Wednesday, October 11, 3:30 pm–5:30 pm
session will be recorded and available for later viewing online
Chair: Kate Schramm (Connecticut Museum of Culture and History)
Forum participants:
Elena Calderon Patino (Rhode Island State Council on the Arts)
Mike Keo (Hartford Foundation for Public Giving)
Philitha Anna Stemplys-Cowdrey (Connecticut Museum of Culture and History)
What is the role of institutions doing public-facing work and how do we do it together with community members? As Phyllis May Machunda asks, “What does an inclusive and equitable critical antiracist and decolonized folklore praxis look like?” (May-Machunda 2022: 43). As members of institutions, many of us are engaged in the process of expansively looking backward to include voices who were not historically recognized by places with institutional power for a variety of reasons. These voices include first-person sources as well as “ancestor scholars” working within their own marginalized and/or racialized communities (Ibid: 25). We are also reckoning with other ancestral legacies, such as those that have shaped institutional, political, and intellectual structures through classist, racist, settler-colonialist ideas. At the same time, institutions are trying to make connections with members of diverse communities, audiences, and partners. While long-term research is necessary in understanding a community's broader story, it may not address the ways people may be experiencing immediate issues like racism, intergenerational gaps, or health disparities–and partnerships with institutional entities can do real work to help people create the kind of world they want to live in right now, building the future out of the past. In this forum discussion, we will bring together representatives from our partner organizations and communities to share different programs that rely on participation and collaboration. We will discuss the different forms that our partnerships take and the challenges we face, along with issues of belonging, accountability, visibility, relationships, and power.