Analysing folklore through folk memory

Cultural practices as we have received and perceive through our quotidian livings is a diffused set of rituals and practices, being dynamically altered and modified over generations. Some ritual and cultural practices have standardised themselves over others achieving the stature of religious, national or community representations. The formations of these tropes of cultural manifestations emerge from a mnemonic past. Memory by the sheer power of remembrance and recollection builds the superstructure of a shared or a narrative history. Speaking about memory in the context of folklore, it can be configured as a shaping of a past which is largely undocumented yet securely surviving as an essential part of our social and cultural lives. Memory derived through and from the folk, however, can pose both difficulties as well as possibilities. William Johnson defined folk memory as “the conscious or unconscious remembrance, by a people collectively, of ideas connected with the retention of rites and superstitions, habits and occupations”. (Myres 14-15) Folkloric material refers to a particular kind of material which can be spoken of as an “organised common sense” for humanity as a whole and also for the ordinary run of the people. In my paper I would first like to dwell upon the concept of folk memory and secondly look at the ways in which digital advances have helped in reworking folklore studies.