英文摘要 |
Drawing on the intersections of gender, nation and nationalism, this study aims to disclose the gendered aspect involved in the Sorbian national project in Germany. The process in which Sorbian women are integrated and get involved in national project is rendered visible in the concept of ”serbska mać” (the Sorbian Mother) who are made the bearers of the Sorbian culture, language, tradition and ethnicity in the Serbian discourse. However, as the empirical data based on women's life experiences shows, the concept of tradition usually deemed as ”the given” content of culture is transformed from the continuity of the past to social practice. Tradition is no longer a static ethnic and cultural essence and attribute, but rather engendered in the process of reinvention and re-interpretation, and it is dynamic and changing. Sorbian women dressed in traditional Sorbian costumes are not seen as the representatives of Sorbian culture any more, rather the acting agents whose dress practices illustrate the intertwining of social practices and life experiences. The connotation of the traditional Serbian costumes thus extends from the single dimension of ethnic symbol to multiple identities constructed by the intersections of gender, ethnicity, culture and society. |