What is commodification? Explain how a market becomes commodity.

Question

Passage based question

When a market becomes a commodity: The Pushkar camel fair “Come the month of Kartika …, Thar camel drivers spruce up their ships of the desert and start the long walk to Pushkar in time for Kartik Purnima … Each year around 200,000 people converge here, bringing with them some 50,000 camels and cattle. The place becomes an extraordinary swirl of colour, sound and movement, thronged with musicians, mystics, tourists, traders, animals and devotees. It’ a camelgrooming nirvana, with an incredible array of cornrows, anklets, embroidery and ** poms.” “The religious event builds in tandem with the Camel Fair in a wild, magical crescendo of incense, chanting and processions to dousing day, the last night of the fair, when thousands of devotees wash away their sins and set candles afloat on the holy water.”

(From the Lonely Planet tourist guidebook for India, 11th edition)

What is commodification?

Explain how a market becomes commodity.

Answer 1

• transformation of a non-commodity into a commodity
• things that were earlier not traded in the market became commodities eg sale of kidneys, labour skills etc.

Explain how a market becomes commodity.

• The growing market for international tourism suggests how culture itself may become a commodity.
• Annual fair at Pushkar, pastoralists and traders come to from distant places to buy and sell camels and other live stocks.
• It is also marketed internationally as a major tourist attraction.
• Hindu pilgrims, camel traders and foreign tourists mingle at this event exchanging not only livestock and money but also cultural symbols and religious merit.