What is commodification? Discuss the commodification of religious sites and national parks.

 As an object of anthropological inquiry, tourism as Shepherd, 2002: 184, (cf. Graburn, 1983: 10; Nash and Smith, 1991: 22) has stated, can be defined and shaped by a series of questions that tend to revolve around three issues: ‘individual motivation (why do people travel?), economic gains and losses (who benefits from this travel?) and tourism’s cultural impact (what ‘cultural’ changes does tourism bring?)’. The commodification of culture thus involves a construction of culture wherein the cultural items and traits are being promoted as symbols of a particular culture. Such a reconstruction may dilute the original cultural element many a times. Claude Lévi-Strauss’s in Tristes Tropiques (1972: 39–40, 45, c.f. Shepherd 2002:184) stated that: travel books and travellers [contemporary tourists] serve only to ‘preserve the illusion of something that no longer exists’; genuine travel has been replaced by movement through a ‘monoculture’ in a fruitless search for a ‘vanished reality’. The very concept of monoculture arises from the commodification of culture. What tourism projects as ‘real culture’ is in reality a part of the culture that has been recreated for the benefit of the tourist, to give to the experience an appearance of being real. According to Shepherd (2002:184) cultural commodification is considered by many scholars as that component of cultural tourism that can help in the revival of local interest in traditional cultural forms, thus both reviving vanishing cultural traits and providing the host with material benefits (cf. McKean, 1989 [1977]). This also brings to the forefront the fact that in commodification of culture, the host can easily distinguish between what is ‘sacred’ (and not open to tourism) from what is ‘profane’ (and hence open to commodification) (cf. Picard, 1996, 1997). In this regard, Goldstein’s, work on Commodification of Beliefs (2007: 170-173) can be cited. She has examined the role of commodification in a very different contexts that manifest in exploration and expression of beliefs. The work looks into the practice of Ghost tours, haunted hotels and advertisements for haunted restaurants in Scotland. In a modern world of rational and scientific beliefs, the concept of ghosts and haunted houses holds an aura of thrill and mystification that adds to the overall excitement of travel. Therefore, elements that have haunted attached to it forms the major attraction for tourists visiting Scotland. Such re-enactments and revivals of old myths and old wives’ tales are part of the contemporary consumer culture. The haunted elements are projected as part of the history of Scotland, the witch hunts, the wars and plagues which had ravaged the country in the past, giving it an aura of authenticity. Every tourist who had visited Scottish Highlands had gone on the tour of Loch Ness and been presented with the Loch Ness monster story also known as Nessie who lives in the water of the lake.

Commodification of Religious Sites

Likewise, if we take the case of any religious sites in India, which are also places of tourist attractions we see traces of commodification. In this example we can see how the host commodifies culture as part of rites and rituals. This example is cited from Zaman’s personal experience of visiting the Nizamuddin dargah (the tome or shrine of a Sufi saint) in Delhi. As one enters the small lanes, the tourist or the pilgrims are greeted by vendors selling items that they would suggest are part of the ritual offering, that are essential for prayers in the dargah. The vendors have a ready to go tray (made of cane) with rose garlands and petals, incense sticks, a bottle of attar (an essential oil derived from botanical sources, commonly rose petals), maanat ke daage (a thread that is blessed in the dargah during the prayer service, thereafter the devotee ties it with a wish on one of the spaces provided) and batasha (small sugar candy). These items after prayers are known as tabarruk (an Arabic word which means seeking goodness by virtue of touching or being close to something or being blessed) to be shared with everyone as a blessing. Sometimes, they even lure the tourist to buy a chadar (a long cloth that is laid over the grave of the Sufi saint). However, these are optional and not a necessary part of the rituals. Yet, these objects are being commodified in the name of rituals and offered to the tourists and people who are on pilgrimage.

Commodification of National Parks

Let’s take here the example from Vasan’s 2018 work, Consuming the Tiger Experiencing Neoliberal Nature, who as a participant observer had related her experience of commodification at the Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan, and Kanha and Bandhavgarh National Parks in Madhya Pradesh, India. Vasan had dwelled on her experience of seeing the tiger emerge as a specific form of commodity located within the process of commodification. This has been brought into the forefront via the mediums of marketing that included the process of the tiger sighting. The very access to National Parks and safari regulations reinforced wildlife experience as a scarce market commodity. She emphasised upon the tourist gaze, the photography mediated through global and new social media that makes the tiger simultaneously wild and familiar, multicultural and parochial, making it a unique universal commodity. She also looked at the material experience through which the tourist ‘consumes’ the tiger, the social status and economic hierarchies that make the tiger accessible to a limited few. Her work unravelled a “basic contradiction between a sustainable conservation ethic, and subjectivity created by this form of competitive consumption of commoditised nature” (Vasan 2018: 481).

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