Reciprocal Fieldwork: Public Folklorists Teaming with Community Scholars

Abstract

Abstract:A community scholars' project was initiated in Missouri to increase local participation in the state's folk arts infrastructure. While the project was adapted from successful models in sister states, the project is also consciously informed by reflexive ethnographic methodologies as imagined and reimagined in the academy and applied with modifications in the public sector. The author examines the ways in which a cadre of community scholars—local experts with keen interests in documenting, promoting, and sharing their traditions—informed the content of workshops, fieldwork, and the statewide public sector organization. This essay is dedicated to community scholar Sarah Denton, who died unexpectedly in 2019.