Recentering the Periphery, Coloring the Discourses, and Expanding the Frames

A Guide to the American Folklore Society Notable Folklorists of Color  Exhibitions and the Contributions of BIPOC Scholars to Folklore Studies

Phyllis M. May-Machunda, PhD Lead Curator

In order to reveal their contributions to folklore studies, our approach to this exhibition has been to center BIPOC ancestors—who have often worked within their own communities—as significant producers of scholarly knowledge about the communities and traditions they studied. By bringing these ancestors and their scholarly contributions from the peripheries to the center of folklore studies, we can begin to develop a more inclusive history of the eld from within and beyond academia. Each panel offers a short biography highlighting the ancestor’s contributions to folklore studies with a linked extensive bibliography of the ancestor’s scholarship. We believe that the examination of the research, praxes, methodologies, and perspectives of these scholars can broaden and strengthen folklore studies, moving it toward a more equitable, antiracist, and decolonial practice. To further these goals, this essay also highlights the contributions of several contemporary BIPOC scholars to demonstrate current extensions of some of the ancestral approaches. Our initiative seeks to intervene in the citational practices of our eld in order to awaken, reassess, and expand consideration of the diverse approaches, conceptions, interpretations, legacies, sources, and praxes that could be applied in folklore studies.