In Folklore Recycled, Frank de Caro looks at folklore as it most typically occurs in the contemporary world. He starts with the premise that folk traditions and oral folklore are routinely re-contextualized, resulting in contemporary relevance in non-traditional venues.
In his introduction, de Caro says that the book will deal with the essential “messiness” of folklore. By folklore’s messiness, he means the “porousness of the usual contexts in which folklore flourishes…such that folklore becomes transmuted or transported into other, non-folk contexts, artistic, intellectual, and otherwise” (3). This is something we recognize, of course, as the ongoing appropriation of folklore into and onto non-traditional contexts or usages, such as the incorporation of folklore into literature, mass media, politics, and so on. de Caro contends that the study of this recycled folklore is “nearly as important as the study of folklore’s prime contexts themselves” (4). As he points out, this is where people in the postmodern world are most likely to encounter folklore. This “lovely messiness” that results can bring equally important understandings and insights. He stresses the importance of understanding how folklore, out of its original context, is presented and perceived.
While de Caro acknowledges the term “folklorism” and its implications, he uses it sparingly in his study, noting some of the inconsistencies with the usage and meaning of the term. The introduction notes, in particular, the use of folklore outside a folk context in literature; folk festivals; applied folklore (e.g., use of folklore in medical training); nationalism, ideologies, and politics; revivals; commercial uses; and tourism. The subsequent chapters consider instances “in which this recycling process has taken place to provide a sort of background for further looking at the process itself” (26). The first chapter, “‘Authentic Local Culture’: The Open Textuality of a Folk Tradition,” considers Colson Whitehead’s novel John Henry Days as a study “of how folklore in America is viewed, exploited, recycled, transmitted, transformed, and made symbolic” (31). John Henry Days, a local festival in West Virginia, connects the place with a folk hero and promotes tourism. An earlier version of this chapter was published in The Folklore Historian in 2006.
Chapter 2, “‘In This Folklore Land’: Establishing Race, Class, and Identity Through Folklore Studies,” is co-authored with Rosan Jordan and updated from a 1996 Journal of American Folklore article. It considers the study of folklore in Louisiana in the 1890s and the 1930s, focusing on the importance of issues of identity and how recycled folklore could be used to establish and manipulate personal identity. Chapter 3, “‘Unrivaled Charms’: Folklore, Nonfiction, and Lafcadio Hearn,” deals with Hearn’s interest in folklore collecting in New Orleans and Martinique and considers “the roles folklore and folk culture play in defining a place for its inhabitants or visitors” (103). de Caro contends that Hearn used folklore in his nonfiction to, among other things, advance his personal agenda.
Chapter 4, “Photographing Folklife,” is a fascinating study of early photography to document folklife in Louisiana, and considers the variety of reasons—aesthetic, political, commercial, and others—for which it was used. This chapter draws on de Caro’s extensive work with the early documentary photography of folklife in Louisiana. He first considers the common unquestioning acceptance that photographic images reproduce reality, and the awareness of those seriously engaged in photography of the potential to “manipulate and transform the reality they record” (104). He focuses on the lessons apparent for folklorists that “photographic images are not mere stencillings of reality, but have been shaped by human decisions influenced by personal visions and social concerns” (105). The chapter looks at the ability of photography to recycle folklife and the various reasons for doing so. It focuses on how photographers working in Louisiana, such as Elmore Morgan and photographers hired by the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s, used folklife materials as subject matter. Photographing folklife addressed the need to create propaganda with images. During World War II, the Standard Oil project continued the photographing of folklife in Louisiana.
Chapter 5, “The Age of Fire and Gravel,” deals with Chariots of the Gods and other imaginative works that present occult knowledge and alternative history. de Caro considers how Erich von Däniken and others use folklore and mythology in their creative works. Chapter 6, “Americans and the Folk Arts in Mexico,” deals with how Americans in the 1920s and 1930s used Mexican folk arts to create connections with their new environment and its people. It also argues for the political use of folk arts by Americans such as Nelson Rockefeller and U. S. Ambassador Dwight Morrow.
In his brief conclusion, de Caro stresses the importance for folklorists “to look at folklore outside those ‘natural’ folk contexts” (190). Folklorists, he says, must look at folklore as it has been adapted and used in non-traditional contexts because this recycled or resituated folklore is what the great majority of people today are likely to encounter. He predicts that folk studies in the postmodern world should and will continue to engage with and embrace folklore that has been recycled and re-purposed. As always, readers have the benefit of Frank de Caro’s careful research as well as his clear and at times elegant writing. This book will certainly appeal to folklorists with an interest in Louisiana. It merits a much wider interest from folklorists in general concerned with the future of folklore studies in the twenty-first century.
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[Review length: 896 words • Review posted on March 4, 2015]