Vernacular Turns: Narrative, Local Knowledge, and the Changing Context of Folklore

Abstract

This talk will explore changes in scholarly and popular attitudes toward the vernacular over the last 40 years, particularly through examination of the rise of intellectual, bureaucratic, and popular interest in narrative and local knowledge. Cross-disciplinary interests in narrative and the vernacular are not neutral; to the contrary, they constitute the subject in ways that are sometimes quite divergent from community values and those folklorists would be likely to support. Using examples from medicine and law, this paper will examine this new cultural acceptance or even veneration of certain aspects of the vernacular; the positive and negative impacts of this new attitude on communities; and the real, imagined, and potential role our discipline does, can, should, or should not play in this changing context for folklore and folklore studies.