Home Institution
College of Wooster
Publication Date
Spring 2013
Abstract
This research primarily focuses on the “cultural talent contests” enrolling contestants who are members of the numerous minority ethnic groups residing in Kathmandu. In a growing metropolis, these beauty queens are often seen as symbolic representations of collective cultural identities, and the pageants as fields of active ‘cultural production’. This author surveys the growing literature on beauty pageants and several opinions of organizers, community members and the contestants themselves to better understand how culture is produced within the contexts of pageants. The study examines how beauty pageants operate as locations of commodification and consumption in a world increasingly influenced by global markets and media institutions. An analysis of the social theories constructed by Thorstein Veblen and James Duesenberry help to make sense of the social phenomenon that is beauty pageants. It also illustrates how culture is produced in beauty pageants by examining these events as sites of oppression, sites to articulate cultural agency, and sites of ethnic, gender, cultural, and sexual identity production and exploitation.
Disciplines
Asian Studies | Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Race and Ethnicity | Social and Cultural Anthropology
Recommended Citation
Oster-Beal, Martha, "Preserving Tradition: Analyzing the Commoditization of Cultural Identity Through Beauty Pageants Among Ethnic Minority Groups in Kathmandu" (2013). Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. 1570.
https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/1570
Included in
Asian Studies Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons
Program Name
Nepal: Tibetan and Himalayan Peoples