CFP: Cultural Frameworks for Transformative Documenting and Learning

The 2025 Journal of Folklore and Education seeks submissions that amplify and demonstrate the power and the promise of multimodal storytelling to educate. Developing and analyzing the findings of ethnographic documentation also involves creation of transmedia products, from podcasts to poetry, comics to videos. Ethnography provides opportunities for engaging culturally responsive pedagogy and diverse texts that reflect multiple perspectives. Examining community narratives and cultural practices in the classroom and beyond prompts students and audiences to explore the concept of cultural identity, both their own and that of others, in ways that are immediate and nuanced, and contest common misconceptions. The products of media production from the past century can also be found in archives around the world.

About the Guest Editors

A public folklorist and ethnomusicologist by training, Naomi Sturm-Wijesinghe is the founding Executive Director of Los Herederos, a media arts nonprofit dedicated to inheriting culture in the digital age. She is also the Creative Traditions Program Director for City Lore and an adjunct professor at the New School. Her practice centers around interdisciplinary ethnography and working collaboratively in communities to encourage meaningful social transformation through the folk and traditional arts. It is her deeply held belief that local knowledge both sustains communities and advances the quality of everyday life. Her public folklore work, media publications, and writing deal extensively with issues of ethnic identity, political economy and cultural sustainability, transmedia storytelling and documentation, and exploring new models for holistic economic development through folklife-centered cultural tourism. Naomi holds an MA in Ethnomusicology from Columbia University and a BA from Bowdoin College. She sits on the Board of the Mencius Society and currently serves as the co-chair of the Cultural Diversity Committee and on the Nominating Committee of the American Folklore Society.

Born in Bogota, Colombia, Mauricio Bayona has lived in Queens, NY, since 1999. His work as a videographer, editor, art director and producer are both informed and inspired by his immigrant experience of more than two decades. He is known for his work documenting New York City’s immigrant communities and their contributions to individual neighborhoods’ collective consciousness/social history. He has worked with the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, the World Music Institute, Cabrini Immigrant Services of NY, and Make the Road NY to build their digital archives around local musical activity and dissemination in migrant communities. As the Los Herederos’ founding Artistic Director, Mauricio oversees the organization’s media projects and overall creative direction. He also runs a small production house called 32A.

Submit an Article or Inquiry to info@jfepublications.org.
Full Articles due April 1, 2025