Projects
The project "Vehicles of Modernity - Metamorphoses of Identity (International Truck Drivers during the Cold War)" aims to analyse the complex interrelation between identity and modernity during the Cold war, through the lens of one still under-examined group – the Bulgarian International truck drivers. Due to their specific official and non-official activities, the International truck drivers will be considered as mediators between the West and the East during that period. The project will argue that in their capacity of mediators, they contributed to the specific changes in the everyday perception of the interrelated concepts of modernity, identity and the image of the "others".
Outlining the contradiction and the importance of the mediating functions of the international truck drivers during the Cold war, the project will analyse the truckers' specific interpretation of the notions of Europe, the West, the East, democracy, consumption, and technology. Particular attention will be paid to the truckers' multiple identities: professional, social and personal (they were perceived simultaneously as "soldiers" and "ambassadors"; "traders" and "diplomats"; "smugglers" and "professionals").
The project also aims to analyse the impact of the drivers' activities and interpretations on people's imagination, concepts about modernity and their identity at the everyday level. The focus here will be on the ordinary people’s interaction with the truckers and through it with the West, considered as a vehicle for developing new consumption practices and desires. The thereby promoted "western" consumerism will be seen as a prism through which a concept of modernity was constructed, which was competitive as well as complementary to the official one.
I will examine this concept in three main directions: consumption, technology and mobility. The Western goods themselves, technologies and consumerism on the other hand, will be seen as a gradually developed reference system for the valuation of the quality and modernity of ordinary people's lives and a reference point for building a specific identity – tightly connected with both consumerism and modernity.
The research is based on dynamically combined information from different kinds of sources, including archival documents, objects, travelogues and interviews. This approach is adopted in order to create a more nuanced and multi-dimensional picture of the research issues.