Folklore our Living Heritage. Report of the Committee of Enquiry into Folklife in Australia – 1987

by | Oct 10, 2024 | Articles

This report is in the Bush Music Club Library & deserves re-visiting.

Folklore our Living Heritage. Report of the Committee of Enquiry into Folklife in Australia.   Australian Government Publishing Service, 1987

In 2018 The Conversation published an article about this report,  What the folk? Whatever happened to Australia’s national folklife centre?  by   PhD Candidate, School of History, Australian National University

Most Australians know something about “folklore”. Every year crowds converge on Canberra for the National Folk Festival. But, folklore encompasses far more than song and dance. The term refers to a rich intangible heritage of games, yarns, legends, stories, crafts, jokes, tricks, taboos, poems, recipes, birthday customs and even graffiti.

It exists in the playground, in the kitchen, at the bar and even on the walls of the Australian War Memorial, stitched into the beautiful Changi quilts. Folklore is everywhere.

Australia has often undervalued its folklife. There was a time, however, when one government department took a special interest in the study and preservation of Australian folklore. In 1986, Barry Cohen, then Minister of Arts Heritage and Environment, commissioned a Committee of Inquiry into Folklife in Australia.

The resulting report Folklife: Our Living Heritage, was published in 1987. It concluded that despite the valiant efforts of individuals, local and community organisations, Australia was by “international standards […] poorly equipped” to ensure the protection of its folklore. Of the 51 recommendations, many depended on the success of the first: the establishment of an Australian Folklife Centre. (read on)

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Sandra Nixon

BMC Archivist, Librarian & Blogger

https://blog.bushmusic.org.au/

 

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