ABSTRACT
Research on film audiences in South Asia has often highlighted the ruptures that films have allegedly brought to the continent, focusing in particular on the supposed intrusion of ‘modernity’ and on changing forms of spectatorship. In this chapter, I offer an ethnographic analysis of film viewing based on a case study of a communal video night held by the indigenous community of Birhor people in a village in Odisha. I argue that in order to understand the significance of the film experience for its viewers, it is necessary to consider the ways in which that experience is embedded within everyday culture.
Consequently, I propose referring to the manifold interactions and cultural practices by which audiences/consumers actively engage with media as the “cultural margin” of media infrastructures. I use the term analogously to a profit or price margin to highlight that there is more behind the development of media infrastructures than just technological and economic factors. Nor can the notion of ‘modernity’ sufficiently explain the allure of media products. Thus, I offer a nuanced representation of the village audience in question by showing how the idea of the “cultural margin” can reflect the ongoing entanglement of indigenous everyday cultures with contemporary digital media.
