Public folklore dialogism and critical heritage studies

Abstract

Public folklore’s dialogic engagement with communities incorporates methodologies for sharing representational and interpretive authority, collaborative programme development, mutually constructed modes of presentation and stakeholder participation in policy-making. While recognising that heritage interventions inevitably involve power asymmetries, public folklore seeks to mitigate and diminish these imbalances as it develops approaches to enable communities to present their culture on their own terms. This paper explores dialogic public folklore practice through community self-documentation projects, folklife festivals, government folk arts funding programmes and a project promoting places of local cultural significance. It provides examples of the integration of multiple roles of public folklorists as scholars, administrators, producers of folklore presentations and government heritage officers. Public folklore praxis achieved through the integration of these roles is seen as a potential model for critical heritage studies praxis for scholars who are advisors and researchers in intangible cultural heritage (ICH) initiatives. Critical heritage scholars involved with ICH can learn from how public folklorists engage with communities and foster cultural self-determination. For public folklorists, collaboration and increased dialogue with critical heritage scholars could foster greater awareness of hegemonic discourses, reconceptualisation of the social base of ICH and recognition of the pitfalls of fostering economic development through heritage.