Future Research Opportunities

There are many figures and content areas in need of further research that could contribute to deepening and diversifying the stories and perspectives representing BIPOC communities in the U.S.

• There is more scholarship to explore by ancestor scholars in East, South, and West Asian American, and Central and South American immigrant communities in the U.S.
• We need greater knowledge about the research and epistemologies of Indigenous ancestor scholars across the continent.
• We have barely explored histories and traditions of labor and occupation as well as the material culture of BIPOC communities.
• We know too little about expressions of gender and sexual identities in ancestral BIPOC communities. 
• We need more knowledge about BIPOC experiences of disability.
• To better understand religious and spiritual traditions and epistemologies outside of practices of mainstream Christianity, we should consider how BIPOC scholars have researched and interpreted ritual and vernacular material culture as well as the ways religious and spiritual traditions have been used for healing, resilience, and resistance.
• Furthermore, the ancestors featured in this exhibit may also lead us towards other scholars about whom we know too little or nothing at all—those people whose names we may not know, despite the fact that we have access to some of their research.
• Finally, since our communities live transnationally, we also need to continue to highlight the contributions of international scholar ancestors of color in folklore studies.