I would like to begin with a prediction. Fifty years from now, when scholars look back at the most important contributions to folklore studies in the early twenty-first century, Solimar Otero and Mintzi Auanda Martínez-Rivera’s edited volume Theorizing Folklore from the Margins: Critical and Ethical Approaches will rank extremely high. Its publication is a watershed event, one that signals the unapologetic maturation of a critical turn in the discipline. Given this significance, I will also begin by recommending that JFRR invite other scholars to review it. This collection merits widespread attention. Indeed, I can think of few books in folklore studies from recent decades that rival its implications. It is a timely meditation at a precarious moment.
As with all watershed publications, Theorizing Folklore is a culmination of earlier groundwork. I would identify four precedents. The first is the tireless (but often neglected) contributions of folklorists from the Global South and those with deep ties to Latinx, African, Asian, and Indigenous communities in the United States. I am reluctant to name a few examples, as I will surely omit salient others, but Theorizing Folklore immediately builds upon and extends the groundbreaking contributions of Américo Paredes and collections such as Chicana Traditions edited by Norma Cantú and Olga Nájera-Ramírez (2002). Its dedication to feminist and LGBTQI+ communities and scholarship is equally decisive. The second precedent is autoethnography, specifically critical performative autoethnography. Although the authors in Theorizing Folklore infrequently mention those associated with, for example, Qualitative Inquiry and related outlets, the potential for collaboration is manifest. The same is true of those practitioners of the critical ethnography epitomized by D. Soyini Madison’s work. In all of these, distinctions between scholar and performer become tenuous, deliberately, and for the purpose of activism and advancing social justice. The third precedent is collaborative ethnography, which has a much longer pedigree in folklore studies proper. Theorizing Folklore relishes a sustained engagement with those methodological considerations and concerns.
The fourth precedent is a developing critical folkloristics itself. As numerous contributors have argued, such a movement is not monolithic. It does not adhere to a strict definition of the critical, nor demand fidelity to specific methods of research and knowledge production. All critical turns, however, share a commitment to promote emancipation from domination, and to produce critiques of society that challenge and thwart oppressive systems of power. At a minimum, three constituent approaches inform the critical turn in folklore studies. The first is research that advances the inclusion of the marginalized and the oppressed, frequently through critique of colonial or otherwise deleterious hegemony. The majority of essays in Theorizing Folklore take this route, and do so in a magisterial way. The second approach produces critique of traditional, conventional, and foundational norms of folklore studies. Several essays directly undertake this task, and arguably, all of them support that cause. The third approach offers critique of specific folk acts of domination. While there are far fewer overt examples in this book—the notable essay by Rachel V. González-Martin is one—taken together, all of them again lend credence and assistance to such a project.
Of course, as with all watershed books, Theorizing Folklore is far more than a culmination of its predecessors. It is a high achievement in itself. It is a model for a kind of writing, performing, activism, and scholarship that will influence generations to follow. In this manner, it both shines on its own and stands in solidarity with other statements in folklore studies pointing to a more equitable and better world. Again, with the risk of omission, I would nominate as influential companions several recent issues of the Journal of American Folklore, especially Summer 2021, Fall 2021, and Spring 2022. Let us take this litany as a good sign for the present and the future, even if it arrives much later than it should have.
Theorizing Folklore consists of an introduction and sixteen original essays organized across four sections: Critical Paths, Framing the Narrative, Visualizing the Present, and Placing Community. Critical Paths contains four essays. The introduction by Otero and Martínez-Rivera immediately raises the stakes of this collection through striking personal narratives and poignant summary of the discipline’s colonialist legacy. They draw upon the work of non-folklorists with equal aplomb, demonstrating an ease of conversation with other critical disciplines that is the hallmark of stellar scholarship. They honor certain European (and white) traditions, especially social theory in a critical mode, but rightfully insist that the voices of others must be heard. They salute public folklorists as allies rather than outsiders to critical scholarship. They hail feminist and LGBTQI+ contributions and deftly promise a similar project of queering the discipline. And, perhaps most importantly, they take seriously the need for collaboration with communities, especially marginalized ones, all in a commitment to generate “anticolonial creative and academic work” (7). The first thirteen pages (those preceding the chapter outline) should be read by all earnest folklorists and should be on every syllabus for graduate and undergraduate classes in folklore studies.
The decision to open the formal collection of essays with González-Martin’s “White Traditioning and Bruja Epistemologies: Rebuilding the House of USAmerican Folklore Studies” is a brilliant arrangement. As already mentioned, it is arguably the sole contribution to offer outright critique of domination in the formal sense. Ostensibly, it criticizes whiteness and colonialism at the heart of folklore studies (echoing Anand Prahlad’s 2021 essay in JAF), but in a far greater sense, in USAmerican society as a whole and in the very notion of tradition itself, unmasked herein as a racialized concept to which a bruja epistemology arises as the only fitting response. Juan Eduardo Wolf’s “Un Tumbe Ch’ixi: Afro-Descendant Ideas into an Andean Anticolonial Methodology” is a flawless extension, both critical of folklore studies and ready with an alternative. Adapting music and dance practices among Indigenous peoples and Afro-descendant communities in Chile and inspired by Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui’s notion of a ch’ixi (the Aymara word for “motley”) methodology, this essay challenges colonialist categorizations that still anchor much scholarship. In advocating a turn to multiverses, it passionately argues for significant decolonizing in folklore studies as well as an enrichment of the tapestry of personal and public life. Miriam Melton-Villanueva and Sheila Bock’s “Disrupting the Archive” is a compelling work of collaboration—by which I mean between the two authors and between the two women who are the subject of the essay, Lily Villanueva Melton and doña Anita. The latter two are responsible for the creation of the first significant archive dedicated to tales from the Ures region of Sonora, Mexico. In recognizing their contributions, the authors proffer a means both to value the local and to disrupt outdated practices of archiving, which far too often silence and render invisible women of color—and in this specific case, Chicana labor—and thereby demonstrate a way to move from desconocimiento to ethical and respectful knowledge.
The second section, Framing the Narrative, contains five essays, all of which continue the practice of decolonizing by addressing lacunae in folklore scholarship, especially regarding frequently marginalized or ignored communities. Otero’s “Afrolatinx Folklore and Representation: Interstices and Antiauthenticity” initiates the conversation. Therein, she challenges the colonial-laden and far-too-often abusive concept of authenticity, seeking to substitute a far more ethical guide, the LGBTQI+ notion of “realness.” Building from that insight, the remainder of the essay draws upon Afrolatinx spirituality and the artistry of multiplicity to demonstrate folkways of resilience, resistance, creativity, and healing, and raises the possibility of “a futurity of compassion and hope” (98). Rhonda R. Dass’s “Behaving like Relatives: Or, We Don’t Sit Around and Talk Politics with Strangers,” is a sublime work. It is composed in a manner that rhetorically situates the reader in the ethical and political conundrums she routinely faces in her conflicting existence as a folklore researcher and as an invested member of a Native (Anishinaabe) community. This contribution does so beautifully, as do many of the essays in Theorizing Folklore that transcend academic language not merely for aesthetic reasons, but also to embody and to demand respect for other ways of being and sharing knowledge. Cheikh Tidiane Lo’s “Political Protest, Ideology, and Social Criticism in Wolof Folk Poetry” is a model of critical folklore studies. On the one hand, it offers critique of traditional scholarly interpretations of African oral literature. On the other, drawing from critical theory and from extensive fieldwork, it reveals how certain neglected artistic expressions—here, the poetry and songs of Wolof laborers and fishermen—are themselves a rigorous expression of public (folk) criticism demanding social justice. In this way, it wholly demonstrates the advantages of moving folklore studies from analysis of the strictly aesthetic into the political realm.
Katherine Borland’s “Sugar Cane Alley: Teaching the Concept of ‘Group’ from a Critical Folkloristics Perspective” follows, and it too delivers on a promise to move folklore studies from the aesthetic to the ethical-political. This essay details her pedagogical use of the titular 1983 film (itself based on Joseph Zobel’s 1950 novel La Rue Cases-Nègres) for predominantly white audiences. It makes a powerful case for a rethinking the very act of representation in folklore studies and concurrent problematic manifestations in the conceptualizations of groups and the folk, in order to decolonize the discipline and to promote an activist emphasis on intersectionality. Itzel Garcia’s inventive “movimiento armado / armed movement” closes this section. A haunting performative autoethnographic piece concerning distressing experiences at the US border with Mexico and unbroken—yet damaged—familial ties, it further illustrates concrete benefits of moving far beyond conventional academic structures as a means to dismantle and heal the wounds of colonialism. With apologies for my idiosyncratic reading, her heartening description of birthing butterflies conjured for me Nietzsche’s comment that given the way scholarship, art, and philosophy were growing in him, he would give birth to centaurs. I mean that comparison only as the highest form of respect, a recognition of the importance to bring to light such works that defy traditional—and staid—structure and analysis. Our world is lacking in butterflies, and that it is why it is dying. This essay gives hope they may return.
The third section, Visualizing the Present, presents four essays that further a path towards a more enriching presentation of knowledge, equally committed to anticolonial ethics. Mabel Cuesta’s “Ni lacras, ni lesbianas normalizadas: Trauma, matrimonio, conectividad y representación audiovisual para la comunidad lesbiana en Cuba” is, as the title suggests, a remarkable testimony to contemporary and historical LGBTQI+ (and specifically lesbian) communities in Cuba as they found ways to survive and even thrive under Castro’s regime. Composed almost entirely in Spanish, this essay entails gut-wrenching interviews with women who were interrogated and imprisoned during the 1970s and 1980s, and it details the complicated social role of pro-tolerance organizations such as CENESEX. It further celebrates everyday acts of resistance that have supported lesbian communities, including the activist hip hop group Krudas Cubensi. Gloria M. Colom Braña’s “‘¿Batata? ¡Batata!’: Examining Puerto Rican Visual Folk Expression in Times of Adversity” is an innovative visual essay, comprised of ten paintings (with explanations) by the author that illustrate contemporary folk expressions in the aftermath of natural and political turmoil on the island. All of them—and taken together, they form an inspiring sum greater than their equally inspiring parts—disrupt norms of academic writing that serve colonial categorization and show—literally—how vernacular expressions may challenge dominant structures of power.
Martin A. Tsang’s “Forming Strands and Ties in the Knotted Atlantic: Methodologies of Color and Practice of Beadwork in Lucumí Religion” comes next. It may appear to be a return to traditional academic style insofar as it adheres to a familiar shape of an article, but in its content, it far exceeds mere reporting and evaluating. Focused on the practice of beading—and especially of the role of beading in Afro-Cuban rituals honoring orishas and complementary Afro-Chinese artistry—this essay attends to spiritual dimensions frequently treated in folklore studies as adornments and artifacts. Instead, it asks readers to understand beads as, in the author’s eloquent words, “portable storage devices for memory” that convey information “about local and global flows of people” (221). Finally, Alexander Fernández’s “Of Blithe Spirits: Narratives of Rebellion, Violence, and Cosmic Memory in Haitian Vodou” does rely upon conventional fieldwork and academic writing, but in an ingenious manner. He interviews “lwa in the heads of Vodou priests in possession” (239)—that is, he conducts interviews with the spirits who manifest during a possession ritual. The two in question, Erzulie Dantor and Ogou Feray, are the same lwa who took possession of Dutty Boukman and Cécile Fatiman at Bois Caïman in 1791, instigating the slave revolt and with it the Haitian Revolution. A single misstep could have turned that decision into a parodic novelty, but the essay is impeccable, and speaks to the profound relationship between violence and memory.
The fourth section, Placing Community, also contains four essays. It commences with Martínez-Rivera’s “‘No One Would Believe Us’: An Autoethnography of Conducting Fieldwork in a Conflict Zone.” This essay is another exceptional contribution that everyone in folklore studies—from introductory classes onward—should read and reread often. At once harrowing and hopeful in recalling the author’s fieldwork in Angahuan in the state of Michoacán, Mexico, and with an equally noteworthy accompanying poem by Maria Hamilton Abegunde, this essay demands attention to and redress of the lack of support for folklorists in conflict zones, and especially for women and LGBTQI+ researchers. Xóchitl Chávez’s “‘La Sierra Juárez en Riverside’: The Inaugural Oaxacan Philharmonic Bands Audition on a University Campus” amplifies an enduring sense of optimism (always tempered by the stark reality of the colonial past) for a just community that animates the entire collection. This essay attests to the positive transformations which occur through collaborations that acknowledge those who have historically been marginalized, in this case Mexican immigrants (including and especially women), as enacted through folk musical performances brought to a new stage and public arena in California.
Cory W. Thorne’s “Hidden Thoughts and Exposed Bodies: Art, Everyday Life, and Queering Cuban Masculinities” accomplishes a considerable number of goals. In many ways, it is a perfect complement to Cuesta’s work, as both examine the rapidly evolving status of LGBTQI+ rights and representation in Cuba. Additionally, this essay addresses the intersection (and historical division) between marked and mundane experience, artistic and so-called everyday life, which still lingers in folklore studies. And it offers a fine critique, both of hyper-masculinity and of any queer theory beholden only to its conceptualization in the Global North. Phyllis M. May-Machunda’s “Complexifying Identity through Disability: Critical Folkloristic Perspectives on Being a Parent and Experiencing Illness and Disability through My Child” ends the collection. Akin to its siblings, this is an aptly placed essay and an exemplary representative of this illuminating volume. It weaves a personal narrative of tremendous vulnerability and pathos, for which the reader leaves grateful to have witnessed such honesty and justifiable anger at the social conditions undergirding ableism. And it is, furthermore, a resounding call for folklore studies—and especially critical folklore studies—to live up to its potential of studying and advocating for the marginalized and to bring “respectful visibility to underrecognized cultures” (326).
In concluding this review, I should remark—with vexing trepidation—that although I am certain in fifty years Theorizing Folklore will stand among the most important contributions to the discipline, I am not certain that the United States will survive as a republic until then. As I wrote at the outset, we are at a precarious moment. The experiment of pluralistic democracy is under threat here and across the globe. The year between the publication of this collection and the composition of this review has seen an alacritous rise of patriarchal, misogynistic, homophobic, white supremacy lurching towards fascism. What one reads always matters, of course, but it is especially poignant what one reads at this time. Everyone should read this collection. To adapt Foucault’s apt praise for Anti-Oedipus, Theorizing Folklore from the Margins, as a book of ethics,is “another guide to the non-fascist life.”
There is one error in its pages, to which I must call attention. Early in the introduction, Martínez-Rivera laments the mistreatment of folklorists of color. “And while our work is not considered mainstream, and we remain in the margins of the discipline,” she contends, “we have benefitted from the trans-disciplinary exchange of ideas that germinate only in the most unexpected places” (5). It is the use of the present tense in the first half of that sentence that is incorrect. In the wake of Theorizing Folklore from the Margins, it should be in the past tense: was not considered mainstream, and were once in the margins of the discipline. Thanks to the outstanding efforts of Martínez-Rivera, Otero, all the contributors to this volume, and all their intellectual ancestors, the critical turn in folklore studies has arrived. We should all be grateful.
Works Cited
Cantú, Norma, and Olga Nájera-Ramírez, editors. 2002. Chicana Traditions: Continuity and Change. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Prahlad, Anand. 2021. “Tearing Down Monuments: Missed Opportunities, Silences, and Absences—A Radical Look at Race in American Folklore Studies.” Journal of American Folklore 134: 258-264.
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[Review length: 2857 words • Review posted on November 19, 2022]