Working title: "Perceptions of foreign and own textile material culture"

Dealing with attributions of 'foreign' and 'own' is a central subject of intercultural approaches and concepts. In this context, textile material culture functions as a carrier of meaning in and through which articulations of foreign and own are expressed and thematised. Identifying and naming cultural difference with the aim of understanding and recognising it is the main focus of the approaches. The majority of them remain stuck in the formulation and labelling of static and culturalising attributions. However, this approach negates the complexity and differentiation of everyday behaviour. A textile object, for example, is integrated into a dense network of manufacturing and trading contexts. Right through to the handling, use and wearing of textiles and clothing, a multitude of interrelationships, shifts and translations can be recognised that elude the dichotomous classification scheme of 'foreign' or 'own'.

However, the observation of societal-social processes also shows the fundamental importance that attributions of self and other have for subjective and collective strategies of behaviour and action. As a direct expression of power and representation, they are always activated when it comes to formulating processes of inclusion and exclusion. The same textile can function at certain moments as a self-confident sign of identity and belonging and at the next moment be a sign of foreign identification and ethnicisation, as well as being perceived as stigma and vice.

As part of the research process, the everyday ideas of pupils about their own and other people's textile material culture are surveyed as part of empirical studies at a secondary school. This is done by means of a photo campaign and subsequent individual interviews. The professional clarification draws attention to the handling of self-attributions and attributions of others in current museum education programmes with a textile focus, as well as within central specialised approaches. In the process of didactic structuring, the aim is to develop concepts that demand a reflexive and critical approach to the categories and reveal their involvement in power and domination relationships, as well as in processes of inclusion and exclusion, by constantly relating students' ideas and specialist ideas about 'other' and 'own'.

• "Couture Commune - textilwissenschaftliche Perspektiven" Publication on the workshop "Couture Commune", Stuttgart (forthcoming)
• "Transculturality and textile teaching" (working title) in: Christian Becker: "Perspektiven textiler Bildung" (working title) (forthcoming)

• "Transcultural perspectives in textile teaching" 4 October 2005, input as part of the forum "Educational standards in textile teaching", Federal Textile Conference in Vallendar
• "Die Bedeutung textiler Sachkultur für die Artikulation von Eigen- und Fremdzuschreibungen" 17.3.2006, lecture as part of the workshop Couture Commune, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart
• "Transculturality in textile teaching" 25 September 2006, Oldenburg, Pedagogical Week
• "Transcultural perspectives in teaching" 22 May 2007, University of Art and Design Linz

• University of Oldenburg: WS 05 /06, as well as SS 06 seminars on transculturality at the Institute of Material Culture
• University of Cologne: from 2001 to 2005 seminars on museum education and transculturality
• Museum education: from 2000 to 2004 museum education programmes for all age groups, guided tours, school projects, exhibition curations