| Summary: | This thesis explores the role of consumption in cultural change. The research focuses on how consumption of an ethnic online dating website, known as shaadi.com is mediating Sikh courtship rituals. While many recent studies highlight the significance of online dating and virtual communities in a Western context, there has been no detailed exploration of these in relation to the Sikh sub-culture or other similar communities, nor how these sub-cultures experience marriage processes within Western society. The study adopted an interpretivist approach for a longitudinal case study of shaadi.com. In keeping with the interpretivist approach, multiple methods were employed to collate qualitative data from 3rd generation British Sikh members of shaadi.com and their parents. These methods consisted of participant observation and a series of semi-structured in-depth interviews. Findings illustrated the substantial personalised identity conflicts that were encountered by young British Sikhs as they engaged in the processes leading up to marriage. The integration of Eastern and Western courtship rituals within the space of shaadi. com was a significant aspect of the experiential consumption of this site. Young British Sikhs engaged in a journey of hybrid identity discovery, empowered by the characteristics of shaadi. com culture, such as liminality and ritual transference. This enabled them to negotiate issues relating to intergenerational differences, their British Sikh identity and varying degrees of acculturation (their Britishness") and reacculturation (their "Indianess"). Consequently shaadi.com facilitated young Sikhs in reconfiguring their already hybrid identities. In conclusion a theorisation of this virtual space of hybrid identity negotiation in relation to the British Sikh community is proposed, suggesting four hybrid identity positions. The primary contribution of this study has been to introduce an understanding of how cultural change can be mediated by technology and conceptualise how the computer mediates Sikh courtship rituals. Findings illustrate how shaadi.com mediates cultural transformation and the transition of hybrid identities. This research therefore extends existing knowledge in the field of consumer research in three key areas by examining the intersection of consumption and rituals, ethnicity and acculturation.
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