Folklore and the Nation

The annual conference of The Folklore Society
Friday 29–Sunday 31 March 2019
University of Derby
United Kingdom

Call for papers—first deadline Sunday 9 December, 2018
The nation surges with newfound rhetorical power. The last 25 years have seen parliamentary devolution, the Scottish independence referendum and the proposed withdrawal from the European Union, all within the UK alone. Yet this is a global drive, manifesting also in diaspora (St Patrick’s Day is now a global celebration) and the everyday, local acts that constitute our reality. In England, for example, it is no longer remarkable to see the St George’s Cross flying outside suburban houses. We are living through a popular move towards national ideologies.

This conference asks how, why and when folklore has been deployed in the context of national ideologies and ideas of nationhood. For some, the lore of the nation has been an instrument to build consensus; for others, a means of excluding. Signs of cultural identity have served to both unite and divide separate polities, whilst diasporas live within two nations at once, the state of residence and the (sometimes imagined) homeland. The conference accommodates the use of folklore in exclusionary and disciplinary deployments of nationalism, whilst remaining open to flexible definitions of nationalism, in the form of solidarity, ethnicity, diaspora and nations within nations.

Of course, folklore has always been connected with the discourse and development of the nation, as demonstrated by collections such as Timothy Baycroft and David Hopkin’s (2012) Folklore and nationalism in Europe during the long nineteenth century. Whilst the folk were considered cultural survivals, of low status in the ranks of civilization, folklore was symbolically important to many national struggles. Ambiguous feelings about tradition—whether it was the authentic voice of the people or a quaint echo of the primitive—drove the historical development of nationalism just as it contributed to the development of the academic discipline of Folklore. Custom, legend and tradition played their part in progressive, Romantic nationalism, as much as they did in promoting the nationalism of totalitarian states. What, then, is traditional about the place of folklore in nationalism, and nationalism in folklore?

This conference welcomes perspectives from Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Ethnology, Ethnomusicology, History, Literary Studies, Sociology and other disciplines. We welcome contemporary and historical understandings of the many connections between folklore and the nation. Contributions might look at the local and the national, links and similarities between nations and the role of gender and sexualities. We are, of course, interested in traditional forms such storytelling, folk song, dance and costume, amongst others. We hope to explore, but are not limited to:

• Literary and artistic uses of folklore in relation to national ideologies.
• Relations between ethnicity, nationalism and folklore.
• Folk heroes.
• The use of folklore against the nation.
• The heritage industry and its relationship to nationalism and folklore.
• The mobilisation and reception of folkloric motifs, items and folkloristics itself, by extremists, both historical and contemporary.
• Disciplinary questions of resistance. How can, or should we, as folklorists, respond to its uses in such contexts?
• Vernacular ideologies of myth and narrative in national popular culture.
• The relationship between nationalism, folklore and media, including the role of the internet and social media.
• The relationship between folklore, Gramscian ‘common sense’ and hierarchies of knowledge in relation to nationalism.
• Folklore and Brexit.
• Folklore, asylum and immigration.
• The relationship of folkloristics to nationalism and the nation. 

The conference is kindly hosted by the University of Derby at its One Friar Square campus in the centre of the city. There will be a tour of Derby and opportunity to visit the Peak District.

On the Friday evening, at 11pm, the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union. Whether or not this happens, we invite traditional and creative practitioners to contribute responses to the themes of the conference. In the evening, we will hear them in a public house as last orders approaches. 

The first deadline for papers is Sunday 9 December, 2018. Proposals of 100–150 words, for presentations of 20 minutes, should be emailed to: thefolkloresociety@gmail.com and copied to enquiries@folklore-society.com. Please include a brief biographical note, including contact details.

Both members and non-members of The Folklore Society are warmly encouraged to offer papers at this conference.

Giving tribute to lacemakers – notes from International Bobbin Lacemaking Festival in Bobowa, Southern Poland

The beginning of October is a festive time for the lacemaking community of Bobowa in Southern Poland. Since 2000, delegates from European countries have been participating in the International Bobbin Lacemaking Festival organized by the local community. The event’s role is to celebrate lacemaking heritage. The festival exposes the diversity of patterns and skills, whilst for the Bobowa’s community is a distinctive moment of being recognized nationally and internationally linking lacemaking traditions through historical times and across geographical regions.

Czech stall with motifs from fashion show 'Dream of the Sea' by Prague lacemakers. Photo by Beatra Jarema. 

Lacemaking, historically, was considered as a manual skilled job, linked with a cottage industry, and referring to the social class of workers: artisans, who were from rural areas working in a particular place as a collective, linked by the kinship bounds and belonging to particular region, with the generational transfer of labour skills and tools. This constructed tradition of labour in the region can be situated in the broader term of regional ‘heritage,’ where work obtained a particular timeless value, because of the persistence of labour forms, tools and materials, techniques and particular skills; due to their continuing work, women, who immersed lacemaking into their collective and individual biographies, allowed for the natural transfer of the skills into their environment. The festival is a result of historical processes commemorating women’s work, preserving regional heritage constructed by women’s labour and linking local craftswomen with other lacemaking communities.

Jadwiga Wegorek from Cracow, Poland, with her award winning lace with at the Bobowa festival.  Photo by Beatra Jarema.

The 17^th International Bobbin Lacemaking Festival was held on the 6th - 9^th October, Poland, gathering 19 groups from 14 countries: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, England, Estonia, France, Holland, Hungary, Russia, Slovakia, which represented their laces and lacemaking skills on the stalls. The Programme included lacemaking fashion shows by Czech and Polish designers, lacemaking workshops for beginners, exhibition by Prague lacemakers Iva Proškova and Jitka Egermaierova von Lindern, and a lecture on laces in fine arts by textiles curator, Joanna Sielska. All events were underpinned by contemporary folk music from local bands, which emphasized the rural character of Bobowa’s town and rural origins of Bobowa’s lacemaking industry in the region. A few years ago the village of Bobowa became a small town with great ambition to be a centre for Uplands craft culture, meanwhile renovating its Post-Socialist landscape, providing modern investments and preserving local multicultural heritage expressed by architectural forms: mansion houses, churches and a synagogue. The festival is a great occasion for visitors to learn about the Uplands past and present, whilst also to understand the status of contemporary bobbin lace in the broader international context. Symbolic value of women’s work expressed by a monument of the lacemaker situated in Bobowa’s Main Square could also be studied in relation to the works awarded during the National Lacemaking Contest where Slavonic, Czech and Free Style laces demonstrated both dialogue with tradition and transformations of skills into modern forms.  

Examples of lace from the UK at the Bobowa festival Photo by Beatra Jarema. 

Great Britain’s lacemaking heritage was represented by lacemakers from Kent in England exhibiting originally designed or reconstructed laces in torchon, Bedfordshire lace and Buck point lace styles.

By Anna Sznajder

Images: Beata Jarema