Folklore and Advocacy

Abstract

Folklore and Advocacy Elliott Oring (bio) "The work of the folklorist is by definition a work of advocacy" (Lindahl, p. 175). Folklore projects need to "give voice to people with little or no access to power. . . . [They] contribute, in some small way, to creating a more humane and just world" (Norkunas, p. 120). Such definitions of the work of folklore should not be accepted at face value. They do not emerge from any of the theoretical, methodological, or even moral necessities of folklore study. Indeed, such positions may serve to undermine the potential of folklore studies to be anything at all, let alone a force for good in the world. The correction, expansion, and enrichment of the historical record is a worthwhile enterprise. We do need to listen to people's stories and understand their silences. In "giving voice" to diverse social and ethnic groupings (Norkunas p. 116), folklore study can humanize history as it uncovers the personal experience obscured by such terms as "immigration," "wage labor," "plantation," or even "wife." But folklore is not simply the humanizing of history. Folklore is a field driven by questions: questions about art, belief, tradition, identity, community, and memory. If folklore's prime directive is to give voice to people with little or no access to power, the discipline loses its intellectual foundations. It is not driven by questions but by moral precepts. There is little to learn. There are only stories—of good and evil—to tell: homiletics rather than history. No folklorists (or any other scholars that I know of) hope that their work will fail to prove beneficial to some individual or group—even if they don't always know what the benefit is or whom the beneficiary might be. There is a big difference, however, between hoping that one's work will prove of benefit and defining one's work in terms of benefits. Such a definition of the endeavor subordinates the folkloristic inquiry to the realization of specific effects. Dangers abound. Effects—whether peace, justice, health, or even increased income—are not simply the products of good intentions. They are the products of physical, psychological, and social forces—forces whose mechanisms must be deeply understood if they are to be marshaled [End Page 259] in the pursuit of some end.1 Thus the production of specific outcomes—beneficial or noxious—depends first and foremost upon the production of knowledge. What folklorists do is provide knowledge about people's behaviors, beliefs, and values. They have developed theories, methodologies, and techniques to aid in the production of such knowledge. That knowledge is only useful to the extent that it is knowledge—to the extent that it succeeds in making clear some of the operations of the real world. When folklore study is defined in terms of desired outcomes rather than in terms of the production of knowledge, action is likely to proceed on the basis of wishes. Worse yet, knowledge is likely to be suppressed or manipulated in the attempted realization of those wishes.2 When the ends of research are already known, the means to those ends are likely to be suspect. Research designed to validate pre-established truths or to enable some socially desirable program should be no more trusted than clinical trials performed by a drug company on their own pharmaceutical products. Everyone is an advocate at some time or another. Some advocates are professionals: lawyers, social services administrators, ombudsmen, and consulate and embassy employees. Others are not professionals but only serve as a matter of happenstance: an employer helps a worker get a green card; a teacher speaks for a student before a school disciplinary panel; a neighbor helps a neighbor negotiate the government bureaucracy; a church member sponsors a family of immigrants and helps them adapt to their new community. Folklorists, like everyone else, become advocates. Their advocacy may be rooted in their personal experience—writing a letter of recommendation for the daughter of a next-door neighbor—or professional expertise, such as helping an informant establish the copyright to a song. This latter type of advocacy comes about because folklorists do fieldwork. In the course of that work they meet people with whom they...