Tina Paphitis (University of Oslo)
With a certain deficit in academic institutional folkloristics in the UK, and some resistance to folklore in certain heritage sectors, formal training and employment in the discipline can be limited and dispiriting, but can also inspire some creative ‘ways of being’ a folklorist. This paper is a short reflection of the difficulties of doing folklore work without being institutionally rooted – except in one’s (self-)attachment to the Folklore Society. I will interrogate my own entanglements with the Society, the discipline, and with other folklorists, to understand the precarity and potentialities of folklore and folkloristics in a world of constant uprooting.
Part of 07-10 (Up)Roots and Leaves: The UK Folklore Society and Folkloristics in Britain, Saturday, November 04, 8:30 am–10:00 am