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Conference: The Form of Value in Globalized Traditions

CFS Workshop with eponymous text
March 6, 2009
9:00AM - 5:00PM
George Wells Knight House 104 East 15th Avenue

Date Range
Add to Calendar 2009-03-06 09:00:00 2009-03-06 17:00:00 Conference: The Form of Value in Globalized Traditions Presentation Abstracts [pdf]A collaboration with the Program in Folklore, University of California at BerkeleyInaugurated in 2007 by Charles L. Briggs of UC-Berkeley, this international working group [pdf] considers the career of vernacular traditions under globalization. As cultural forms circulate ever more widely, recycled, restructured, and hybridized as they travel, regimes of value insist increasingly on point of origin. Since economic value is predicated upon scarcity, in a global framework cultural objects are marked—and marketed—as local. Form itself is fetishized as social interaction becomes attenuated. Rather than contesting the reification of culture into exchangeable goods, the resistance of impoverished groups and social movements increasingly takes shape as a struggle for control over the manner of commodification and the profits thereof. In the face of restructurings of value initiated by the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, free trade agreements, and transnational corporations, intellectual property rights become a key locus of contention between distributors and cultural producers. The public component of this year's group meeting will explore form and value as both categories of action and tools of analysis. We hope that attendees will help us with the work of comparison and synthesis.Program9:00Breakfast9:30 I. Folklorists in CirculationBridges: Local, Global and Transnational Sadhana Naithani, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New DelhiThe Little I Know: The Incompatibility of UNESCO and Folkloristics Lee Haring, Saugerties, New YorkOur Circulatory System (or Folklore Publishing in the Era of Open Access, Corporate Enclosure and the Transformation of Scholarly Societies) Jason Baird Jackson, Indiana University, Bloomington11:00Break11:15II. Moving Objects and the Persistence of Form"Give Me a Saying and I'll Give You a Man": Folklore and the Making of Men in Nairobi's Urban Spaces Mbugua wa-Mungai, Kenyatta University, NairobiClassical Poetry as Cultural Capital in the Proverbs of Jews from Iran: Transformations of Inter-textuality Galit Hasan-Rokem, Hebrew University of JerusalemCircuitous Thinking: Ideas of the Region in a Globalizing World Candace Slater, University of California, Berkeley12:45 Lunch2:00 III. Stigma, Ennoblement, and the Production of ValueThe Stigmatized Vernacular Amy Shuman, The Ohio State University, ColumbusTreasures, Trophies, and Relics: Thoughts on the Tradition of Objectification in Western Europe Dorothy Noyes, The Ohio State University, ColumbusAfro-Peruvian Music, Cultural Rights and the Invocation of Culture as an Economic Resource Javier León, Indiana University, Bloomington3:30Break3:45 IV. The Value of DistinctionsLocal Value in a Globalizing World? Diarmuid Ó Giolláin, University College CorkAgainst Circulation Charles L. Briggs, University of California, Berkeley4:45 Closing Remarks[pdf] - Some links on this page are to .pdf files. If you need these files in a more accessible format, please contact patterson.493@osu.edu. PDF files require the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader software to open them. If you do not have Reader, you may use the following link to Adobe to download it for free at: Adobe Acrobat Reader. George Wells Knight House 104 East 15th Avenue Center for Folklore Studies cfs@osu.edu America/New_York public

Presentation Abstracts [pdf]

A collaboration with the Program in Folklore, University of California at Berkeley


Inaugurated in 2007 by Charles L. Briggs of UC-Berkeley, this international working group [pdf] considers the career of vernacular traditions under globalization. As cultural forms circulate ever more widely, recycled, restructured, and hybridized as they travel, regimes of value insist increasingly on point of origin. Since economic value is predicated upon scarcity, in a global framework cultural objects are marked—and marketed—as local. Form itself is fetishized as social interaction becomes attenuated. Rather than contesting the reification of culture into exchangeable goods, the resistance of impoverished groups and social movements increasingly takes shape as a struggle for control over the manner of commodification and the profits thereof. In the face of restructurings of value initiated by the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, free trade agreements, and transnational corporations, intellectual property rights become a key locus of contention between distributors and cultural producers. The public component of this year's group meeting will explore form and value as both categories of action and tools of analysis. We hope that attendees will help us with the work of comparison and synthesis.

Program

9:00Breakfast

9:30 I. Folklorists in Circulation

Bridges: Local, Global and Transnational Sadhana Naithani, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

The Little I Know: The Incompatibility of UNESCO and Folkloristics Lee Haring, Saugerties, New York

Our Circulatory System (or Folklore Publishing in the Era of Open Access, Corporate Enclosure and the Transformation of Scholarly Societies) Jason Baird Jackson, Indiana University, Bloomington

11:00Break

11:15II. Moving Objects and the Persistence of Form

"Give Me a Saying and I'll Give You a Man": Folklore and the Making of Men in Nairobi's Urban Spaces Mbugua wa-Mungai, Kenyatta University, Nairobi

Classical Poetry as Cultural Capital in the Proverbs of Jews from Iran: Transformations of Inter-textuality Galit Hasan-Rokem, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Circuitous Thinking: Ideas of the Region in a Globalizing World Candace Slater, University of California, Berkeley

12:45 Lunch

2:00 III. Stigma, Ennoblement, and the Production of Value

The Stigmatized Vernacular Amy Shuman, The Ohio State University, Columbus

Treasures, Trophies, and Relics: Thoughts on the Tradition of Objectification in Western Europe Dorothy Noyes, The Ohio State University, Columbus

Afro-Peruvian Music, Cultural Rights and the Invocation of Culture as an Economic Resource Javier León, Indiana University, Bloomington

3:30Break

3:45 IV. The Value of Distinctions

Local Value in a Globalizing World? Diarmuid Ó Giolláin, University College Cork

Against Circulation Charles L. Briggs, University of California, Berkeley

4:45 Closing Remarks


[pdf] - Some links on this page are to .pdf files. If you need these files in a more accessible format, please contact patterson.493@osu.edu. PDF files require the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader software to open them. If you do not have Reader, you may use the following link to Adobe to download it for free at: Adobe Acrobat Reader.