Since September 2017, I have been a predoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution. I have been writing my dissertation, which is based on my field research as well as some collections research that I am undertaking here (in the archives of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and collections of the National Museum of Natural History ethnology department and National Museum of African Art).
In a nice coincidence for me, a small part of the 2018 Folklife Festival put on by my hosts, the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, concerns my area of expertise: The Crafts of African Fashion brings together tradition-based arts of dress with cutting-edge fashion design.
I’m delighted to contribute an essay to the festival blog, which describes the work of some of my research participants, in the context of the sustainable cultural heritage framework of this year’s festival.
Read it here!