Salons 1: Mutual Engagement, Co-creation, and Yielding Authority for Representation: Strategies and Practices

Public folklore practice increasingly emphasizes enabling communities to shape and determine the direction of a project from inception through implementation. The “Mutual Engagement, Co-creation, and Yielding Authority for Representation: Strategies and Practices” salons, organized by the Fellows of the American Folklore Society, explored how folklorists are sharing and yielding authority with community members, with an overarching objective of decentralizing power structures. They stressed the importance of recognizing that communities are not monolithic, containing differential perspectives, conflicting agendas, and internal hierarchies. Participants called for equity in planning and payment for project partners. They spoke about the role that folklorists can play in establishing networks among various stakeholders. Discussions embodied realistic understanding of the constraints of the institutions where folklorists work, while considering strategies for productively overcoming these limitations.