IRFL40270 Identity and Ethnography

Academic Year 2023/2024

This module explores the symbolic communication of individual and group identity through cultural expression as an integral part of everyday life. From observation to participation in a given folk group, students will orient themselves to the reflexive processes of fieldwork. In so doing, they will hone their skills in the practical methodologies of ethnographic documentation through auto-ethnographic lenses. At the crossroads of gender, ethnicity, language, race, religion, age, social class and orientation, special emphasis will be given to intersectional frameworks for the performance, transmission, participation and interpretation of various forms of vernacular expression as dynamic components in the formation of identity. In navigating the pathways of our disciplines’ shifting and emergent paradigms and applications, our module discussions will traverse the boundaries of enchantment and disenchantment in tales of persecuted heroines as mirroring of lived intergenerational conflicts, create and challenge democratic inventories of intangible cultural heritage at the meeting point of the nation-state and its minoritized communities, and map folk responses to the complex digital landscapes alongside fragile human ecologies of the anthropocene. When taken together, this module will inspire students to fully immerse themselves in the ethnographic process by engaging and listening to others’ voices in concert with our own, producing more nuanced, inclusive and equitable research frameworks in the fields of folklore and ethnology.