Paper long abstract:

In this paper I focus on national dress and national heritage as a dominant state discourse in Central Asian states and societies in order to test how these powerful images shape gendered roles, identities and representations. Women and their bodies are at the centre of the national imagination where the long national dress serves as the strongest visualisation of national identity and where it competes with images of Islamic radicalization or globalized fashion at the same time. The idea of the national dress is brought back to represent the authentic national culture and true heritage that was lost during continuous colonial rule in the region. The production of national dresses for women became a profitable business all over Central Asia where in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan it mainly occupies high end of production and luxurious brands, in Uzbekistan it became a mass production and in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan where national dresses are obligatory dress code for women working in public sector, the dress economy is sporadic and informal. I use ethnographic data and interviews to deconstruct the contemporary notion of heritage, culture and power where the national dress embodies all three but women who produce and wear the national dress are engaged in constant reconceptualization of these three major themes. What is contemporary understanding of heritage and national memory when ‘grandma-style’ or ‘nineteenth-century traditional’ dresses made from Dubai fabric enter shiny globalised shopping malls in Ashgabat, Dushanbe, Astana or where traditional Central Asian fabric, ikat, is reproduced locally to have patters of Captain America, Mickey Mouse and Scream? The paper critically engages with the understanding of contemporary culture and memory, heritage and power as well as powerful role of women who determine these concepts through their everyday consumption and fashion.