Indri Septyaningrum

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 In 19th century many scholars focused on collecting and analyzing the
stories, beliefs, and practices of what they were convinced were dying
cultures in hopes of preserving those cultures tradition.
However, this approach suggest that wherever we are on the cultural
timeline is always better that wherever we or anyone else is or has been.
Thats where some get the idea that folklore is untrue, old-fashioned
nonsense, that it comes from a time when people were too uneducated to
know better or exist in less advanced societies.
 Allan Dundes
Essentially, he says, any group of two or more people who share a common
factor are folk (1980,6)
The folk are not quaint, old-fashioned people
All of us are members of folk groups.
Dundes also says, It is in folklore that folk groups are defined.
It suggests that the very act of having and performing folklore means a
group is a folk group and by studying the folklore of a group we can know
more about how that group defines itself.
 Barre Toelken

Similar to Dundes, but emphasizes the shared informal contacts between

people, which form the basis for expressive, cultural-based communications
(1996, 56)
Dynamic within a group that hold the group together through shared traditions
that moved and evolve with the group as the group itself change.
Folk groups may be as small as two people who share a close, ongoing
relationship (dyad)
Example : long-time friends, life partners and others who express their
relationship more intensely with each other than with anyone else.
 In 1970s, articles examining the idea of the folk groups through a wider
lens.
Richard Baumans 1971 article Differential Identity and the Social Base of
Folklore challenged the existing definitions of the field.
Moves the concept of group to a more complex definition : that folklore is a
way of learning, in addition to being, on some level, what is learned.
Lore of a group functions more obviously as an active transmission, a
performed communication that allows members of a group to share and
understand its identity.
His focus on performance allowed folklorist to consider the relationships
between groups and between audiences and performers.
 Group identity depends not only on share communication within the group,
but also on interaction with other groups.
The esoteric-exoteric factors (Jansen) 1965 are important in understanding
groups, because sometimes groups base a lot of their folklore on presenting
themselves to others, or on defining themselves in relation to other groups.
Sometimes this intercommunication indicates a change in cultural attitudes,
perhaps a sign of assimilation.
 There can even be a folklore from which derives its fundamental meaning
from its direction towards outsiders, people of different identity (Bauman
1971, 36)
Example : punk rockers in the 1970s and 1980
Hippies who grew their hair long and wore sandals and frayed
jeans
In other words, groups communicate through folklore within their own
boundaries and also communicate with other groups about themselves.
 Dorothy Noyess expanded definition of group.
Ideas about group are the most powerful and the most dangerous in
folklorist.
Noyes, we have tended to look at folk groups as being at least partly
socially constructed; we assume some folk groups are defined before they
become a group by an outside connection like race, ethnicity, gender, age,
common interest etc.
The risk falling into the us/them trap, in which our group is always different
from their group.
 To avoid this kind of trap, Noyes and other folklorist emphasize the
importance of proximity and interaction in creating and maintaining groups.
In this way of thinking, groups certainly may share characteristics, but the
factors that make them folk group are regular contact (proximity) and
shared experience (interaction).
Conclusion :
Basically, if a group has folklore, its a folk group.
Folk groups express and share folklore that conveys to themselves and to
others their understanding of the groups values, interest and sense of
identity.
 Proximity
Ethnic groups as well as national or regional groups, even local groups are
connected by proximity.
Have defining factors shaped by geography.
Traditions, customs, costume, and material culture (food included) may
derive from the terrain and climate of the groups homeland.
Example : Scottish sheep herders wear heavy wool sweater
Tradition that is not associated with a particular ethnic or national group,
but with local, geographically bounded group
Example : Midwesterner eat sauerkraut and pork for good luck in new year
 Necessity, Obligation or Circumstance

Family
Each of us is born or adopted into family from whom we learn beliefs,
values, and traditions.
We learn ways of expressing ourselves and our values that are proximity-
driven (ethnic family tradition, but there is most likely to remain a core that
is purely defined by family practice and belief.
Circumstantial group membership may be gained through peer groups.
We pick up behaviors, values and ways of communicating from our peers.
 Regular Interaction

Created through share experiences that establish common values, behaviors

and attitudes.
Member of these groups may come together because of shared interests or
purposes, but they are more than likely bound to each other by regular
informal interaction.
Example : In a work groups, smaller group of coworkers who regularly
lunch together.
 Shared Interest or Skills

May begin in a classrooms or offices and expand outward, taking a shape

generated by their members.
Form a group based on commonalities.
Similar to group defined by proximity, these folk groups may already have
traditions, behavior and language that are unique to them, but new members
may change the group dynamic, contributing new ways of doing or being
into the group.
Example: Quilting circle
 Self-Identification cannot be overlooked in defining or establishing folk
groups.
One of the way in which defining groups becomes complicated is in
members unwillingness to identify themselves as members of a particular
group.
Because of the fear that outsiders will stereotype them or treat them
differently because of their affiliation with the group.
This could be someone who is unwilling to accept an ethnic or religious
label or someone whose family hold particular beliefs by which the person
raised but which the person herself no longer shares.
 Other choices may be based less on changes in beliefs or values and more
on conscious adoption (or rejection) of customs or behaviors associated
with a particular group.
There are those who identify themselves as part of tradition or heritage that
their families have not been a part of for ling because it suits their personal
interest and the way they wish to express their own self-identity.
 Family
An essential part of family life is the repertoire of stories we share that reinforce
our memories and connections as family members.
Communicate a sense of family identity, showing that family share a past, as
well as values and beliefs
Since narratives are retelling of events, they may communicate different
messages, depending on the teller, the version of the story and the context in
which it is told.
The phrase and the story became so associated with the family that as the
children grew and married, their spouses and children learned the saying and
they could use it as a way to show their belonging in this new community.
 School

We all learn many social lessons through our interactions and relationships
in school groups.
Elementary school groups defined more by neighborhood.
Nicknames are major feature of childrens lore. Simplest types of
nicknames may be derived from lack of linguistic development.
Often children create nicknames that use rhyme patterns and/alliteration to
mock or tease other children.
Another way in which these names are created is by incorporating popular
culture into them.
 Schools extracurricular activities often create communities for students.
These communities are formally established.
On one level, these groups are defined by the school administration and
follow specific guidelines set by the schools, yet folk groups often formed
within these formal boundaries.
Example: athletic teams and instrumental and vocal music groups.
 Occupational Group

Membership in occupational group may be short term, part time, or

temporary.
Example : Engineers unions, Actors Guilds, Pipefitter, and other labor
unions.
Within these groups we may indeed find a folk group or even numerous
folk groups they share wit each other informal means of communication
that help them express their feelings about their jobs and their positions
within their workplaces.
 Some of the most common types folklore shared in occupational situations
are related to hierarchy, membership, job skills, and risk.
Numerous studies of occupations that involve risk indicate that members
may rely on verbal, customary or material lore to express their feeling about
risk.
Example : Airline employees shared narratives about ghost to warn flight
attendants that something was amiss on their plane.
Workers at the bookstore were members of an occupational groups,
coworkers created inside language, including names for regular
customers. (see page. 52)
It wasnt just for an entertaining story, but teaching story because the
individual was described for identification purposes.
 Groups and Belief

One of the types of cultural information most often communicated within

group is belief.
The term belief (beliefs) refers to both the things we believe in and the act
of believing (see Oconnor 1995)
Our beliefs develop through complex, dynamic interactions of history,
geography, gender, politics, ethnicity, basically all features and experiences
that surround and are contained within the groups we belong to.
 Early folklorist, intent on their study of the other those perceived as less
sophisticated, less educated, and on the low-end of what they believed to be
a scale of cultural evolution judge much of what the folk believed to be
fact ad inaccurate and incorrect.
Some scholars were quick to label such beliefs superstitions.
However, by 1960s, folklorist were beginning to reflect more on the work
of their disciplines past and present and began considering ways to ensure
objectivity and equity in their analyses by avoiding this kind of us/them
thinking.
 In 1960s, Alan Dundes developed a definition of folk belief specifically
superstitions as traditional expression that have conditions and results,
signs and causes.
He pointed out that in many belief behaviors (superstitions), an if/then
conditions exist (stated or implied)
Example : if you walk under a ladder then you will have bad luck.
Sometimes third condition which is called a conversion ritual exist, that
allows us to avoid the result.
Example : If you break a mirror (cause), then you will have seven years of
bad luck (result), unless you bury all the shards deep underground.
 An important figure in the study of belief, Don Yoder, challenges the
scholarly separation of definitions of religious belief and folk belief.
Yoder points out that religious belief and folk belief are part of a unified
organic system of belief all of which occur in particular context.
Yonders theory helps us see that it doesnt matter if a belief is true; what
really matters is how it fits with the groups practices and traditions.
Another scholar, Leonard Primiano used the term vernacular to describe
local and personal expressions of religious beliefs and practices, since it
reduces the tendency to see folk and mainstream religion as being
opposition.
Using the term vernacular allows us to identify one way groups express
their belief, but doesnt evaluate or judge belief or its expression.