Australian Folklore: A Yearly Journal of Folklore Studies - An issue treating particularly of issues of custom, heritage and identity for today's Australians

Abstract

As with the last issue of 'Australian Folklore', this volume has its contents divided into several thematic areas or clusters which reflect more or less the work on lore and persistent custom currently being done in this country. The article on the sense and evolution of 'Heritage' is, however, more focused on the British Isles, although it is possible that some of the less positive nuances of the word there may replicate themselves in the Southern Pacific countries. As is pointed out by Dr Keith McKenry in his more recent - and now gratefully reproduced and generous reflective appraisal of the journal for international readers - there are a larger number of contributions that are obviously from universities. Indeed, a careful reading of the issue will reveal that contributors come from some nine Australian universities, and from three in North America. Moreover, the journal, in its contents, has again maintained its well-established connections with academic colleagues in the U.S.A., Canada, Japan, and various other Australian universities, as well as recording fieldwork done in Indonesia, New York, the Torres Strait area and in the far extremities of both Western Australia and Tasmania. (Indeed, it is pleasing that there are two articles based on earlier work done in that too often folklorically neglected state.) Most of the other items are from (private) collectors and scholars still studying and writing, but not so formally employed. Yet many of them are remarkably observant and they are now recording their observations and recollections from decades earlier, as with Rebekah Brammer, and with some of John White's even going back to the 1920s. We are pleased to include a paper on aspects of the threat/challenge offered by the computer to certain aspects of identity, and we record that the Sesquicentennial of Rail was celebrated at Werris Creek (New South Wales) and in adjacent Tamworth, in late September of this year, and hope to publish in 2006 some reflections on the four day occasion by the Conference Convenor, Dr Andrew Piper. As always, the future of folklore will rest in the hands of children - those transmissible elements, both old and new, which help children to probe meanings and potential speech/actions within their culture will survive well. Issues of access arise in these times of much change, and the role of schools as sites of transmission, both formally and informally, may be increasing in importance. Thus it is pleasing to have several papers surveying the issues of children and folklore.