Local traditions, global modernities

Globalization, the introduction of market oriented economic policies, and the sudden widespread availability of international media and consumer goods has led to rapid societal change in Myanmar during the last twenty years that almost overwhelmed people and caused intense conflicts between desires to catch up with a perceived global modernity and fears of losing one’s own identity, culture and values. Georg Noack’s study explores dress and adornment of the body as a means of negotiating and expressing identity and values in contemporary urban Myanmar. It also provides profound insights in the history of Myanmar dress – as an art both in making and in wearing – as well as its use in visual representations of ‘Myanmarness’ such as colonial and contemporary photography.