"Won't You Help to Sing These Songs of Freedom?": Sharing Authority, Co-curation, and Supporting Community-Driven Heritage Work.

Folklorists should enable communities to research and represent their culture on their own terms through yielding authority and facilitating their investigation of the community's own heritage. Community scholar programs in the United States provide training in research, interpretation, and methods of representation. The Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage has carried out community-driven heritage programs in tourism, curriculum development, and the research and presentation of personal adornment. This liberatory, community-centered heritage work contrasts with some conventional approaches of cultural workers that reinforce colonialist and racist structures and the abuse of heritage by racist extremists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of American Folklore is the property of University of Illinois Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)