American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
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American Folklife Center Library of Congress July-September 1985 Volume VIII, Number 3 Omaha Indian Music Snappers and Snappering in New Jersey Archive Radio Series Paid Internships for Archive land Plateau, where the meeting was conclusion. And indeed, when I finally held and where the Tennessee Folklore sat down this year to read the book, I FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS Society had been launched fifty years found some strong rhetoric about state a quarterly publication of the before). But as I began to sketch out my boundaries: "Forget the maze of state Ammcan Folklife Center thoughts on regionalism in America, I and provincial boundaries, those was surprised to find myself swimming historical accidents and surveyors' at the against the tide of both folklorists over mistakes" (p. 1). I also found persuasive Library of Congress the years and cocktail-party savants examples of segments of states feeling in today. jured by their geographical alignment. Regionalism has been a hot topic at The farm protest movement of the late Alan Jabbour, Director Washington social gatherings over the 1970s, for instance, was born in the Ray Dockstader, Deputy Director past four or five years, and there appears wheat fields of eastern Colorado, since Carl Fleischhauer to be an emerging consensus on the sub "If any farmer was likely to be mad as Mary Hufford ject. The burden of the usual argument hell, it would be he who sent his taxes Folklife Specialists might be summarized as follows:-The to Denver, despite that capital's obvious Peter T . Bartis, Folklife Researcher United States is subdivided into states interest in loosening its agrarian ties" (p. (which, I might observe, looks at the 3). Yet by and large, the book inve~ts Patricia M . Markland, Program Assistant subject from the top down). Unfor its energies simply in getting us to reflect Brett Topping, Writer-Editor Magdalena Gilinsky, Contracts Specialist tunately, state boundaries not only fail upon the macro-regions of North Doris Craig, Administrative Secretary to coincide but clash with the natural America. If you ignore a scattering of Lisa Oshins, Staff Assistant regions that have developed in the rhetorical flourishes and trenchant Tel: 202 28 7-6590 United States. Those regions are a result observations, the author does not really of geographic features, natural re advocate abolishing state boundaries. It Archive of Folk Culture sources, and the patterns of flow in is not a radical call for restructuring the goods, ideas, people, and values which continent's bodies politic. Thus it is Joseph C. Hickerson, Head have grown out of that geographic and fascinating to see how many people who Gerald E. Parsons, Jr., Reference Librarian Sebastian LoCurto, Staff Assistant natural-resource base. At best, states are read the book, or who have heard about inefficient mechanisms for accom it, drew the instant conclusion that states Tel: 202 287-5510 plishing the business or serving the needs should be scrapped. of regions; at worst, they are hostile or It is worth observing, before going Federal Cylinder Project unresponsive to the hapless fragments of any further, that discussions about Dorothy Sara Lee, Director regions that fall within their borders. regionalism often founder over a confu Judith A. Gray, Ethnomusicologist Thus (the argument concludes) the sion about the size or level of region be political structuring of the country into ing discussed. The Memphis market Tel: 202 287-9022 states makes no sense. area includes chunks of Tennessee, Washington, D .C. 2054-0 Such ideas are by no means unfa Mississippi, and Arkansas; the Flint miliar to students of folklore, cultural Hills are perhaps confined to one state, geography, or for that matter political Kansas. Yet both seem to me to be Managing Editor: Brett Topping science or marketing. Clearly, though, ''regions'' of a quite different order from something has propelled an old constella larger entities like "Dixie" and "New tion of ideas into a sort of renewed cur England" (to use two regions sketched rency. It was no trouble tracking it out in Joel Garreau's book). Garreau down. Many people who preached the solves this problem neatly by calling the idea cited Joel Garreau's book The Nine larger regional units "nations," leaving DIRECTOR'S COLUMN Nations of North America (Boston: open the possibility that they contain Houghton Miffiin Company, 1981). smaller "regions" within them. But Garreau had in 1979 published an essay "nations" flies rhetorically in the face on the subject in the Sunday Outlook of what I am about to expound, and In the spring of this year I had the section of The Washington Post. The essay though it stimulates conversation to use privilege of serving as keynote speaker was reprinted in various newspapers the word, one contradicts ordinary usage at a conference organized by the Ten throughout the continent, and the book along the way. Nations are political units nessee Folklore Society in celebration of followed in a couple of years as a more in this world, and very few ofthem coin its 50th anniversary. A focal topic for the extended treatment of the subject. Gar cide with the natural geographical conference was "regionalism," which reau's efforts clearly had spread a cultural units for which we reserve the has always been of interest to folklorists durable academic concept into the word "region." So, for lack of better and has emerged as a popular topic for broader arena of public-policy discus terms, I have taken to distinguishing general conversation in the past few sions. between "macro-regions" and "micro years. I looked forward to contributing Did he really denounce states as ir regions.'' my two cents on the subject when I relevancies? I wondered. The cocktail No matter what level ofregion we are visited Cookeville (up on the Cumber circuit seemed quite certain about that talking about, the talk about states be- 2 FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS ing inefficient or irrelevant troubles me. matter, for it would not require recon life . By that I mean that every institu In June I happened to be visiting ciling or balancing fundamentally dif tional structure contains within it, and Finland, and after a few days without ferent regional problems and aspira thus teaches as a social lesson, the any American news and views I ob tions. As it happens, though, every state necessity for compromising and accom tain~d a copy of the International Herald embraces multiple micro-regions, and modating in order to act. This princi Tribune (Europe's "American" perhaps half the states embrace parts of ple is in turn the structural enactment newspaper, put out by the joint efforts more than one macro-region. Thus the of the cultural principle often referred to of The New York Times and The job of reconciling is not merely an as pluralism. I myself prefer the slightly Washington Post). There it was again: an unpleasant inconvenience for states; more homegrown word diversity, but in essay by a professor ofconstitutional law it is at the core of nearly everything they any case the principle is one of the cor who, as he pondered a long-range agen do. nerstones on which American society has da for changing the U.S. constitution, Would we have it any other way? been built. In short, if you like was convinced that states should be What would be the consequences of democracy in a large nation that accom revamped into "10 or 12 regions" to making state boundaries conform more modates great cultural diversity with a prepare us for the future. Somehow, as "sensibly" to natural regional boun broader sense of ultimate unity, there I read the essay against the backdrop of daries? For one thing, it would probably might be another way to do it instead of Europe and its nation-states, with their promote the job of reconciliation from having states that are themselves histories of struggle to reconcile the in the state level to the national level. Issues regionally diverse-but I wouldn't try it. terests of regional and ethnic groupings that are now negotiated and compro When I first broached these notions with the political units of nations, our mised within state politics would be at the Tennessee Folklore Society American toying with redrawing state thrust upon the agenda of national meeting in Cookeville, a lively debate boundaries seemed naive. politics, requiring solution by the na ensued. In the course of that discussion, States, or for that matter nations, are tional government. A variety of in I pointed out that, though folklorists had political units, which is to say that they stances from abroad-Canada, say, or always had a special passion for the idea are units for taking governmental ac Yugoslavia- suggest that drawing state of regionalism, they tended to organize tions. Ifevery state in the United States or provincial boundaries so as to repre their own activities by s.tate. Thus state corresponded to a natural region, then sent economic anq cultural regions in folklore societies abound, and some are taking actions would no doubt be an easy evitably passes the buck to the national as venerable as the Tennessee Folklore government to effect all the compromis Society, which has now celebrated its ing, balancing, and reconciling. Surely 50th anniversary. Regional societies, on there is a virtue in decentralizing the the other hand, are few and far between, process of compromise to the state or and none has lasted many years. The BOARD OF TRUSTEES even the local level. competition of scholars earlier in this In fact, there are two virtues. The first century to collect traditional ballads was Ronald C. Foreman, Jr., Florida, virtue is that it spreads around the task organized-apparently by mutual Chairman of compromising, so that no single agreement-along state lines, and more David E.