Folklore Tradition Urbanity

Book excerpt: Though assorted, the essays in this book display an element of unity. Written, to read in seminars and conferences, and publish in journals and volumes, during past five-six years mostly, these essays traverse a few hither to unchartered areas of Indian folklorography. Tradition has been viewed in the perspective of social dynamics as a ‘transitive series with seals of forms’ in different phases of history, determining the analytical categories we use in the spaces of countering cultures. Orality, a dominant marker of folklore in its conventional, stereotype, assessment and concept, is seen in the problematic of inter-textuality between the oral and the written. Likewise, folklore, treated as rural constructs only in terms of nineteenth century perception, has been reviewed and revisited, to find that it contains fairly strong urban ingredients. Urbanity, which was viewed as a threat to the authenticity of folklore, till the mid-fifties of the last century, is perceived in the new and currently prevailing trends in folklorography, as a distinct space for the growth of challenging and equally strong folk discourses. Development processes of urbanization, even mega-urbanization, and folklore are not antithetic.