Power Breakdowns

Abstract

As part of my research, I attended numerous textile-garment trade shows and exhibitions in Pakistan. Those held in Karachi are routinely some of the largest in the country and perhaps even in Asia attracting hundreds of visitors. Typically, such industry-led and state-supported events showcase textile-garment commodities and related technologies of production as keys to Pakistan’s idealized future. They also suggest ways for visitors to relate to Pakistan through these commodities. The symbolic content of the trade shows shores up the new developmental ideology of Pakistan’s competitiveness, the reinforcement of the idea of free enterprise, deregulation, good governance and the availability of cheap resources and labor. These trade shows are huge infrastructural efforts that resonate with Anna Tsing’s concept of an ‘economy of appearances’ wherein a spectacle of investor profitability and potential is produced.’ On the website of the international 12th Textile Asia Exhibition that was held in March 2014 at the Karachi Expo Centre, the title ‘Come to Pakistan, the Land of Many Splendors & Boundless Opportunities’ is juxtaposed with an array of photographs that display businessmen, government officials and foreign dignitaries in various poses cutting ribbons, holding flowers, shaking hands or gazing attentively at machinery and fashionably attired mannequins.1