Folklore
From GSLISWiki
I rave about the Folklore class 590FL offered by Betsy Hearne, but nobody in the department who has not taken the class seems to really understand what folklore is, and why it is so cool. I hope that this page provides people with the answer. -Ingbert
Contents |
[edit] What is Folklore?
A good definition is:
Folklore is the vernacular expression of cultural knowledge in verbal, customary, and material forms. It is both a product and a process that involves an ongoing balance of dynamic and conservative evolution, a perpetual interaction of text and context. - Betsy Hearne
What follows below is an exceprt from a paper I wrote for the Folklore Class which goes into a more detailed description. It may not be entirely correct, since it is my interpretation of the field, as opposed to a description of the field by an expert folklorist. - Ingbert
[edit] The Study of Folklore
The field of Folklore is very broad, and there is a vigorous on-going debate over what belongs in the field, and what does not. It is generally agreed that there are some commonalities in what all people who consider themselves folklorists do, yet what exactly these commonalities are is a part of the debate. While it is beyond the scope of this paper to rigorously review this debate, it seems prudent to make my conception of the field explicit, especially since I am currently an outsider to the field.
Folklorists study an observable pattern in the interactions between humans, for which there are no good words in the English language. This pattern is especially difficult to define because it is so pervasive. It occurs in the objects we create, in the stories we tell, in our songs, in our customs and traditions; essentially, in nearly every aspect of our lives. To help describe this pattern, folklorists have defined the terms material lore to refer to physical objects, verbal lore to refer to stories, songs, and other forms of verbal communication, and customary lore to refer to actions, such as traditions, ceremonies, superstitious habits, etc., but it is important to realize that the form of the lore is not so important, despite the many arguments about whether the form of a particular collection of lore invalidates it as an object of study. To identify the pattern in a particular collection of data, folklorists look for attributes of the object which are common to all data points, and attributes which are variable. This pattern of dynamic variation of certain attributes along with strict conservation of others is the benchmark that is used to define a collection of data points as representing an artifact of folklore. It is important to note that, over time and space, the particular aspects of the artifact that are conserved and the particular aspects of the artifact that are dynamic can change (i.e.: a previously dynamic aspect can become strictly conserved, and vice versa). And a particular artifact of folklore is never exclusive: it can contain other artifacts of folklore, be contained within other artifacts, and share instances of lore with other artifacts (Toelken 1996).
It is very difficult to understand folklore without using examples, so let us look at the custom of Thanksgiving Dinner in the US. The stereotypical description of the artifact of Thanksgiving Dinner involves a gathering of relatives to prepare and consume a meal consisting of a centerpiece of Turkey, and various side dishes such as stuffing, cranberry sauce, squash and pumpkin pie. Yet particular instances vary greatly. The Thanksgiving celebration I attended this year was held by a nuclear family (father, mother, and young daughter) with mixed national heritage (the father was Latin American and the mother was Korean). It was attended by friends, acquaintances, and colleagues of this family, and some friends of these guests who the family had not met prior to the meal. One of the guests arrived before the dinner to help prepare the Turkey and a couple of other dishes, and the other guests brought dishes which they had prepared at their own homes in advance or drinks to contribute to the meal. The stuffing of the Turkey was made from Kimchi, rather than the traditional bread-based stuffing. And the side dishes tended to be diverse and reflect the cultural heritage of the guests rather than an adherence to US custom. Upon reflecting on the evening as the guests were departing, the host remarked that this had been the best Thanksgiving Dinner he had ever had while living in his current house.
This example clearly shows some of the ways in which the artifact of a Thanksgiving Dinner can be dynamic. The composition of the side dishes varied from the stereotype at this instance of the Thanksgiving Dinner artifact, while other instances I have attended have been quite strict as to what is acceptable as side dishes. The people attending the gathering also were a variation from the stereotype, and for some families the holiday is strictly for extended family. While Thanksgiving Dinner is an artifact of customary lore, it contained within it an artifact of material lore: the Thanksgiving Dinner Turkey. The use of a Turkey as the centerpiece for the meal was a conservative aspect of the instance I described, but the use of a different food for stuffing was a dynamic component of both the Dinner artifact and the Turkey artifact. Other people having Thanksgiving Dinner choose to eliminate the Turkey, and substitute either another bird, or sometimes another dish entirely (vegetarians, for example). Thanksgiving Dinner is also a part of the larger artifact found in the US of Holiday Dinners. This example demonstrates how the boundaries of a particular artifact are fuzzy. As more aspects of the Thanksgiving Dinner are changed in a particular instance of the artifact, the nature of the gathering gets farther from the ideational core of the Thanksgiving Dinner artifact, and less recognizable as being an instance of the artifact (Toelken 1996). But a lack of clear boundaries and a lack of exclusivity hardly make the concept of an artifact of folklore trivial: that it is clearly defined is obvious because you can talk to nearly every member of the US folk group about Thanksgiving Dinner and they will immediately know what you are talking about.
What is interesting is that the definition of a folk artifact mirrors how the human brain naturally categorizes and uses concepts. We tend to have mental representations of the ideal of a type, such as a sparrowesque figure for a bird, as opposed to a penguin, ostrich, pelican, or swan. When we talk about bird in the general sense, this stereotypical image is what comes to mind. And, not only are we easily able to attach the idea of bird-ness to the less representative types, while at the same time recognizing their variation from the ideational core, we are also able to preserve the strictly exclusive nature of the category, where a particular animal either is or is not a bird (see Pinker 1997 pages 126-129). This clear parallel indicates that folklorists have made explicit a particular cognitive function, but from a different point of view. While the cognitive scientist looks at how an individual person’s mind works in this particular manner, the folklorist looks at how this (and other) function(s) of the human mind is (are) reflected in our cultural constructions, in our interactions with one another: in our folklore. It is a pity that professional folklorists tend not to have great familiarity with the latest understanding of cognition, and I highly recommend reading both Human Ethology by Irenaeus Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1989) and How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker (1997) for any folklorist interested in seeing how closely the concepts in modern folklore resemble many concepts in cognitive science (they are both well written and fascinating books). It would be a much more rigorous foundation for analysis than the Freudian psychoanalytic approach that is currently used, and I would be surprised if it did not prove quite inspirational as well.
[edit] Context in Folklore
Because recognizing and analyzing any collection of folklore requires understanding the cultural context in which it appears, one of the most important concepts in folklore is the folk group. In my understanding, a folk group is defined by context. Any people sharing a context automatically become a folk group. This allows for a definition that encompasses everything from a folk dyad such as two friends, to a shared culture in a work environment, to a shared ethnic identity, to a shared national identity. It also contains folk interactions which are more difficult to identify as such with a narrower definition, which is especially useful for folklorists exploring the boundary between high culture, pop culture, and folk culture. For example, when two people have seen a particular movie, and they are able to have a conversation based on the shared experience despite never having met before. The conversation may not necessarily be a folk interaction, but it could be, and the movie can provide the context on which the discussion is based. Think about the conversational patterns that Bush haters exhibit which emerge from a shared context of the movie Fahrenheit 9/11 and a particular internet-supported, distributed culture. The implication of this definition is that an insider in a folk group has access to the shared context, and an outsider does not, and it is only by obtaining access to the shared context that the outsider can become an insider. It also allows an exploration of the boundaries of folk groups, and how artifacts of folklore can travel over those boundaries, and obtain new uses in new contexts, serve different functions in different folk groups, and have different meanings to the members of each folk group in each context. Finally, this definition allows the flexibility of the application of the term folk group that is found in the literature, where folk groups can contain one another, where every individual is a member of multiple folk groups at the same time. In many ways, this definition contains how the term is actually used in the literature, both as defined and in practice:
"Folklorists are generally agreed that these everyday expressions tend to become viable over a period of time or across a geographical area mostly among people who share some basis for everyday communal contacts, some factor in common that makes it possible, or rewarding or meaningful, for them to exchange vernacular materials in a culturally significant way. Such human clusters have been called folk groups by many folklorists, but we should bear in mind that the grouping envisioned here is not static (as that term might imply) but is as dynamic as the materials it produces, for most people belong to several such groupings, and some (such as occupational) are subject to constant change." (Toelken 1996, 37-38)
"For the contemporary American folklorist in the 1960’s, the term “folk†can refer to any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor. It does not really matter what the linking or isolating factor is—it could be a common occupation, a common language, or common religion—but what is important is that a group formed for whatever reason will have some traditions which it calls its own." (Dundes 1966)
I am simply proposing that the unnamed common factor mentioned in the preceding quotes that is shared among members of folk groups is context.
One of the important things that this definition highlights in folklore is that there is no such thing as a high context and a low context folk group in an absolute sense. Instead, one can think of them in terms of context differences. There are two levels at which you can apply this idea: the individual level and the group level. An individual has access to certain context based on the folk groups in which she is an insider. For every folk group to which she is an outsider, there is a difference in the type and amount of context she has, and the type and amount of context she must have in order to become an insider. On a group level, one can compare the general differences between groups, but this is useful only when the context difference between two groups is used as a baseline for comparison. A good example is, if you define the context difference between the European American US Folk Group and the Native American Navajo Folk Group to be large, then the context difference between members of the European American US Folk Group and the European English Folk Group is small, and the context difference between the Native American Navajo Folk Group and the Native American Hopi Folk Group is small. By looking at things in terms of context difference, it also becomes clearer that obtaining insider status is not just a factor of the size of the context difference, but also the accessibility of the context needed to become an insider. In this way, an insular folk group may attempt to control access to the context by people with small context differences, while an open folk group may actively instruct an insider candidate with a large context difference.
The importance of context in folklore is that it allows you to understand the folklore. In order to understand an artifact of folklore, to analyze the function it serves in a folk group, or the aesthetic taste it satisfies, one must understand the context of the folk group in which the artifact is found. If the artifact spans unrelated folk groups, then one must understand each individual folk group, and be prepared for the possibility that in each folk group the artifact will carry a different meaning or serve a different function. Likewise, as folk groups evolve over time, their active context changes as well, which can affect the role an artifact plays in the group. It is only by understanding the context of a folk group that the folklorist can begin to try and understand why certain aspects of a folk artifact remain conserved, and others are dynamic. And the only way to understand the context of a folk group is to approach it with an open mind: to practice folklore properly, a folklorist has to practice complete cultural relativism, because otherwise they will never truly free themselves from their personal preconceptions in their attempt to understand the folk group they are studying. This does not mean that a folklorist’s moral judgments or ethical standards ought to be culturally relativistic, but before a folklorist can make moral judgments, he or she must first understand the context of the folk group he or she is studying, and understand the function which each artifact of folklore serves in the folk group. Only then can he or she be prepared to make a moral judgment as to what action he or she should take in a particular situation (for an examination of the ethical duties of a foreign correspondent that is relevant to the ethical duties of a folklorist, see Kristof 2001, http://jcomm.uoregon.edu/awards/ruhl/ruhl2001.html ).
[edit] Selected Bibliography
Dundes, Alan (1966). The American Concept of Folklore. Journal of the Folklore Institute. 3, 226-249.
Dundes, Alan; Pagter, Carl R. (1975). Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire. American Folklore Society: Austin, Texas.
Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Irenaeus (1989). Human Ethology. Aldine de Gruyter: New York.
Huntington, Rania (2003). Alien Kind: Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Kristof, Nicholas (2001). Spies, Wars And Massacres: The Ethical Dilemmas of a Foreign Correspondent. Ruhl Lecture, 2001. University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. http://jcomm.uoregon.edu/awards/ruhl/ruhl2001.html
Pinker, Steven (1997). How the Mind Works. W. W. Norton & Company: New York.
Toelken, Barre (1996). The Dynamics of Folklore. Revised and Expanded Edition. Utah State University Press: Logan, Utah.
[edit] Related Links:
- Here's an article from the BBC which talks about how native tribespeople on islands in the Indian Ocean escaped the effects of the Tsunami, while recent immigrants to the islands did not, because their folklore/oral history told them to literally run for the hills when they felt the ground shake:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4181855.stm
- Here's Kristof's Ethics Lecture: it talks about ethics for international correspondants, but many of the ethical issues applie to Folklorists as well:
