Ellen Case, University of California, Davis