Paper short abstract:

Drawing on Israeli folklore archives, I scrutinize the tension between the durability granted to materials stored in archives and the instability of categories used to organize knowledge before it enters the archive and analytic categories used when knowledge is retrieved from there.

Paper long abstract:

Collection of folklore necessitates theoretical understanding (Naithani 2010), such as in relating to different categories that organize knowledge that would enter folk-archives. However, when knowledge is retrieved from archives it has to comply with other knowledge concerns, which interests contemporary scholars and performers. For example, while folk-narrative archives have divided narratives according to folk genres ("legends" vs. "folktales"), contemporary scholars may be interested in gender or environmental issues which may override generic concerns. While digitalization may replace clear taxonomies by attending to "tagging" or other open cataloguing options, it also adds further complexities as knowledge transforms between media. Drawing on cases from the Israeli context, I try to show that although such "taxonomy discrepancies" can be problematic, at the same time they offer ample opportunities for reflection on the role folklore archives have in knowledge processes, especially when archives are viewed as fieldwork sites (as in Fenske 2007). Rather than an obstacle, the inherent tension between the durability granted to materials stored in archives and the instability of categories opens up possibilities for critical historical-ethnography.