About

The role of cultural dress within Kashubian identity creation, although considered important, is significantly under researched, especially within the context of the Kashubian diaspora. Parallel to this, new poststructuralist developments in costume studies have largely lacked analyses into costume’s potential in active thinking through diasporic and Eastern European identities. To address this, the aim of this practice-based project is to investigate how costume can serve as praxis within material culture studies. This will be done by analysing how the practice of ‘costume-generated performance’ (Lindgren, 2023) can help explore and contextualise diasporic Kashubian identities.

I base my exploration on the model of ‘costume-generated performance’ due to its facilitation of active critical thinking about identity (Lindgren, 2023). I further situate my reasoning between poststructuralist theories from across costume studies, performance studies, and anthropology, including ‘critical costume’ theory (Hann, 2017), and Actor-Network Theory (Latour, 2007). These help contextualise costume as destabilising, complicating, and therefore researching diasporic, ethnic, and cultural identities. Through this, the study will provide the first critical and active interrogation of Kashubian transnational identity and heighten its visibility.

This project will be similarly transdisciplinary in its methodology. I will develop three ‘costume-generated performances’ and evaluate their role in complicating diasporic identity creation through qualitative textual analysis, autoethnographic approaches from my own Kashubian positionality, and participatory action research. In the process of development I will also engage with artefacts of cultural dress held within Kashubian and Polish ethnographic museums to better understand their role in identity-creation.

With the continuing post-Brexit marginalisation of Eastern European migrants in the UK, and in the wake of the idea of a monolithic Pan-Slavic identity being used in Russian pretences to hegemony in Eastern Europe, it becomes paramount to explore and thus heighten the visibility of varied Eastern-European identities just like this one.