Dress, Social Change, and the (Re)Construction of Identity in Guinea (Nineteenth Century to Present).

Do we make our dress, or does it make us? What is the relationship between the creator and the creation? Based on the principle of reflexivity, which equally values creative imagination, agency, and the social construction of identity and social boundaries, the making and wearing of dress and the construction of identity are dialectically interrelated. Focusing on the relationships between elites and subordinates, this article highlights the independent initiatives of the subordinates to create and use dress as a means of social representation and social identification as well as to negotiate social boundaries. There is a tradition of struggle in Guinea over the meaning of dress which involves both elites and subordinates, who are equally conscious of the fact that what one makes and/or wears transforms one's body into a "site of memory." This study uses published, archival, and oral sources, including the author's personal memories of post-colonial socialist Guinea, to examine clothing traditions, not only in the context of animist and monotheist Guinean societies but also within colonial and post-colonial socialist and liberal Guinea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]