American Folklore Society Research Articles

Institutional Dilemmas and Responses in Facing Harm

Abstract This 15-part forum challenges the Journal of American Folklore's readership to contemplate explicitly and publicly what we should do about the professional legacies of colleagues in our field who are known to or alleged to have harmed others through sexual harassment and gender discrimination. An introduction by the forum's curator Lisa Gilman is followed by 14 essays representing a diversity of viewpoints from members of the American Folklore Society.

Introduction

Abstract This 15-part forum challenges the Journal of American Folklore's readership to contemplate explicitly and publicly what we should do about the professional legacies of colleagues in our field who are known to or alleged to have harmed others through sexual harassment and gender discrimination. This introduction by the forum's curator Lisa Gilman is followed by 14 essays representing a diversity of viewpoints from members of the American Folklore Society.

Severed Tongues, Lost Voices

Abstract This 15-part forum challenges the Journal of American Folklore's readership to contemplate explicitly and publicly what we should do about the professional legacies of colleagues in our field who are known to or alleged to have harmed others through sexual harassment and gender discrimination. An introduction by the forum's curator Lisa Gilman is followed by 14 essays representing a diversity of viewpoints from members of the American Folklore Society.

Privilege, Power, and Accountability

Abstract This 15-part forum challenges the Journal of American Folklore's readership to contemplate explicitly and publicly what we should do about the professional legacies of colleagues in our field who are known to or alleged to have harmed others through sexual harassment and gender discrimination. An introduction by the forum's curator Lisa Gilman is followed by 14 essays representing a diversity of viewpoints from members of the American Folklore Society.

Stigmatized Women's Discourse about Sexual Harassment in Academia

Abstract This 15-part forum challenges the Journal of American Folklore's readership to contemplate explicitly and publicly what we should do about the professional legacies of colleagues in our field who are known to or alleged to have harmed others through sexual harassment and gender discrimination. An introduction by the forum's curator Lisa Gilman is followed by 14 essays representing a diversity of viewpoints from members of the American Folklore Society.

Dell Hymes, #MeToo, and Traditionalization

Abstract This 15-part forum challenges the Journal of American Folklore's readership to contemplate explicitly and publicly what we should do about the professional legacies of colleagues in our field who are known to or alleged to have harmed others through sexual harassment and gender discrimination. An introduction by the forum's curator Lisa Gilman is followed by 14 essays representing a diversity of viewpoints from members of the American Folklore Society.

Reflections on the Legacy of Dell Hymes

Abstract This 15-part forum challenges the Journal of American Folklore's readership to contemplate explicitly and publicly what we should do about the professional legacies of colleagues in our field who are known to or alleged to have harmed others through sexual harassment and gender discrimination. An introduction by the forum's curator Lisa Gilman is followed by 14 essays representing a diversity of viewpoints from members of the American Folklore Society.

Folklore's Gender Problem

Abstract This 15-part forum challenges the Journal of American Folklore's readership to contemplate explicitly and publicly what we should do about the professional legacies of colleagues in our field who are known to or alleged to have harmed others through sexual harassment and gender discrimination. An introduction by the forum's curator Lisa Gilman is followed by 14 essays representing a diversity of viewpoints from members of the American Folklore Society.

Moral Mentorship in the Spotlight

Abstract This 15-part forum challenges the Journal of American Folklore's readership to contemplate explicitly and publicly what we should do about the professional legacies of colleagues in our field who are known to or alleged to have harmed others through sexual harassment and gender discrimination. An introduction by the forum's curator Lisa Gilman is followed by 14 essays representing a diversity of viewpoints from members of the American Folklore Society.

Insights on Commemoration from the Sabbathday Lake Shakers

Abstract This 15-part forum challenges the Journal of American Folklore's readership to contemplate explicitly and publicly what we should do about the professional legacies of colleagues in our field who are known to or alleged to have harmed others through sexual harassment and gender discrimination. An introduction by the forum's curator Lisa Gilman is followed by 14 essays representing a diversity of viewpoints from members of the American Folklore Society.

Roots, Rootlessness, and Uprooting: Personal, Ethnographic, and Folkloric Reflections on a Theme

Abstract This address examines the theme, “Roots, Rootlessness, and Uprooting,” of the 2023 American Folklore Society (AFS) Annual Meeting. I explore parts of my own journey as a folklorist by considering my professional origin story; ethnographic fieldwork experiences with my own family, the Buraku of Japan, and the people of Little Cayman; membership in various folklore communities, including the Association of African and African American Folklorists; and some of the history of American Folklore Society.

Defining Global Asian Folklore Studies

Abstract: This article seeks to create Global Asian Folklore Studies (GAFS) by integrating the study of global Asias and Critical Folklore Studies. Similar to Critical Latinx Folklore Studies, GAFS embraces interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches, and the goal is to look at the racialized and gendered experiences of Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander (AAAPI) individuals and communities as well as the problems of discrimination, inequality, and oppression faced by them in their everyday lives. GAFS is defined not only to advance the dialogues and discussions about how best to enhance the lives, representations, and visibilities of AAAPI communities in the US, but also to build broader coalitions to respond to the crisis of the Transnational Asia/Pacific Section (TAPS) of the American Folklore Society (AFS). It serves as an act of "carework" for TAPS, AFS, and our global society, and will create space for dialogues among AAAPI folklorists, folklorists who study AAAPI folklore, and their allies that is aimed at healing, coalition building, and creating paths forward.

Folklore and Disability: An Important—and Too Often Overlooked—Factor in Global Health and International Development Efforts

Abstract In this paper, I argue that the field of folklore and folklorists can—and should—make more of a contribution to global health and international development efforts and should be more involved in conversations about social justice and human rights. Drawing on my invited comments at the webinar sponsored by the Fellows of the American Folklore Society entitled “Interrogating the Normal: Folkloristic Engagements with Disability,” held on March 25, 2022, I provide some examples of research that my colleagues and I have undertaken where we have brought folklore and oral history approaches to disability-related global health and international development initiatives. I discuss how this knowledge has broadened our ability to ask and answer important questions. Based on my own experience, applied folklore can provide insight and generate new questions that can improve the lives of persons with disabilities. I encourage folklorists to seek out and undertake future collaborations with researchers and community groups working to improve health and well-being around the world.

Folklore, Heritage, and the Public Sphere: Introduction

Abstract Though they tend to occupy separate universes of discourse, public folklore and heritage studies share areas of common concern, including authority and ownership of cultural objects, power asymmetries, safeguarding and sustainability, and the implication of heritage in local economies, politics, and environmental justice. This special issue encompasses multiple domains of public folklore and heritage discourse, including museums, archives, and cultural property issues; culinary tourism; and relations between cultural practitioners, institutions, audiences, and stakeholders. The six essays are based on an online webinar organized by the Fellows of the American Folklore Society that explored a wide range of questions including how communities conceptualize relationships between past and present, remake traditions of the past in the present, integrate heritage and environmental sustainability, and negotiate power dynamics among stakeholders. Following the webinar, small groups assembled in salons to discuss these and related issues. Summaries of the salons follow the six essays. Together, these essays and salon summaries address not only the ways that heritage navigates the past in the present but the temporalities of heritage practice, which imagines the future while considering the ethical and dialogic dimensions of heritage practices and policies.

Salons 2: Public Folklore, Heritage, and Social Justice

Abstract The “Social Justice” salons, organized by the Fellows of the American Folklore Society, spotlighted public folklore's rapidly evolving strategies for crisis intervention, where crises, whether political, epidemiological, or environmental, may be linked to underlying conditions of social inequality. Exploring how the skill sets and resources of folklorists can intersect with heritage frameworks to ameliorate forms of social injustice, participants delineated this emergent practice arena in the field. Discussions illuminated both the potential and perils of using heritage as a means of crisis intervention and healing.

Salons 4: Sustainabilities

Abstract The “Sustainabilities” salons, organized by the Fellows of the American Folklore Society, drew together folklorists from the United States, Europe, and Asia, who were interested in frameworks for the study and stewardship of culture at the nexus of economy, ecology, nature, and the multi-species ethnographic and ontological turn. Conversations highlighted the continuing friction between public environmental policies grounded in Western instrumental, anthropocentric attitudes toward nature, and deeply relational values espoused by Indigenous and environmental justice communities, and by the growing numbers of climate refugees and host communities—urban and rural—with whom folklorists and heritage scholars are increasingly engaged. Exploring what is most needed from folklorists in a time of global environmental instability, participants identified ways to build on solid foundations developed over decades of public folklore's place-based community engagement.

Salons 3: Tourism through Folklore: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract The “Tourism through Folklore: Challenges and Opportunities” salons were organized by the Fellows of the American Folklore Society. Participants were clear-eyed about the damage to the integrity of cultural practices and community life that is often engendered by tourism, but they also considered concrete solutions involving greater community agency and the sustainable tourism initiatives of folklorists. They noted the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on spurring regenerative tourism. These salons considered the opportunities and pitfalls of immersive tourism experiences, how host/guest relationships can be reconfigured, and approaches for controlling access to over-touristed areas. Folklorists were viewed as being well-equipped to educate about culturally appropriate behavior and to generate substantive interpretative materials, both of which may require collaboration with the tourism industry.

Salons 5: Anticipatory Heritage

Abstract The “Anticipatory Heritage” salons, organized by the Fellows of the American Folklore Society, considered how the heritage of the present can be employed proactively to create more just and humane futures. Participants discussed approaches for re-animating and revitalizing traditions through incorporating them integrally within community life. They include repatriation and training in archival and collecting practices that empower communities. While folklore has emphasized safeguarding traditions transmitted over generations, anticipatory heritage contends that looking to the future is also needed to advance social justice, heal through remembrance, and generate greater community cultural self-determination. As was the case for participants in all of the salons, these discussions stressed the importance of a critical approach toward heritage, including interrogating who controls heritage-making and, at times, questioned the term “heritage” itself.

Salons 1: Mutual Engagement, Co-creation, and Yielding Authority for Representation: Strategies and Practices

Abstract Public folklore practice increasingly emphasizes enabling communities to shape and determine the direction of a project from inception through implementation. The “Mutual Engagement, Co-creation, and Yielding Authority for Representation: Strategies and Practices” salons, organized by the Fellows of the American Folklore Society, explored how folklorists are sharing and yielding authority with community members, with an overarching objective of decentralizing power structures. They stressed the importance of recognizing that communities are not monolithic, containing differential perspectives, conflicting agendas, and internal hierarchies. Participants called for equity in planning and payment for project partners. They spoke about the role that folklorists can play in establishing networks among various stakeholders. Discussions embodied realistic understanding of the constraints of the institutions where folklorists work, while considering strategies for productively overcoming these limitations.

Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa's “Great(er) Spain”: The Snares ofQuerenciaand the Pitfalls of Cultural Nationalism and FundamentalistHispanismo

AbstractAurelio Macedonio Espinosa (1880–1958) studied Hispanic folklore in the American Southwest, Spain, and Spanish America. His research foregrounds Spanish language, verbal arts, and culture of the people of greater New Mexico (New Mexico and southern Colorado). Three decades into an energetic career of fieldwork, research, and teaching, Espinosa allied himself with Spanish Nationalism, largely motivated by his religious beliefs. His foundational work in linguistics and dialectology endures, but his contributions to US folklore studies have been largely erased. Critics condemn his insistent identification with Peninsular Spanish rather than Mexican cultural roots and his conservative politics. A more likely motivation for his quest for Spanishness is the Historic Geographic theory and methodology he clung to in the search for origins and dissemination of folktales. Peeling back layers of outdated theory and politics reveals decades of solid fieldwork and documentation, still relevant today. The American Folklore Society (AFS) Notable Folklorists of Color 2019 exhibition and 2022 website have rekindled interest in the career of Espinosa, a past president of AFS.