American Folklore Society Elli Könges

2022 Elli Köngäs-Maranda Prize by the Women’s Section of the American Folklore Society. The Elli Köngäs-Maranda Prize recognizes “superior work on women’s traditional, vernacular, or local culture and/or feminist theory and folklore.” (edited by Carrie Hertz, with participation of Lizette Gradén, Camilla Rossing, Laurann Gilbertson, Eeva-Kristiina Harlin and Outi Pieski.)

Prize committee comments:

“The committee awards the Professional Prize to Dressing with Purpose: Belonging and Resistance in Scandinavia, edited by Carrie Hertz, a collection of perceptive and wide-ranging essays on three interrelated dress traditions: Swedish folkdräkt, Norwegian bunad, and Sámi gákti over 200 years. In this lavishly illustrated survey of makers, collectors, wearers and occasions the authors confront a set of paradoxes regarding national costume: offering a powerful sense of identity on the one hand, costume provides the means for various kinds of exclusions on the other; constantly changing as all fashion must, it simultaneously generates structures of control and the policing of people’s sartorial choices. Indeed, as the editor and contributing author points out, contemporary costume in Scandinavia ultimately derives from sumptuary laws of the pre-nationalist era. Throughout the chapters, but particularly in those that engage with ethnic diversity (immigrant incorporation, indigenous resistance), the authors work against older scholarly paradigms to bring new insights into the study of national costume, focusing on current uses outside the museum context, including everyday forms of curation and creative transformation. Dedicated to Barbro Klein, the book not only features women as creators, curators, and wearers of national costume, but also foregrounds female scholars and women's scholarship. It is an excellent book, and the committee is pleased to award it the EKM professional prize.”