Sadhana Naithani’s compact volume on folklore in the colonial situation is a very useful and interesting addition to the scholarship of folklore. Her goal in writing this book is less to study the folklore of former colonies of Britain, and more to study the processes that shaped those collections and the examinations of them. In this goal, Naithani is quite successful. By reviewing the text collections of early British folklorists doing work in the various arms of the empire, she delves into what a present-day reader can understand about how the folkloristic work was done.
The structure of the book that Naithani chooses is interesting in and of itself, with chapters arranged not in chronological, geographic, or genre order. The chapters have titles such as “Fields,” “Motives,” “Method,” and “Theory,” making clear from the beginning that she is not talking in this volume about folklore texts. Several points within her discussion drive this point home, including the beginning of chapter 2, “Motives,” which focuses attention on the processes of collecting folklore that several specific British colonial folklorists used (12-18). This focus demonstrates that Naithani wants the reader to pay attention to the context of the folkloristics, not to the context of the folklore. Later in the text, she directs the reader to explore the academic milieu within which the work of the British folklorists was being presented, received, and interpreted (100 ff.). The folkloristic work being done by these scholars in the colonies of Britain was superficially similar to folklore throughout Europe, but there were important differences. This text’s reflecting on the unique nature of the colonial situation allows valuable insights: “Colonial folkloristics is a global theory of disjunctions. It completely negates Herder’s notion of folklore as the unity of language, spirit, and nation. Its point of departure is a historical series of experiences of disjunction” (128).
Naithani’s exploration of colonial folklore research is prefaced with a few assumptions that she proceeds to question throughout her text. By examining these assumptions, her text brings to light some issues in early folklore scholarship that are too often left unexamined, issues that can pervade analyses even today. It is well documented that folklore as a discipline is rooted originally in a European process of national identity creation and negotiation. The author questions the notion of “nation” as a concept in the colonial situation, which is by definition a transnational process. While this seems a simple assumption, the book demonstrates how such an underlying assumption can shape the interactions with folk and folklore, changing the possibilities of interpretation and analysis. Her discussion of orality (3) digs into the relationship between early anthropology and early folklore, stating that anthropology’s willingness to explore its role in light of post-colonial theory is not reflected in folkloristics. Naithani’s text is in part a reaction to this issue, an attempt to focus the lens of post-colonial theory on folklore research. Her critique extends to some of the basic constructs of folklore work, including problematizing the notion of “collection” of the folkloric text (11). While such critiques have been made elsewhere (e.g., Pratt 1992; Harris-Lopez 2003), Naithani’s analysis of collection in a specifically British colonial context usefully sharpens the critique, highlighting potential problems by concrete example: “We noted earlier that the image of the folklore collector was that of a folkloristic hero and his successful adventures. This is an aspect often not highlighted in the writings, but clearly articulated in some of the texts wherein the writers consciously wrote it as a story” (53-54). Naithani’s volume shows us that colonial folkloristics often tells us as much about the folklorist as it does about the folk or the lore.
This discussion is built on an application of present-day folklore theory and practice to the methods and ideas of the British colonial period. The author acknowledges that she is back-applying these standards to both methodology (44-45) and theory (77). This book is not meant as an indictment of old scholarship. Rather, it seeks to examine that old scholarship with a new understanding, in order to learn more, and more fully, from the folklore of the British colonial period. Thus, the arguments of the book do not in the main seem to be an unfair accusation of the past through current ideals. The only part of the text where this back-application seems a little out of sorts is in the fourth chapter, titled “Theory.” The use of deep, systematic cultural theory is a much later phenomenon in British folklore scholarship, compared to work done in North America, Asia, and other parts of Europe, so the critique feels a bit anachronistic in this instance. On the whole, though, Naithani’s examination of past scholarship is a valid and valuable lens with which to understand the folkloric processes of the British Empire.
The Story-Time of the British Empire is a very useful and engaging text for anyone interested in post-colonial theory or the exploration of the contexts of folkloristic research and process. Its theoretical focus makes it more appropriate for classrooms with a particular theoretical bent, or for research that is more conceptual and abstract, rather than as a text in an introductory teaching or general research situation. However, in those more theoretical contexts, this book has much to offer. I did have two minor quibbles with the text. First, there are a few places where writing conventions seemed slightly odd, such as the capitalization of the entire word “METHOD” in certain places in chapter 3. The other issue with the text was simply its length. At 128 pages of text, I felt that the analyses in the chapters had room to grow and develop a bit more. To be fair, though, if a reader’s main complaint is that they want more from the book, that is probably a good sign. In this case, it is. While there are depths unplumbed, Sadhana Naithani’s book is a valuable addition to the literature on folklore, colonialism, and the reflexive examination of scholarship.
WORKS CITED
Harris-Lopez, Trudier. 2003. “Genre.” In Eight Words for the Study of Expressive Culture, edited by Burt Feintuch. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Pratt, Mary Louise. 1992. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge.
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[Review length: 1035 words • Review posted on December 7, 2011]