Delhi: Global Mobilities, Identity, and the Postmodern Consumption of Place

New regimes of tourism practice have emerged in the post-industrial environment, and new relationships to place have been forged. Tourism is characterized by the dominance of non-material forms of production, located in an economy of signs and space in which the consumption of signs is as important as the consumption of material goods. In this environment the production and consumption of place is accompanied by the search for symbolic values, such as authenticity. Paharganj, a district of Delhi, is one site where these practices are played out. Like all tourist sites, Paharganj is produced both discursively and materially. Discursive representations of Paharganj are the non-material products of recent mobile relations and transnational networks of knowledge. These textual interventions have created habitats of meaning for tourists and re-created transnational place where cultural and individual identities can be reaffirmed and reconfigured. Paharganj emerges as the site of a symbolic economy where both individual cultural capital and authenticity become commodities.