Folklife & Fieldwork


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Handbook for Folklore and Ethnomusicology Fieldwork


Book Description

A comprehensive review of the ethnographic process for developing a project, implementing the plan, and completing and preserving the data collected. In Handbook for Folklore and Ethnomusicology Fieldwork, readers will find a detailed methodology for conducting different types of fieldwork such as digital ethnography or episodic research, tips and tricks for key elements like budgeting and funding, and practical advice and examples gleaned from the authors own fieldwork experiences. This handbook also helps fieldworkers fully grasp and understand the ways in which power, gender, ethnicity, and other identity categories are ever present in fieldwork, and guides students to think through these dynamics at each stage of research. Written accessibly for lay researchers working in different mediums and on projects of varying size, this step-by-step manual will prepare the reader for the excitement, challenges, and rewards of ethnographic research.




Folklife and Fieldwork


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Folklore and Folklife


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Describes the characteristics of folk cultures and discusses the procedures used by social scientists to study folklife.




Old Ties, New Attachments


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What Folklorists Do


Book Description

What can you do with a folklore degree? Over six dozen folklorists, writing from their own experiences, show us. What Folklorists Do examines a wide range of professionals—both within and outside the academy, at the beginning of their careers or holding senior management positions—to demonstrate the many ways that folklore studies can shape and support the activities of those trained in it. As one of the oldest academic professions in the United States and grounded in ethnographic fieldwork, folklore has always been concerned with public service and engagement beyond the academy. Consequently, as this book demonstrates, the career applications of a training in folklore are many—advocating for local and national causes; shaping public policy; directing and serving in museums; working as journalists, publishers, textbook writers, or journal editors; directing national government programs or being involved in historic preservation; teaching undergraduate and graduate students; producing music festivals; pursuing a career in politics; or even becoming a stand-up comedian. A comprehensive guide to the range of good work carried out by today's folklorists, What Folklorists Do is essential reading for folklore students and professionals and those in positions to hire them. Audio book narrated by Walter Brown. Produced by Speechki in 2021.




Songprints


Book Description

Songprints, the first book-length exploration of the musical lives of Native American women, describes a century of cultural change and constancy among the Shoshone of Wyoming's Wind River Reservation. Through her conversations with Emily, Angelina, Alberta, Helene, and Lenore, Judith Vander captures the distinct personalities of five generations of Shoshone women as they tell their thoughts, feelings, and attitudes toward their music. These women, who range in age from seventy to twenty, provide a unique historical perspective on many aspects of twentieth-century Wind River Shoshone life. In addition to documenting these oral histories, Vander transcribes and analyzes seventy-five songs that the women sing--a microcosm of Northern Plains Indian music. She shows how each woman possesses her own songprint--a song repertoire distinctive to her culture, age, and personality, as unique in its configuration as a fingerprint or footprint. Vander places the five song repertoires in the context of Shoshone social and religious ceremonies to offer insights into the rise of the Native American Church, the emergence and popularity of the contemporary powwow, and the changing, enlarging role of women. Songprints also offers important new material on Ghost Dance songs and performances. Because the Ghost Dance was abandoned by the Wind River Shoshones in the 1930s, only Emily and Angelina saw it performed. Vander engages the two women--now in their sixties and seventies--in a discussion of the function and meaning of the Ghost Dance among the Wind River Shoshones. Thirteen Shoshone Ghost Dance song transcriptions accompany their accounts of past performances. The distinctive voices of these five women will captivate those interested in music, women's studies, ethnohistory, and ethnography, as well as ethnomusicologists, Native American scholars, anthropologists, and historians.




Folklife and Fieldwork


Book Description




Folklife & Fieldwork


Book Description




Public Folklore


Book Description

A landmark volume exploring the public presentation and application of folk culture in collaboration with communities, Public Folklore is available again with a new introduction discussing recent trends and scholarship. Editors Robert Baron and Nick Spitzer provide theoretical framing to contributions from leaders of major American folklife programs and preeminent folklore scholars, including Roger D. Abrahams, Robert Cantwell, Gerald L. Davis, Archie Green, Bess Lomax Hawes, Richard Kurin, Daniel Sheehy, and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. Their essays present vivid accounts of public folklore practice in a wide range of settings—nineteenth-century world's fairs and minstrel shows, festivals, museums, international cultural exchange programs, concert stages, universities, and hospitals. Drawing from case studies, historical analyses, and their own experiences as advocates, field researchers, and presenters, the essayists recast the history of folklore in terms of public practice, while discussing standards for presentation to new audiences. They approach engagement with tradition bearers as requiring collaboration and dialogue. They critically examine who has the authority to represent folk culture, the ideologies informing these representations, and the effect upon folk artists of encountering revived and new audiences within and beyond their own communities. In discussions of the relationship between public practice and the academy, this volume also offers new models for integrating public folklore training within graduate studies.