Exploring cultural margins and liminalities through visual and material culture: the case of Kaliningrad as presented in guided tours

ABSTRACT

Kaliningrad’s place on the geopolitical ‘margin’ is well documented, however, little research has examined Kaliningrad as a certain type of margin in cultural terms. This article seeks to elucidate Kaliningrad’s position in the dichotomy of margin-center in cultural terms by exploring how the material culture of Kaliningrad is displayed to tourists. Drawing on an analysis of the spatiotemporal aspects of three guided tours of Kaliningrad, this study shows that out of several material culture trends, ‘Kaliningradized Königsberg’ (where the Russian present appropriates the Germanic past of the city) is the most highlighted. The results suggest that Kaliningrad emerges as a cultural liminality or a ‘third space’ in relation to its central cultural models.

KEYWORDS:

• Kaliningrad
• material culture
• peripheries
• margins
• cultural liminality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek [G025519N].

Notes on contributors

Gintarė Kudžmaitė

Gintarė Kudžmaitė is a PhD student at the University of Antwerp, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Communication Studies. She is a member of the Visual and Digital Cultures Research Center (ViDi). Her area of interest and the focus of her PhD project is visual border studies. She applies visual methods to study borders, investigate how border studies can benefit from visual research methods, and she works on several different European border cases.