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Abstract

Drawing upon Indian cinema, one of the world's largest film industries whose storytelling structures seemingly refuse to adhere to what is known as the 'Hollywood mode of production', this essay expands on the political and cultural terrain that 'narrative' occupies in cultural theory. The term is seen as extending into a space of negotiation between spectators' demands for selfactualization and the 'how to read/see' instructions that can be seen as comprising the function of the narrator. As such it closely resembles, on a cultural terrain, the site of citizenship as one of negotiation, where constitutional rights are seen not so much as a given but rather as authenticator for their disbursal between the state, civil and political society, often to ends quite removed from their original meaning.

Keywords

cinema citizen democracy looking narrative

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