ENCHANTED OBJECT: INDIAN SARI, NEGOTIATING THE ONLINE AND THE OFFLINE SPACE

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to understand the intersections between the internet, global cultures and technology, and the material object, the Indian sari. The Indian Sari, like other ethnic clothing, has always acted as a means of affirming position and agency for Indian women. Even today it is a significant part of the communicative grammar for its offline avatar. But its online presence makes this garment even more discursive. Typically online communities, in linguistic terms, are ‘cultural communities’ (paradigmatic) where knowledge is shared to deepen expertise, and offline communities are ‘communities of practice’ (s yntagmatic) where people share concerns, passions, and problems to deepen interaction. But as Umberto Eco says, more and more paradigmatic communities are becoming syntagmatic, and the Indian Sari is in an interesting intersection of offline and online contexts as the wearer, the garment, and the transactions all create discursive spaces that implicate the global and local in identity formations. It also forces us to relocate the Sari as a signifier and reexamine its materiality in relation to its floating presence.