Meeting the very friendly giant: being an international participant at the American Folklore Society Conference, 2014.
Jeanette Mollenhauer
When I first enrolled in doctoral studies at the beginning of 2013, I was given numerous pieces of advice from those who had travelled this road before me. One of those comments was this: “make as many useful contacts as you can”. To that end, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend two international conferences in 2014, the second of which was the American Folklore Society (AFS) Conference, with the assistance of their International Travel Stipend.
The AFS has a number of annual grants, designed to assist as many scholars as possible to attend a conference. The International Travel Stipend varies in the monetary amount provided, depending on the beneficence of AFS donors, but I was fortunate enough to apply in a year of fiscal abundance. A recipient must reside and study outside of the United States, and the application process involves outlining one’s area of research, how attendance at the conference will benefit that research, and how one will disseminate information gained at the conference upon returning home. For me, studying in the field of ethnochoreology, I sought to make contact with other dance researchers, and I undertook to present a report on the conference both at the Australian Folklore Network Conference in Canberra, April 2015, and in a written article (ie, this one) for Australian Folklore.
The 2014 conference was held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in early November. Santa Fe, and indeed, much of the state of New Mexico, has been influenced by Native American, Spanish and Anglo-Celtic residents. Thus, the theme of the conference was “Crossroads”, reflecting the multifarious networks existing within the local population. My research area of traditional dance practices in a post-immigration environment fitted this theme well, and my paper proposal was accepted for presentation.
The town of Santa Fe is not large; the population is around 82, 000 people[i]. The town is serviced by a small airport which can allow planes carrying around 50 people to land; otherwise, more flights go to the larger airport at Albuquerque, an hour’s drive by the airport shuttle. The town’s elevation is over 2000 metres which, while not really placing anyone at risk of altitude sickness, means that staying hydrated is essential, and the local organising committee ensured that all delegates were aware of this need. All of the buildings in the town centre have been constructed in the adobe style of the Native American population. The hotel in which the international stipend recipients were accommodated was also owned and staffed by Native American persons, so we were able to experience their style and hospitality.[ii]
The day before paper presentations got underway, two pre-conference excursions had been organised. I was too late to book a seat on the “High Road” tour, but still chose to book for the “Fibre Arts Tour”, which took us to a number of weaving mills and fabric centres so we could see the Native American patterns and techniques. We enjoyed a spicy lunch at a popular local restaurant and of course this was a means of meeting fellow delegates in an informal setting, prior to commencement of the conference itself.
The Conference
The same evening, after the tours had finished, the official opening session was held, which was, for the most part, ceremonial in nature. The following morning I was up early to attend a “first time attendees” breakfast, to which all newcomers were invited. Members of the AFS Board actively took it upon themselves to engage us all in conversation. One Board member, who had, some years earlier, spent time in Melbourne, was very excited to find me: someone with whom he was able to discuss cricket, a game with which he’d become enamoured during his time in Australia[iii]. We were also given advice about choosing which sessions to attend, and the acceptability of the pastime of “panel-hopping” was explained.[iv] I had already perused the program in its online format, and made some preliminary choices about which sessions to attend, based on a list of priorities: a) what would be of direct benefit to my research, b) what was of general interest to me and c) what would provide a cross-section for presentation following my return to Australia. I will briefly outline some of the papers I heard, using this system of prioritisation.
There was only one dance-specific session, in which I presented my own paper, and unfortunately this was at 8am on the final day so attendance at this session (and, I later discovered, at all the sessions in this timeslot) was quite poor. The other presenters spoke about a group called the Green Grass Cloggers and Bulgarian Recreational Folk Dancing in the USA. However, I noticed there were multiple sessions entitled “Migrations and Adaptations”, and there were several dance papers tucked away in these sessions. One concerned the importation of the “Crossed Scissors” dance when the Danzaq people migrated from Peru to the USA, and how this dance had some changes applied to it in a post-settlement context ( very relevant to my research!). Another dance paper was that presented by Carol Silverman[v] on the role of dance amongst the Romani community in New York, again highly relevant to my current project.
The sessions called “Migrations and Adaptations” illustrated the multifarious ways in which the processes of immigration and re-settlement may be approached by scholars. Some focussed on issues of space and place, such as for the Cherokee people across the USA. Another paper examined works of visual art produced by an immigrant from Haiti who now resides in North Carolina, and how the artist represents the Haitian community in its new context. One of my favourites was that of a folklorist employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who described her role in determining the “cultural competence” of the linguists employed by the FBI. These linguists are often assumed, by FBI agents, to be capable of imparting a deep level of cultural insight which may affect the agents’ dealings with victims, witnesses and perpetrators of crimes. The folklorist is involved in mediating between the linguists and the agents and developing a program to assist agents in dealing with people from an increasing number of cultural backgrounds in the course of their work. A final favourite was about the township of Walnut Grove, Minnesota, which bases its tourism industry on Laura Ingalls Wilder. However, the town has a large population of Hmong persons, who came there because they believed the values reflected in Wilder’s writing were congruent with their own. Now, when tourists watch a re-enactment of stories from Wilder’s books, they are just as likely to see Hmong actors as Anglo-Americans: a novel twist to the concept of the globalisation of American culture.
I chose to attend the session entitled “At the Crossroads of Folklore and Health: Character, Caricature, Characterization” since I have worked in social policy research, including some health-related projects, and was interested to hear such topics from a folklorist’s perspective. The papers covered topics such as internet representations of those who claim there are dangers in receiving the HPV vaccine, and narratives of African American women who suffer from diabetes. I was, most of all, interested in the paper called “Disability and Inclusion: Myths and Mascots”, which examined the trends to exoticise and sentimentalise persons with (in particular) Down syndrome. The choice of persons with disabilities to be Homecoming King or Queen has become a popular one in recent times in the USA, but Olivia Caldeira[vi] does not believe this does the person with a disability any real service, nor that the role and the attendant publicity reflect the reality of the person’s life.
Several sessions were chosen simply to provide a broad sample of the AFS smorgasbord. “Folk Narrative, TV and Gender” included papers comparing “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” with Little Red Riding Hood and looking at images of motherhood in the television series “Once Upon A Time”. The session about the folklore of work included a paper on applied folklore from Thomas McKean[vii] on two projects in Scotland in which older men who have skills in wooden boat building are passing on their skills to unemployed youths and some ex-prisoners, thus using traditional artistic practices to engage with disenfranchised members of the local populace.
Each time slot had up to twenty concurrent sessions, making it impossible for anyone to do more than skim the surface of this conference. I was, therefore, not able to attend sessions devoted to, for example, Mormon folklore, the Cold War, American barns, Animal Folklore, Tourism, Autobiographical Artifacts, Agriculture, Foodways, Cultural Sustainability, Poetry, Pottery or Building Networks for Social Justice or any of the multiple other topics on offer. Such is the nature of the friendly giant that is the AFS; no one could say there was not a broad range of topics covered at the conference.
Two of the invited speakers are worthy of attention here. The Presidential Invited Address was given by Simon Lichman from Israel, with the very long title “Prayer Carpets and Apricot Stones: How Folklore is used in ‘coexistence education’ between Israeli and Palestinian communities and its potential application to other multicultural settings and conflict situations.” The hall was packed and the audience captivated for a full ninety minutes as we heard about his school-based program. He goes to one school (eg Arabic) and over a period of weeks, asks the children to ask their parents/grandparents what games they played as children. The children then share what they’ve learned with each other. The program can also include song, dance and foodways. Then, he runs the same program in a Hebrew school. Finally, he organises a day when one group visits the other group’s school, and they teach each other their folkloric traditions. Often, parents and grandparents are involved with this day of sharing as well. In this way, he is developing inter-community understanding amongst children, which he hopes will bear fruit in the future as these children treat each other, hopefully, as friend rather than enemies. Upon finishing, Dr Lichman received a standing ovation from the entire audience who appreciated the potential benefits of this tremendously important applied folklore project being carried out in a sensitive and volatile environment.
Simon Bronner[viii] needs no introduction to folklore scholars, having been the author of many works in the field. He provided a review of most common keywords in AFS conference abstracts, first from 1989-2004, which are listed here:
• Feminism & Sexuality
• Performance & Communication
• Ethnography & Field Research
• Identity
• Tradition, Authenticity & Heritage
• Politics
• History
• Community
• Space & Place
• Artist/Performer/Life History
He then provided a list from 2013-2014 for comparison:
• Ethnography & Field Research
• Pop culture
• Performance
• Tradition & Heritage
• Space & Place
• Gender, Feminism & Sexuality
• Politics
• Documentation
• Sustainability
• Identity
While it is interesting to note the commonalities, that is, feminism and sexuality, ethnography and field research, identity, tradition authenticity and heritage, politics, space and place and performance, it is also worth noting the differences between the two lists. History, community and artist/performer/life history have slipped away, while pop culture, documentation and sustainability have appeared. While he did not dwell on reasons for these changing trends, Bronner did suggest that folklorists should seek to explain the phenomena they uncover through a psychological lens: to understand the human behaviour behind the folkloric practices. Perhaps someone in the Australian folklore academy, who has been in the field for much longer than I have, could do a similar study within the local context.
Conclusion
I described the AFS, in the title of this short paper, as a “friendly giant”. The organisation is a huge one by Australian standards, and the conference is a concentrated opportunity for scholarly interaction. Several hundred papers in three days, plus concerts, meetings and meals is a strain, but a worthwhile one. I derived great benefit from individual papers and from the deliberately fostered atmosphere of encouragement and camaraderie, for which the AFS is to be congratulated. As an Anglo-Australian, I relished the opportunity to be viewed, albeit for a few days, as an exotic and interesting “other” by delegates and by staff in the hotel and local shops, who are apparently fascinated by the Australian accent. I would wholeheartedly recommend attendance at an AFS Conference, at least once in a lifetime, to any Australian folklore scholar.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
[i] http://www.santafenm.gov
[ii] The Hotel Santa Fe Hacienda and Spa.
[iii] I am no expert about cricket, but he was just glad to find someone who knew anything about the game!
[iv] Over the three days, many delegates ran in and out of different sessions in order to hear papers of particular interest to them.
[v] University of Oregon. Carol has written an excellent book entitled “Romani Routes: Cultural Politics and Balkan Music in Diaspora”, a copy of which is in the National Library, Canberra.
[vi] Memorial University of Newfoundland
[vii] University of Aberdeen
[viii] Penn State Harrisburg
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