Textiles as National Heritage: Identities, Politics and Material Culture

Susana Aguirre has researched and written extensively about fashion made in Peru. She holds an MA in Fashion Studies from Parsons School of Design and is currently part-time lecturer at Parsons.

Leyla Belkaïd-Neri is Professor and Fashion Design Director at Parsons Paris, the French campus of Parsons School of Design. She is a designer and a cultural anthropologist with a special interest in contemporary design as a transnational arena for the expression of new forms of cultural diversity in the deterritorialized world of global fashion. Her research focuses on the study of the interrelationships between sociality, design practices, materiality and the cultural constitution of fashion objects. She received her Doctoral degree in Anthropology form the Université de Lyon and her Master degree in design from the Accademia of Florence. She taught and served as Professor and Head of Fashion Design Department for the Geneva School of Art and Design, and later as Program Director of the Master in luxury management for the Geneva School of Business Administration. Her research work includes the project that led to the registration of the Rites and craftmanships associated with the costume tradition of Tlemcen, Algeria on the 2012 UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, the first ever dress acknowledged as being part of the world cultural heritage.

Melanie Krebs studied Islamic Studies, Historical Anthropology and Archeology in Freiburg/Breisgau, Istanbul and Berlin. She received her PhD in Central Asian Studies from Humboldt University with a thesis on craftspeople and global influences in contemporary Central Asia. From 2010 to 2013 she held a Post-Doc position on urban changes in South Caucasian capitals. Her research interests include (material) culture and globalization, museum displays and changes in urban society in postsocialists countries.

Prof. Dr. Gabriele Mentges, Professorin für Kulturanthropologie des Textilen an der TU Dortmund, Konservatorin am Württembergischen Landesmuseum (Volkskunde), Studium der Ethnologie, Europäischen Ethnologie, Philosophie, Soziologe an den Universitäten Heidelberg, Hamburg, Marburg, Studienaufenthalt in Paris (Musée de l’Homme). Gabriele Mentges is Professor at the department of Cultural Anthropology of Textiles at the Institute of Art and Material Culture, University of Dortmund. She holds a Master’s degree in Ethnology from the University of Heidelberg and a PHD in European Ethnology from the University of Marburg. From 1986 to 1996 she worked as curator at the National Museum of Württemberg. Her research interests include transnational material cultures, dress cultures, museology, cultural theories and, concerning Central Asia, textile culture and nation building.

Gaini Mukhtarova is a Senior lecturer at the Faculty of Stage Design and Decorative Art, National University of Arts, Kazakhstan. She holds a PhD in Philosophy. Specializing in cultural theory and history, she is a graduate of the T. Zhurgenov National Academy of Arts, Kazakhstan, and a qualified artist and painter. Mukhtarova completed a Placement at the Tokyo University of Arts (Japan) in art theory and history; she is a Member of the Union of Artists of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as of the Asia-Pacific Association of Ink Painting. Her areas of research include the history of world graphic arts, traditional Japanese culture and the history of the graphic art of Kazakhstan.

Binafsha Nodir is an art historian, executive secretary of the “SAN’AT” (Art) Journal, and a researcher of Uzbek applied arts, particularly Uzbekistan’s traditional textiles. She is the Author of more than 30 scientific articles and topics. Nodir graduated from the National Institute of the Fine Arts and Design Named after K. Bekhzad.

Lola Shamukhitdinova, Dipl. Ing. Dr. is a specialist in clothing, textile technology and design. She received her doctorate from the Moscow State University of Design and Technology. She is currently a research fellow at TU Dortmund University and coordinator of the international research project “Modernity of Tradition: Uzbek textile heritage as cultural and economic resource”, funded by the Volkswagen-Foundation. Previously she held positions as associate professor at the Tashkent Institute for textile and Apparel Industry and as head of the department “Technology and Design of Apparel industry Products” (2005–2006). Her research interests include contemporary Central Asian textile design, technology and consumption, technology and design of traditional textiles. She has also participated in multidisciplinary team research on the creation of a textiles database for international use.

Gulnar Soltanbayeva is a Candidate of Technical Sciences as well as Professor and Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Stage Design and Decorative Art, National University of Arts, Kazakhstan. Her research interests include the history of orNamental art, traditional decorative Kazakh art and the history of fashion as well as of fashion illustration. She has published two books about the history of world orNamental art by approval of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Ardak Yussupova holds a PhD in Art History, is a member of the UNESCO International Association of Art Critics (AICA) and dean of the Art Faculty at the Kazakh National University of Arts. She is the author of the monograph “Zhivopis’ Kazakhstana 1980–1990-kh gg.: puti I poiski” [The painting of Kazakhstan of the 1980s and 1990s: paths and pursuits] and of a Series of articles dedicated to the contemporary art of Kazakhstan.

Zhazira Zhukenova holds a PhD in Art History. She is Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at Kazakh National University of Arts in Astana. Her main research interest is the traditional art of Kazakhstan. Her research focuses on the system of imagery in Kazakhstan’s folk art, the principles and interrelations of orNamental and decorative tradition. She has published more than 15 articles, as well as the monograph Ensemble and Art – Figurative System in Folk Art of Kazakhstan and the visual education guide Artistic Images. Kazakh National Crafts Arts on this Subject.

Insgesamt gibt der Band vielfältige Einblicke in unterschiedliche Kulturen, ihren Umgang mit dem jeweiligen textilen Erbe als Bestandteil nationaler Identitäten und die damit verbundenen Prozesse. Diese Perspektive leistet somit einen wichtigen Beitrag zur volkskundlichen Textilforschung. – Melanie Burgemeister, in: Zeitschrift für Volkskunde 2/2019, S. 362.