This paper will investigate the deployment of costuming in photography as a marker of identity.  It will question the cultural negotiation such costuming deployment engenders, particularly with regards to the transgression of class and urban-rural divides, but also as a putative statement of authenticity.  It will consider urban and middle-class Palestinian participation in the phenomenon within a broader context of photographic culture in the period, addressing the ways in which carte de visites and photo-postcards of the genre relate to other photographic genres that employ costume.  In particular, it will address the intersection with biblified and Orientalist photography in which questions of class are made evident in relation to photographic circulation outside of the confines of studio photography.

In contextualising Palestinian ‘cultural crossdressing’ through such a broad approach to the photographic field of Palestine, this chapter will also take of account of impacts of the tourism and souvenir market, modernity and nationalist consciousness.  While the market can be seen as shaping photographic taste, it also began to proffer Palestinian costuming commercially to meet a growing demand, a marked shift from garments previously produced within and for the domestic domain.  In this way, networks of trade, the cultural producers involved in garment production and the consumers purchasing them add new layers and dimension to putative questions of authenticity embedded in photography. 

By analysing evidence of the market for both the photographic practice as well as costume production, this lecture ultimately considers how modern social attitudes shaped ideas identity and authenticity as well as their performance.