迈向实践的民俗定义

Toward a Definition of Folklore in Practice

我的标题来源于丹·本-阿默思将民俗定义为"小群体内的艺术性交际"的论文,尽管他自己也反省这一定义对传统的忽视,一些学者也质疑此定义在民间生活和物质文化研究领域的适用性,但它已成为定位于表演的口头民俗研究的重要基准。伴随21世纪数字文化的出现,此定义受到新的检视,一些学者开始反思民俗的社会基础,评估作为民俗关键词的传统,倡导探求民俗的认知基础、行为和组织观念的构成以及当代理论的"实践转向"。我将对此进行回顾,根据实践理论提出一个简明的以传统为中心的民俗定义,保留对语境的关注,同时聚焦于以民俗实践为基础的知识或认知领域。"实践中的民俗"即是"将传统知识运用于实践或是从实践中提取传统知识"。

My title builds on Dan Ben-Amos's widely cited 1971 JAF essay in which he proposed a definition of"folklore in context":"artistic communication in small groups."It has stood as the main benchmark of a performanceoriented verbal folklore,even though Ben-Amos questioned his omission of tradition and others criticized its applicability to folklife and material culture work.Renewed questioning of the definition in the 21 st century has been evident with the emergence of digital culture,re-thinking of the social basis of folklore,revaluation of tradition as the keyword of folklore,calls for inquiry of folklore's cognitive sources,formulations of behavioristic and organizational concepts,and the"practice turn"in contemporary theory.I review these developments and propose a succinct tradition-centered definition in line with practice theory that retains a consideration of context but focuses attention to the knowledge domain,or cognition,at the basis of folkloric practices.This definition of"folklore in practice"is"traditional knowledge put into or drawn from practice."