Theorizing Folklore from the Margins

Solimar Otero is Professor of Folklore in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University. She is author of Archives of Conjure: Stories of the Dead in Afrolatinx Cultures and of Afro-Cuban Diasporas in the Atlantic World. She is editor (with Toyin Falola) of Yemoja: Gender, Sexuality, and Creativity in the Latina/o and Afro-Atlantic Diasporas. Mintzi Auanda Martínez-Rivera is Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Providence College. She has published articles on the indigenous rock movement in Mexico, indigenous popular culture, and the use of food as decorations.

"Theorizing Folklore from the Margins is an innovative collection of essays that maps the future of Folklore studies. This volume is indeed an important, relevant, ground-breaking contribution to Folklore scholarship. The polyphony of voices that composes Theorizing Folklore from the Margins argues that it is necessary to study the ways in which the creators of folk culture utilize their cultural production and expressions that allow them to create safe spaces that eventually become spaces for liberation and understanding of elements such as race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, (dis)ability, and national identity."—Guillermo De Los Reyes, Editor of Gender, Sexuality, and Policy; and author of Getting the Third Degree: Fraternalism, Freemasonry, and History, University of Houston"Theorizing Folklore from the Margins actively resists monolithic notions attached to cultures and groups through a collection of powerful, multi-authored chapters and "proposes, invites, and offers alternative paths" in folklore studies. This stellar, thought-provoking volume reminds us authority rests with the voices of the people positioned at the margins and that the margins are alive con poder y cultura (with power and culture) and thriving because of it."—Wanda Addison, Professor, Department of Arts and Humanities, National University"Theorizing Folklore from the Margins is the book I have wanted since the moment I first learned folklore was a thing. Solimar Otero and Mintzi Martinez-Rivera have assembled a collection that does more than reposition BIPOC theorizing from the margins to the center; it demonstrates that our theory has always been central to a more historically aware, self-critical, and ethically grounded folklore project. Further, this book shows us that the contributions of marginalized communities to critical theoretical conversations are not new. This book, then, is a bridge between the past, present, and future of a renewed Folklore studies in which those once silenced voices demand and deserve a new audience."—David Todd Lawrence, coauthor of When They Blew the Levee: Race, Politics, and Community in Pinhook, Missouri, University of St. Thomas"This powerful collection of 16 critical essays takes aim at the myriad forms in whichhate, violence, othering, disenfranchisement, etc., manifest in social life as the resultof dominant power structures supported by the "legacies of white supremacy,homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, ableism, and other injustices and forms ofdiscrimination" (19). It is these power structures, among others, that have keptcertain individuals and communities at the margins. The "margins," as presented in thebook, vary by author and range from the physical (such as prisons) to the symbolic (asin the intersections between methodologies and ideas). . . . The result is an illuminating, moving, and reflexivity-inducing work that takes us into and through very different marginal worlds "among, and with, Mexican, Wolof, Native American, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Haitian, Martinican, Andean, North American, African Diaspora, and LGBTQI folk cultures and communities"(13)."—Julián Antonio Carrillo, University of New Mexico, Journal of Folklore and Education

• Part I: Critical PathsIntroduction: How does Folklore find its voice in the 21st century? An offering/invitation from the margins1. White Traditioning and Bruja Epistemologies: Rebuilding the House of USAmerican Folklore Studies2. Un Tumbe Ch'ixi: Incorporating Afro-descendant Ideas into an Andean Anti-Colonial Methodology3. Disrupting the ArchivePart II: Framing the Narrative4. Afrolatinx Folklore and Visual Representation: Interstices and Anti-Authenticity5. Behaving Like Relatives: Or we don't sit around and talk about politics with strangers6. Political Protest, Ideology, and Social Criticism in Wolof Folk Poetry7. Sugar Cane Alley: Teaching the Concept of "Group" from a Critical Folkloristics Perspective8. movimiento armado/armed movementPart III: Visualizing the Present9. Ni lacras, ni lesbianas normalizadas: Trauma, matrimonio, conectividad y representación audiovisual para la comunidad lesbiana en Cuba10. "¿Batata? ¡Batata!": Examining Puerto Rican Visual Folk Expression in Times of Adversities11. Forming Strands and Ties in the Knotted Atlantic: Methodologies of Color and Practice of Beadwork in Lukumí Religion12. Of Blithe Spirits: Narratives of Rebellion, Violence, and Cosmic Memory in Haitian VodouPart IV: Placing Community13. "No one would believe us": An Auto-Ethnography of Conducting Fieldwork in a Conflict14. "La Sierra Juárez en Riverside": The Inaugural Oaxacan Philharmonic Bands Audition on a university campus15. Hidden thoughts and exposed bodies: art, everyday life, and queering Cuban masculinities16. Complexifying Identity through Disability: Critical Folkloristic Perspectives on Being a Parent and Experiencing Illness & Disability through My ChildIndex