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IINNTTRROODDUUCCTTIIOONN
Once found primarily in the developed world, for-mally defined
gated communities are now part ofurban and suburban environments in
developingcountries (Blakeley and Snyder, 1997; Webster,Glasze and
Frantz, 2002). Walled and guarded,the gated residential enclave
offers upscale housingand a multitude of amenities for its
inhabitants. Theprimary rationale for a gated community (GC)varies.
The enclave may result from the need tospatially separate peoples
of differing cultures as inthe case of GCs for Western expatriates
in SaudiArabia (Glasze, 2006), the perceived need for pro-tection
from violent urban crime as in the "condo-minios fechados" of
Brazil and the "barrios priva-dos" of Argentina (Coy, 2006) or a
combination ofcultural differences and fear as in the GCs in
post-apartheid South Africa (Durington, 2006).Additionally, living
in an expensive GC can provideaccess to exclusive onsite
recreational facilities andconfer social prestige. Gated enclaves
housingwealthy residents have burgeoned on the periph-eries of many
of India's metropolitan cities such asDelhi, Mumbai, Bangalore
(Bengaluru), Chennai,
Kolkata and Hyderabad since the late 1990s,adding a new element
to existing cityscapes.
In this paper we present and analyze theimages of place that are
evoked and espoused inhigh-end gated residential enclaves in
Bangalore inthe southern Indian state of Karnataka,
focusingparticularly on developments that cater to
returninghigh-skill non-resident Indians (NRIs)1 from theUnited
States and other developed parts of theworld. We explore the
intersection of the ideas ofidentity, home and community in a
globalised worldthrough an examination of the graphic and
textualimages encoded in online advertisements for gatedenclaves in
the city. We consider such advertising apowerful spatializing
discourse, one that bothmoulds and reflects the values and ideals
of a soci-ety. By paying particular attention to messages
oflifestyle, landscape, the built environment and localand global
cultures depicted in the advertisements,we investigate how the
upscale gated community ispromoted as an ideal living environment,
providingits residents with not just a home, but a
ready-madecommunity.
Characteristics and identities are often attrib-uted to place,
sometimes creating what may be
Elizabeth Chacko & Paul VargheseAAbss t rac t
Gated communities, residential enclaves that offer upscale
housing and a variety of recreational and communalfacilities within
a walled area with controlled entrances, are proliferating in many
of India's large metropolitan cities.In this paper, we analyze the
images of place and identity that are evoked in online
advertisements for gated com-munities in the city of Bangalore in
southern India. Since the 1990s, Bangalore has become known as
India's premierinformation technology (IT) hub and a magnet for
multinational corporations and high-skill personnel. The
latterinclude Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) who lived and worked
abroad for several years and have returned to partake ofnew
opportunities offered in the country. We explore the intersection
of notions of identity, home and community in aglobalised world
through an examination of the graphic and textual images encoded in
the advertisements of thirteenprominent developers in Bangalore
whose upscale gated developments cater to NRIs. The advertisements
depict high-end gated communities as places of luxury,
exclusiveness, high security and convenience which also offer a
range ofrecreational facilities for individuals and families.
Additionally, those who live in the gated enclaves are portrayed
aspersons of distinction and class who are global and cosmopolitan
in their outlook and identity.
Keywordss : Gated Community, Place, Identity, Bangalore,
India.
IDENTITY AAND RREPRESENTATIONS OOF GGATEDCOMMUNITIES IIN
BBANGALORE, IINDIA
1 A non-resident Indian (NRI) is an Indian citizen who lives
abroad for employment or business for an extended period
ofuncertain duration. The term is also used loosely for persons who
were once Indian citizens but now hold citizenship of
anothercountry.
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considered "place myths", exaggerated qualitiesthat are
associated with locales (Shields, 1991).Steele (1981) identifies
the confluence of three ele-ments in the formation of place: spirit
of place,which includes characteristics that give a location
aspecific feel, place setting which comprises thephysical and
social aspects that form the immediateenvironment and a sense of
place that is the partic-ular experience of a person in a
particular setting.Image communication is an important strategy
forplace promotion (Hopkins, 1998). In GCs, archi-tecture is key in
portraying the spirit of place withinthe built environment. Images
of buildings andlandscaped surroundings carry messages aboutplace
and identity, often tying distinctive or uniquearchitectural
designs and styles to notions of (high)socio-economic class and
idealized localities(Stobart, 2003). The setting of a place,
whether itbe in bucolic surroundings or upscale neighbor-hoods can
be conveyed effectively through imageryand metaphors in
advertisements, selectively high-lighting the most desirable
aspects of place. A sense of place can be fostered by an
assumptionof the existence of a coherent community, attach-ment
through long association with the locale, androotedness, all of
which allude to ways in whichplace is experienced (Relph, 1976).
Photographs ofcelebrations and gatherings in the public spaces
ofGCs are often used to signal the interconnected-ness among
residents of GCs while descriptorssuch as "couture community" and
"an innate com-munity that is tastefully different" hint of an
exclusivegroup. King (2004) notes that it is in the spaces andforms
of buildings that the social is represented.GC homes are
simultaneously offered as privateand intimate spaces within the
communities. In thispaper, we examine the making of place by
analyz-ing the images and text in advertisements of high-end gated
communities in Bangalore, using thenarrative-descriptive approach
proposed by Tuan(1991).
MMEETTHHOODDOOLLOOGGIIEESS
We obtained a list of 94 prominent developers/builders and their
projects in the city of Bangalorefrom the website of the Karnataka
OwnershipApartments Promoters' Association (KOAPA, 2008).These
developers were screened to extract thosethat were involved in the
construction of gatedenclaves with high-end townhouses and
villas.Additionally, international developers involved in
building gated communities in Bangalore were alsoidentified via
Internet searches. Most of the devel-opers had websites that
advertised future, ongoingand completed upscale housing projects,
with pho-tographs or artists' renditions of homes, lists
ofamenities and floor plans. A few also had videoclips showing
simulated future enclaves withfocused fly-bys of exteriors and
walk-throughs ofinteriors and amenities. In total, the online
adver-tisements of thirteen developers (AdarshDevelopers, Golden
Gate Developers, G.R.Developers, Vaswani Group, Vakil
HousingDevelopment, Puravankara Projects, AllianceGroup, Concorde
Group, Chaitanya Projects,Sobha Group, Kristal Group, Ferns
Builders, andRoyal Indian Raj) were analyzed for this paper. The
advertisements for GCs were examined fortheir content, and the use
of image, rhetoric, nar-rative and metaphor in the depiction of the
physi-cal, social and economic nature of these commu-nities.
Globally, GCs are promoted for the luxury,pleasure and convenience
they offer in a safe andsecure environment that is also exclusive.
Contentanalysis in combination with discourse analysisallowed for a
qualitative assessment of the ideasand themes represented and
endorsed in theadvertisements. For example, G.R.
Developersexplicitly refers to the exclusive nature of their GCsby
employing words such as "unique", "posh" and"distinctive", but also
intimate exclusiveness by stat-ing that its residents are mostly
"NRI's, bankers,senior corporate executives and business
tycoons".Attention was also paid to the nomenclature of thegated
communities as names were regarded as asignificant component of the
image of these places.We examined the discursive strategies that
wereused to establish the image of high-end gated com-munities and
the identities of their residents withinthe context of Bangalore's
colonial past and itsmore recent emergence as one of India's
premierand fast-growing cities with multiple
transnationallinkages.
TTHHEE SSEETTTT IINNGG:: BBAANNGGAALLOORREE
Bangalore grew from a hamlet in the 9th centuryA.D. to an urban
center specializing in weaving andtrade in the 16th century. Its
form and functionswere further transformed with the grafting of a
mil-itary cantonment onto its periphery by the British in1807. Over
time, the colonial town acquired thetypical trappings of a British
Indian settlement with
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eseits whitewashed bungalows, parks, polo grounds
and cricket fields, earning the appellation of"Garden City".
Senior military personnel beganretiring to Bangalore in the early
to mid-1900s,attracted by its cool climate, lush greenery andbroad
streets, and the city acquired the tag"Pensioner's Paradise". While
continuing to be apopular retirement destination, Bangalore's
poten-tial as a modern industrial and commercial city wascemented
after India's independence in 1947,when it became a site for major
public and privatesector industries as well as centers of higher
educa-tion and research. In the early 1990s, the liberal-ization of
the Indian economy and increasing eco-nomic and social
globalisation set the stage forBangalore's rising eminence in
InformationTechnology (IT) in the country, prompting its
newestsoubriquet of "India's Silicon Valley" (Heitzman,2004; Nair,
2005). From a city of 786,343 personsin 65.86 square km in 1951,
Bangalore expandedin 2001 to a settlement of 531 square km
housing5.7 million (Census of India, 2001). During thesame period,
it metamorphosed from a nationaldestination for development to an
internationaldestination that was a favored location for offices
ofmultinational corporation (MNCs), returning NRIsand foreign
expatriates who were drawn to theopportunities the city
offered.
The establishment of gated industrial, busi-ness, commercial and
office complexes in the city'snew technology and business parks
marked the re-invention of Bangalore as an IT hub. Key to
thistransformation was a skilled and educated locallabor force, but
also Asian Indian managers and ITprofessionals who returned to
their country of originafter spending years in Western countries
such asthe United States (Chacko, 2007). Returning Non-Resident
Indians (NRIs) run 95 percent of the inter-national companies in
the Software TechnologyParks (STPs) in Bangalore (Kapur, 2002),
whilenearly a third of the employees working in R&D atGeneral
Electric's John F Welch Technology Centerin the city are returnees
from the United States(Ryan, 2005), indications of their
significance in thecity's new economy. This group of
returningmigrants who are also transnational in their culturesand
connections are successfully targeted andwooed by the developers of
the high-end gateddevelopments, some of which have entered
intopartnerships with real estate firms in developedcountries. It
is telling that for example, 22 of a totalof 25 villas in Adarsh's
Palm Vista enclave develop-ment and the majority of the 175 villas
in the
Alliance Group's 10 Downing Street are owned byNRIs (Indo-Asian
News Service, 2005). NRIs (bothfirst and second generation
immigrants) who stillreside abroad are also investing in Indian
realestate, encouraged by an 8% growth rate in theIndian economy
since the early 2000s (Chishti,2007).
Both India and the United States hold ele-ments of home and
community to these transna-tional migrants, whose lives and
identities straddlecountries and cultures. Used to the amenities
andcomforts of suburban life in the USA, the returningmigrants
expect their homes to be high-quality builtenvironments, designed
to be aesthetically pleas-ing, functional, safe, and responsive to
their variousneeds (Chacko, 2007). The GC offers to fulfillthese
expectations.
IIDDEENNTTIITTYY AANNDD IIMMAAGGEESS OOFF
GGAATTEEDDCCOOMMMMUUNNIITT IIEESS
Gated residential communities that include villas,townhouses and
condominium blocks havebecome prominent features on Bangalore's
out-skirts, housing local upper middle class familiesand highly
skilled and highly paid return migrants,as well as expatriates.
Located in carefully land-scaped settings, such developments are
clusteredparticularly to the east and southeast of the cityadjacent
to the Outer Ring Road, down WhitefieldRoad where many of the new
software technologyparks are situated, and along the proposed IT
cor-ridor that forms an arc to the east of the city. Manyof the
gated communities are located close to thenew international airport
30 km outside Bangalore.GCs are touted as residential enclaves that
are onpar with international standards in the design andquality of
their built forms, amenities and infrastruc-ture, with the added
advantage of being highlysecured areas as well.
Advertisements mould as well as reflect life,shaping lifestyles
while also echoing desires of howthe viewers would like to perceive
themselves(Williamson, 1978). Place representations are
con-structed and marketed through advertising, attribut-ing
identities and characteristics to geographicalspaces and persons
associated with these spaces.Blakely and Snyder (1997) note that
residents ofGCs in the United States are drawn to the exclusiv-ity
and safety that these developments offer. Grant(2005) notes that
GCs in Canada target nichemarkets of people aspiring to an affluent
lifestyle
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and to seniors who are security conscious and wishto live in a
safe and comfortable setting, emphasiz-ing ideas of identity and
belonging. Lifestyle andon-site amenities are also highlighted in
the mar-keting of gated communities in Latin America butdue to the
high levels of crime that includes rob-bery, assault, kidnapping
and even murder, muchof it targeting the wealthy residents of its
megacities, safety and security are especially underscoredin
advertisements for GCs in this region (Coy,2006). In the Western
world, GC developmentsand their advertisements often reflect the
issues andconcerns raised in focus group discussions withpotential
buyers and residents (Grant, 2005), butthis is not the case in the
Indian context. While thedevelopers believed they were
incorporating theneeds and desires of clients in their GCs,
noneexamined for this study had conducted focusgroups to identify
particular needs or problems.
The online advertisements (both images and
text) examined for this paper depict GCs as placesthat offer a
life of abundance, convenience, com-fort, safety and luxury;
peaceful, yet replete with aplethora of exciting opportunities and
leisure activ-ities. Advertisements for Bangalore's GCs are
over-laid with rhetoric and imagery that evoke an auraof prestige
and exclusivity (See Figure 1). Villas, sin-gle-family dwelling
units set on individual lots arethe most expensive housing in these
enclaves.According to Archer (2005:52) the term "villa" con-jures
up images of landed wealth; dwellings by thisname in the 1700s and
1800s were gearedtowards " harboring family, and
safeguardingretreat from the mercantile and political nexus,
inaddition to facilitating leisure and social activitiesthat could
involve a larger circle of people as well".
This description fits villas in Bangalore'sgated communities, a
difference being that theretreat is from the chaos of urban life to
a moreordered and controlled environment. The city'supscale gated
communities have the amenities ofsimilar enclaves in the developed
world, such asrecreational spaces (tennis, badminton and
squashcourts; swimming pools, gyms, children's play-grounds and
even golf courses), meeting places forthe community (club houses,
community halls,pubs, libraries, restaurants, cafes and lounges)
andlandscaped surroundings that include gardens, jog-ging trails,
fountains and water bodies.
Aesthetics and "unique" architectural stylesare considered
indicators of social distinction in theGC. Most gated enclaves in
Bangalore have eclec-tic designs that incorporate elements of
internation-al architecture and design, and idealized Europeanor
American landscapes. In addition to landscapedsurroundings, gated
developments in the city vie tooffer distinctive features that set
them apart from
Figure 1. An image from Adarsh Developers' e-Brochure (Reprinted
by permission of the Adarsh Group)
Figure 2. Advertisement for the Royal Indian Raj'sRoyal Garden
Villas and Resort (Reprinted by per-mission of the Royal Indian Raj
InternationalCorporation)
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esesimilar enclaves. Chaitanya Projects' Oakville has
an "infinity pool", Vakil's Garden City has Mughal-style gardens
and Royal Indian Raj offers its resi-dents a chateau winery, tennis
courts designed byIndian tennis star Vijay Amritraj and an 18-hole
golfcourse designed by golf pro Jack Niklaus (Figure2). In
particular, developers use unusual and strik-ing non-indigenous
touches such as cobbled walk-ways, a European-style "village" that
serves as acentral place for the community and white picketfences
as unique markers.
Living in the exclusive environment of the GCwas depicted as an
indicator of refinement, wealthand prestige in all the
advertisements examined. Inthe online marketing of villas, the
underlying textwas that the houses could be afforded only by
thoseof a high socio-economic class. While the size, styleand
splendour of detached homes in Indian citieshave always been a
testament to the status of theirowners and inhabitants, they also
conveyed a senseof individuality, as each home was specifically
con-structed for and in consultation with the homeowner. The
predetermined and prescribed builtforms in gated communities seem
to be extensionsof apartment living, overlooking the
prospectivebuyer's individuality and personal leanings in
archi-tectural style and facade, although in advertise-ments
developers allude to the clients' good taste inchoosing to live in
such elite locales.
The advertisements provide information ondesirable housing
styles and lifestyles that are rep-resented as exclusive, typical
of the upper classesand conducive to upward social mobility. An
adver-tisement for Purva Parkridge indicates that itspatrons are
"Royalty Revived", Concorde's SiliconValley GC is billed as
providing a "Lifestyle worthyof only a few", Vakil's Hosur Hills
claims to be "Thebest address in town", and an advertisement
forFerns Builders' Cascading Meadows suggests thatall its residents
are captains of industry and impor-tant players in the city's new
economy. These claimsmay not be hyperbolical. Residents of Adarsh
PalmMeadows are noted to be mostly high net-worthindividuals, with
a reported 30-40% being highranking officials of multinational
companies, indus-trial houses or successful IT start-up
companies(Sriram, 2007).
IIMMAAGGEESS OOFF TTHHEE GGAATTEEDD CCOOMMMMUUNNIITTYYAASS
HHOOMMEE
Views of home that are represented and enacted in
the advertisements for gated communities are anindication of the
multiple and hybrid cultural identi-ties to which the returnees
subscribe. Aneesh(2004:51) identifies a "continuous nostalgia for
the'other' nation" among Asian Indian computer pro-grammers in the
United States, a consequence ofeulogizing and remembering the best
in the coun-try where they are not physically present.
Returningmigrants who have spent considerable time abroadconsider
themselves at home both in their countryof origin and amongst a
global community ofpeers; they are variously "Indian",
"international","global" and "cosmopolitan".
Advertisements specifically speak to the pullof India and the
global sensibilities of the returningNRIs. Vakil Developers state
in their online adver-tisements that their enclaves are planned
"keep-ing in mind the globe trotting non-resident Indianswho would
love to have a retreat in a haven of tran-quility in India, while
sustaining the luxuriousaspects of life that they have enjoyed
abroad",thereby simultaneously evoking images of homeand an
international ambience. The Sobha Groupreminds its clients that it
has experience catering toglobal corporate customers and
understands theneeds of those who have lived and worked abroad.The
advertisers appear to be aware of the transna-tional nature of
their potential clients, all permittingelectronic booking of
residences and some provid-ing contact addresses and telephone and
fax num-bers not just in India, but in the United States andthe
United Kingdom.
Home is more than a dwelling place. It isoften "associated with
pleasant memories, intimatesituation, a place of warmth and
protective securi-ty" (Somerville, 1992: 5). An advertisement for
theSpringville GC notes that it is a place where the res-ident can
go home to "enjoy all the serenity, safe-ty, comfort and freedom
you deserve." Aspects ofhome that are underscored are those of
safety andsecurity rather than lasting memories or warmth.All the
advertisements examined in this study list 24-hour security as one
of the amenities offered, apoint of concern among executives who
are awayfrom home frequently. All note that entry to theenclaves is
guarded, some 40% state that the com-munity is surrounded by high
walls (usually 7 feethigh), 10% that the enclave is monitored by
closedcircuit TV and one that it is patrolled around theclock by
armed guards.
Over 90% of the advertisements endorse thenotion of home as a
refuge from the cares andstresses of the outside world while some
62% speak
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of the GC as a retreat to connect with family.Chaitanya Builders
states that their villas are builtaround "The Jewel of a Home, the
Family Hub."However, home as a place is also commodified. Itis
depicted as a space for the consumption of luxu-ry goods and
services, and as an excellent financialinvestment. Since 2005 India
has permitted foreigninvestment of up to 100% in large construction
pro-jects, ushering in foreign investment in Indian realestate and
a proliferation of joint projects (Indo-Asia News Service, 2005).
Within the last five years,the prices of villas in exclusive gated
communitieshave tripled and the rents quadrupled.Approximately 25%
of the advertisements drawattention to the idea that luxury villas
will escalate invalue and that prices of properties could double
ina few years.
PPOORRTTRRAAYYIINNGG AA SSEENNSSEE OOFF CCOOMMMMUUNNIITTYY
However, the process of place identity constructionis also
firmly intertwined with a sense of communityidentity in gated
enclaves. Besides the obvious oneof similar economic standing, it
is striking that thehigh-end GC in Bangalore is depicted as an
inter-national place in its presentation and population,and one in
which common interests are nurturedand pleasurable interactions
with neighbors cantake place. The lifestyle in a GC has permitted
theformation of homogenized community that is basedon class, a
departure from traditional Indian com-munities based on caste,
kinship or religion. RoyalIndian Raj (2008) refers to the "couture
community"that their Italian-style villas will house,
underscoring
an aura of exclusivity and internationalism. Theglobal cachet of
GCs is reflected in advertisements,over 75% of which boast of world
class facilities ordesign, infrastructure and fittings that meet
interna-tional standards, and nearly 10% of which showWestern or
white models in their artists renditionsand photographs. The IT
industry in Bangalore isknown to have embraced a "global" corporate
cul-ture and its workers tend to be cosmopolitan andglobalised in
their outlook (Upadhya and Vasavi,2006). With a population of
largely NRIs and expa-triates, the demographic profile of high-end
gatedcommunities echoes this international culture:besides NRIs,
some 15-20 nationalities are typical-ly represented in the
occupancy of villas in AdarshPalm Meadows (Sriram, 2007).
NNOOMMEENNCCLLAATTUURREE OOFF GGAATTEEDDCCOOMMMMUUNNIITT
IIEESS
Cultures often identify their cherished historiesthrough
memorializing important spaces andevents, or invoking important
symbols and styles.The near-absence of vernacular architecture in
thebuilt environment of the gated enclaves and thewidespread
adoption of the terminology of "villas","townhouses" and
"condominiums" that is standardin gated communities the world over,
speak of thesupplanting of local built forms by those with aglobal
identity. Legacies from colonial times areembedded in the built
forms of gated communitiesand in the socio-spatial structures of
postcolonialcities such as Bangalore. Colonial styles of
residen-tial architecture such as the bungalow wereemblematic of
colonial power structures, while theintegration of such
architecture in new communitiescould reflect a desire to replicate
the power config-urations, with local and new elites replacing
thecolonial powers in the hierarchy. The nomencla-tures of some of
the developments in Bangaloresuch as the Alliance Group's 10
Downing Street,the Vaswani Group's Astoria, or Golden Woods
aredistinctly British. Such names and spaces identifiedas
"servants' quarters", 'foyers'," "parlours" or "pow-der rooms" may
also evidence a desire to replicatethe settings of the privileged
lives of former colonialmasters.
High-end GCs also reflect representations ofcontinental European
locales ranging from theclassical (such as G.R. Developers' Greek
Agora,Figure 3) to the more contemporary stuccoed walls,arches, low
pitched roofs and red terracotta and tile
Figure 3. Advertisement for G.R. Developers' GreekAgora
(Reprinted by permission of G.R. Developers)
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eseroofs of the Mediterranean Revival style found in
Adarsh developers' Palm Meadows (See Figure 4),the Vaswani
Group's Whispering Palms or RoyalIndian Raj's villas with their
Tuscan-style architec-ture. The latter are reminiscent of styles
commonlyfound in California. It is telling that none of thehigh-end
GC developments included in this studyhave Indian names.
The online advertisements and themetaphors embedded in them
portray the gatedcommunities as spaces where all the idealized
fea-tures of community living are present, with none ofthe negative
aspects of city living. At the same timethe descriptions obscure
the fact that the enclavesare encroaching on rural areas and that
the sur-rounding landscape is not one of pristine vegetatedareas
but includes small villages and scrubland,and that the access roads
to many enclaves arerough and rudimentary.
CCOONNCCLLUUSSIIOONN
The discourse of GC advertising in Bangalore givesus insights
into the production of place and identityas it relates to society.
Advertising for the upscaleGC speaks to the physical setting and
built land-scape, the amenities, the assumed qualities of
indi-viduals and families who would live in these com-munities, and
their expected social interactions andlifestyles. Image production
and demand for luxuryitems and services are an outcome of
socioeco-nomic relations and discursive practices in society.From
the advertisements, it is evident that the mate-rial forms of the
built environments of GCs arecomplemented by the social
construction of imageand meaning of these enclaves both as home
andcommunity and as settings for a global identity,often at the
expense of the local.
The power of metaphor lies in its ability toinvoke particular
ideas and features through aprocess that simultaneously highlights
certain fea-tures and images while obscuring others. Themetaphors
used in GC advertisements reflect thecultural orientations of the
targeted audiences. Theupscale gated community in Bangalore is
repre-sented in multiple ways: as a safe retreat from thechaos of
urban life, as an exclusive and comfort-able locale where all
material wants are provided;as a place afforded with a sense of
community.
Catering as they do to NRIs, the advertise-ments examined
underscore the transnational iden-tity of GC occupants, assuming
multiple affiliations
and simultaneous alignment with multiple places.We submit that
in today's world, especially for itstransnational denizens, "home"
is a multifacetednotion that has several meanings. India,
Bangaloreand indeed the gated communities represent homebecause
these are the locales where the migrants'families live and where
traditions, connections andnorms are forged and maintained. But
metaphorsof internationalization frequently raised in
theadvertisements translate into property owners andresidents of
GCs belonging to a privileged cos-mopolitan and transnational
community of peerswith a global culture, echoing the new global
sta-tus of Bangalore.
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Authors AAddresses:Elizabeth Chacko & Paul VargheseGeography
and International AffairsThe George Washington University1922 F
Street, NW (Old Main)Department of Geography, Room 213Washington,
D.C. [email protected]@vsnl.com
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