Documentary meanings and interpretive contexts: observations on Indian 'repertoires'

Reproduced by permission of Berg Publishers.My main concern in this chapter is to elaborate on a particular aspect of a larger project examining the interpretation of environmental documentaries by audiences in India and Britain, the empirical part of which was designed to illustrate/substantiate theoretical interventions aiming to rectify a perceived lacuna in the attempts in communication research to make a connection between the socially culturally situated audiences and their interpretive practices. In this chapter, I isolate for closer inspection a specific strand from the web of data, with the intention of demonstrating both the presence of different interpretive repertoires in India, as well as the role of higher education as a relevant factor in the creation of these repertoires. This chapter examines the possible links between cultural contexts and the reception of documentaries, and interrogates en route the idea of culture as context. What is postulated here is a conceptualization of context based on phenomenological hermeneutics, which it is argued, accommodates the complexity and diversity of collectivities within 'national cultures'