CFP: JFE: On Shifting Ground: Migration, Disruption, and the Changing Contours of Home

The Journal of Folklore and Education is soliciting submissions for Vol. 11 (2024), “On Shifting Ground: Migration, Disruption, and the Changing Contours of Home.” The guest editors for the issue are Michelle Banks and Sojin Kim. Submissions due March 15, 2024.

We live and produce our senses of community and place on shifting ground. Folklore and other traditional practices offer tools, strategies, and resources for both responding to and catalyzing change. Whether adapting traditional expressive behavior to meet new exigencies during and after migration or asserting them to challenge the status quo, people productively leverage the durability and dynamic nature of culture to strengthen community life through changes of many sorts—whether political, social, environmental, or cultural. The 2024 Journal of Folklore and Education seeks submissions that explore “disruption” and “migration” in relation to the process of reimagining home and tradition. Editors are interested in contributions that situate creativity and cultural production in moments and landscapes of flux and transformation, and how those affected by these forces forge strategies that disrupt established paradigms. Thus, topics such as identity, inclusion and exclusion, memory, transformation, and community also inform this issue.

Editors are interested in contributions that address, for example:

• People’s experiences during and in response to migrations and/or displacements of different sorts (domestic, international, rural-urban, voluntary and forced, in response to climate, for economic reasons, etc.)
• Cultural realignment (coalition building, mutual aid, rethinking/rebuilding communities);
• Stories or examples of how people disrupt narratives of harm and pathology related to migration with cultural production that represents resilience, agency, transformation, generative practices
• Praxis—the work we do—examples of how the work of educators, folklorists, or culture bearers/artists directly intervene in or disrupt conventions, persistent issues, or chronic conditions

Editors seek submissions that present case studies, programs, lessons, and research on the significance of arts that are based in community cultural life for the following audiences:

• Educators in diverse settings with student populations that are changing because of migration, immigration, and gentrification and others, such as social service providers, who work in communities affected by these processes
• Curators and program managers at museums, community centers, and cultural institutions addressing issues of representation and access in content creation and program development
• Administrators addressing the need for tools that reflect the diversity of their students that may be used in teacher preparation and professional development
• Students and community members who want to see their cultural knowledge valued in educational practices, curricula, and policy

Publication Scheduled for Fall 2024. Sign up here for updates.
Submit an Article or Inquiry to info@jfepublications.org.

About the Guest Editors
Michelle Banks is a cultural worker from Washington, DC, and was co-curator for the 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival program Creative Encounters: Living Religions in the U.S. She takes a transdisciplinary approach to work that explores the intersections of language, culture, and sustainability.

Sojin Kim is a curator at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, where she works on projects focusing on migration, music, and public history. She was co-curator of the following Smithsonian Folklife Festival programs: D.C.: The Social Power of Music (2019), On the Move: Migration Across Generations (2017), Sounds of California (2016), and China: Tradition and the Art of Living (2014).

We are grateful for our Advisory Committee for their input on this special issue:

Sarah Craycraft, Head Tutor and Lecturer of Harvard’s Folklore and Mythology Program
Quetzal Flores, Alliance for California Traditional Arts
Jean Tokuda Irwin, Utah Division of Arts & Museums and Local Learning Board
Fariha Khan, University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Folklore Project
Brandie MacDonald, Executive Director, Indiana University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Hector Morales, Percussionist and Teaching Artist
Queen Nur, Independent Folklorist, Storyteller, and Teaching Artist
Maida Owens, Bayou Culture Collaborative and Louisiana Folklife Program Director
Lamont Jack Pearley, editor of the African American Folklorist and WKU Folklore graduate student
Nelda Ruiz, Southwest Folklife Alliance
Kate Schramm, Connecticut Museum of Culture and History