Silences across disciplines: Folklore studies, cultural studies, and history

In this essay, Henkes (Netherlands) and Johnson (Britain) explore why communication between the disciplines of Folklore Studies (Volkskunde), Cultural Studies, and Social History--each concerned with 'the cultural'--has been so uneven and incomplete in (and outside) Dutch and British academe. Folklore Studies in the Netherlands and England stood outside the politically engaged discussions that were involved in the emergence of 'popular' history and Cultural Studies. As far as communication took place, it seems mainly to have been limited to the history of the early modern period. Henkes and Johnson argue that this disjunction has to do with the Marxist orientation of both Social History and Cultural Studies, neither of which focused on the rural in the way that Folklore Studies did. This silence was deepened by the marginal and conservative image of Folklore Studies, as well as by some folklorists' fears of blurring the border between 'the political' and 'the scientific'. By investigating the reasons for silences across these disciplines, the authors hope to stimulate transdisciplinary work, since today productive differences and obvious complementarities of theme, theory, method, and political formation and engagement exist among the three fields.