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 color, sound, and movement, thronged with musicians, mystics, tourists, traders, animals and devotees. It's a camel-grooming nirvana, with an incredible array of cornrows, anklets, embroidery and pom-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)
(a) What is commodification?
(b) Explain how a market becomes a commodity?
(a) Commodification refers to the transformation of any object into a mere commodity or treating it as a commodity. For example, people are commodified when they are working by selling their labor on the market to an employer. The workers are thus of the economic value of the employer.
(b) A market is a place where goods and commodities are sold in exchange for money. But a market can also turn into a commodity when it not only sells products or commodities but also attracts tourists across international boundaries. Thus the market is marketed internationally and become major tourists’ attraction.
For example, in the annual fair at Pushkar in Rajasthan, the culture itself becomes a commodity attracting tourists. It not only sells camels and livestock for money but also cultural symbols and religious merit.
Couldn't generate an explanation.
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