Erin Roche

Inter-weavings: Omani Women’s Clothing and Clothing Folklore

At the end of September (2010) Erin will be travelling to Oman to commence work on a project which explores cultural understanding and preserving Arab culture through researching, recording and publishing findings on traditional women’s dress and verbal arts in the Sultanate of Oman.

This team collaborating on this project include:

Dr Thomas Roche (Doctorate of Philosophy Applied Linguistics)
Assistant Dean, Sohar University & Co-Editor of Times of Oman Literary Supplement Beacon
Role: Project Manager an co-author of publications

Dr Ahmed Al-Rawi (Doctorate of Philosophy English Literature)
Expert in Arabic literature
Role: Training Student Translators, Chief translator & co-author of publications

Anja Roehrdanz (Master of Arts, Graphic Design)
15 years exp in Web, Multimedia and Graphic Design.
Role: Design final publication, photography, design posters and publicity material for exhibition

Erin Roche
+10 years experience in costume design.
Role: Field Research (i.e. Interviewing, Costume Cataloguing, description, photographer), co-designer of exhibition and co-author of publication

5 x student translators
from Sohar University
Role: gain access to communities and act as translator for Ms. Erin Roche during data collection.

The project will also document Omani women’s clothing folklore – the skills, knowledge, beliefs, technology, and practices involved in making and wearing traditional dress.

Findings will be presented at conferences and in exhibitions in Australia and Oman. The reason for choosing clothing as a focus of the study is because Arabic dress is frequently misrepresented in Western Media and this representation belies a great lack of understanding of Arabic culture in Australia and the west in general.

Yedida Kalfon Stillman, world renown cultural studies expert writes “Clothing constitutes a cultural statement. It is a manifestation of culture, no less than art, architecture, literature, and music. Like all cultural phenomena, it communicates a great deal of information both on the physical and symbolic level about the society, but also its social mores and values.” The project aims to document, categorize, analyse this core element of Arabic culture. Due to the rapid modernisation of the Gulf region since the discovery of oil and gas reserves, if left undocumented, these costume folkways and associated beliefs, knowledge, practices and stories will be lost forever.

Furthermore, the project aims to promote cultural understanding and develop relations between Australia and the Middle East. Through the exposure to varieties of traditional Arab dress (and culture in general) in one Islamic country, tolerance and understanding of Islamic dress (and culture) will be promoted.

Funding provided by The Research Council of Oman with assistance from the Council of Australian-Arab Relations (CAAR).