AFTA conducts regular fieldwork to document Arkansas traditions and tradition-bearers.  Fieldwork most often takes the form of oral history interviews, photographs, and other audio/video recordings depending on the circumstances and wishes of collaborators. Fieldwork may be used for programming and publications, but a “product” of fieldwork collected is not necessary. Contributing to and growing documentation of Arkansas folk and traditional arts is a goal in and of itself.

AFTA partners with organizations and individual collaborators to offer or support public programming centered on Arkansas folk and traditional arts. Public programs include lectures, workshops, exhibits, demonstrations, festivals, educational curriculum, and more. AFTA strives to ensure that programming is open to the general public and both physically and economically accessible.

Whether fieldwork or public programming, the heart of AFTA’s work is sustaining and supporting Arkansas tradition-bearers to ensure that Arkansas folk and traditional arts can thrive for communities across the state. AFTA aims to provide resources and programming that offer support, skills, and training for citizens involved in documenting or practicing Arkansas traditions.

Arkansas Folk and Traditional Arts belongs to a network of public folklore programs across the United States, though public folklore programs may be housed in various organizations and agencies, from arts council and humanities councils to nonprofits and universities.

From the American Folklore Society’s Public Folklore Section:

“‘Public folklorists’ work primarily in government or non-profit arts, cultural, or educational organizations, such as arts councils, historical societies, libraries, museums, or organizations devoted specifically to folk arts or folklore. Public folklorists are engaged in a variety of activities, including (but not limited to) field research and documentary work, and the production of public programs or educational materials, such as performances, artists’ residencies, exhibitions, festivals, sound recordings, radio and television programs, films, videos, and books.

This mix of occupational home base and audiences has characterized the Society’s membership from the start. In 1888, the Society’s founding group included writers (Mark Twain was one of our founders), private men and women of learning, and museum professionals, as well as university-based scholars. But since 1970, “public folklore” has grown and developed very rapidly in the United States. At the time of this writing, about half of the American Folklore Society’s members identify themselves as public folklorists. However, it is important to remember that many folklorists work (or have worked) both in universities and in public folklore, and the two parts of the field are intimately connected. Universities, for example, are where most folklorists are trained in the ways of our field, and the public side of folklore work connects to general audiences in ways that increase appreciation for the field as a whole.”

For a list of public folklore programs in the United States, visit the American Folklore Society’s directory (external link opens in new window).

The history of public folklore programs in the United States owes a great debt to Bess Lomax Hawes, who made it part of her life’s work to establish a network of folklorists doing this work across the country. Learn more by reading about her legacy on Smithsonian Folklife’s website (external link opens in new window).

Arkansas Folk and Traditional Arts, you may sometimes hear the director of Arkansas Folk and Traditional Arts referred to as the “state folklorist” of Arkansas. What does this mean?

The title of “state folklorist” is a legacy of the original proposed framework of state folklore/folk art programs championed by Bess Lomax Hawes, the first director of folk and traditional arts at the National Endowment for the Arts. Hawes (of the famous family of John and Alan Lomax) envisioned a state folklorist embedded in every arts council across the nation. In reality, and for a variety of practical reasons, her vision was never fully realized; there are many arts councils with embedded folk arts programs and, following Hawes’ model, many public folklorists in these positions took on the title of state folklorist. However, there were many other states where the state folk arts program developed outside arts councils—in humanities councils, non-profits, universities, etc. Regardless of home, every folk arts program fulfilled a shared mission to document, present, and conserve their state’s folklore. Many of these programs, too, worked in direct partnership with their state arts councils to do this work.

Over the decades, the title has been critiqued by many folklorists in the discipline. One common critique is that it implies that there is only one person doing this important work in each state. Some have instead decided to style themselves as “a” state folklorist to remind audiences that they are one of many experts in the region. A second critique is that the title is misleading: state folklorist implies an all-encompassing knowledge of the state’s folklore, when, in reality, the position is more about bringing resources to communities across the state who are the experts of their own traditions.

While the title is slowly phasing out of use, it remains part of the vocabulary of folk arts infrastructure throughout the nation, and so it is common to see others referring to our director as the “state folklorist.” Please note that AFTA seldom uses this term, except in settings where the context and distinction is appropriate (such as a gathering of all the state folk art directors in the nation).