The Romanian Traditional Shirt "Ia": Agency, Complexity and Thing-Power in an Immigrant Teacher Identity Journey
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Enache, Mihaela
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Journal Article
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University of Alberta Libraries
Abstract
Through critical collaborative autoethnography with arts-based methods, I experienced the embodied making of a Romanian traditional shirt called ia, as a practical exploration of my immigrant teacher identity. Ia changed my world; she became an intrinsic part of my identity and the core of my study. She deserved attention and representation because she was a presence. I thus responded to a provocation: not only did I understand the object/subject/agent of my study differently, but I became different myself and transformed my relationships with humans and nonhumans. Ia changed from an object into a subject and a participant; she became a storyteller and my teacher. Through complexity, thing-power, and agency, ia generated an extensive theoretical framework and enabled juxtapositions of concepts from Romanian village metaphysics, new materialism, and quantum entanglements.Description
Keywords
3601 Art History, Theory and Criticism, 33 Built Environment and Design, 3303 Design, 36 Creative Arts and Writing, 3303 Design, 3601 Art history, theory and criticism, ia—the Romanian shirt with altiţă, teacher identity, new materialism, Romanian village metaphysics, quantum entanglement
Source
Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal, ISSN: 2371-3771 (Print); 2371-3771 (Online), University of Alberta Libraries, 10(1), 50-73. doi: 10.18432/ari29854
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Copyright (c) 2026 Mihaela Enache. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.