Know09: Unwritten folklorists: developing international collaboration to address the paradoxes of diversity in folklore and folkloristics

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Know09

Unwritten folklorists: developing international collaboration to address the paradoxes of diversity in folklore and folkloristics

Convenors:: Tina Paphitis (University of Bergen)
Paul Cowdell (University of Hertfordshire)
Matthew Cheeseman (University of Derby)
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Discussant:: Peter Harrop (University of Chester)

Format:: Roundtable

Short Abstract:

This roundtable discusses the paradoxes pertaining to equality, diversity and inclusion in folklore and folkloristics. It is particularly interested in visibility and representation in relation to marginalized folklorists, the risk of their work going unwritten, and its impact on folklore history.

Long Abstract:

This roundtable developed from a UK-based, AHRC-funded network (Folklore Without Borders) that aimed to embed greater diversity within folklore and folkloristics. This roundtable discusses the paradoxes pertaining to visibility and representation that arose from its meetings. We are interested in establishing collaborations in exploring them further.

For example, the network explored a UK equivalent to the American Folklore Society’s ‘Notable Folklorists of Color’ project, broadening its remit to include marginal groups. In preliminary investigations it was difficult to trace these folklorists, especially those of colour. We discuss the difficulties in locating marginal folklorists, the impact on the history of folkloristics, and the potential for folklore that would otherwise be recorded and explored to go unwritten. We query what these absences mean for undertaking folklore work and for the public perception of folklore through the following paradoxes:

Terminology: ‘diversity’ is an inherently problematic and gestural term, but necessary?

Whiteness: UK folklore is overwhelmingly white, both in terms of participants, and in its presumed and imagined scope;

Intersectionality: how to enact change when inequality is itself so diverse (race, class, gender, sexuality, etc);

History: how is an alternative, diverse history of folklore and folkloristics possible? Where are the unwritten marginal folklorists, and how far does their articulation within folklore necessitate a reframing of our understanding of folkloristics?

Folkloristics: what can and should be kept from a colonial inheritance?

We invite discussion on these (and other) paradoxes in relation to folklore and diversity, in the UK and internationally.