Street Landscapes and Consumer Society: Focusing on M.G. Road in Kochi, South India
摘要
The chapter describes and analyzes the street landscapes of the Kochi municipal corporation located in the middle of Kerala in South India, relying on Baudrillard’s theory of the consumer society (la société de consommation). Based on the theoretical approach that observations at the microlevel of recording the landscapes of streets, an everyday space, can be used to describe macrolevel changes, this chapter aims to show that typical characteristics of consumer society are increasingly becoming evident in the street landscapes of Kochi. The Kochi municipal corporation, which has been the center of education and union activities of Communist parties, has begun to develop the typical characteristics of a consumer society, pointing to the strong propagation power of consumer society backed by a neoliberal market economy. Taking the Mahatma Gandhi Road as an example, this chapter examines the changes in the street landscape where the rising consumption power of the city is becoming clearly visible. Evidence of rapid commercialization is seen in the non-porosity of shopping centers and prominent displays of goods and advertisements that are demonstrative of the one-sided communication characterizing the education process of consumer society, as has been pointed out by Baudrillard (Chris turner (trans), the consumer society: Myths and structure, London: Sage, 1999, pp. 8, 166). Furthermore, the chapter interprets such changes as due to the intertwined interaction of urbanization, modernization, competition of consumption, and in business, influenced by large-scale urban construction projects and neoliberal policies.