A Different Kind of Flesh: Public Obscenity, Globalisation and the Mumbai Dance Bar Ban.

Why did Mumbai's famous dance bars have to close in 2005? This paper analyses the ban and its aftermath in terms of (1) a colonial and post-colonial genealogy of the regulation of allegedly obscene public performances in India and (2) the provocative location of the dance bars vis-à-vis the cultural politics of consumerist globalisation. Combining a reading of arguments around the ban with first-hand ethnographic vignettes, the paper is a contribution to a critical analysis of the politics of publicity in India. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]