ABSTRACT
What are the stories that we as practitioners in museums, archives, and libraries tell? Who do we address in the telling? How should we speak? How should we listen? Folklore archives, as repositories of traditional narrative, custom, and ritual, are spaces of memory, artistry, and identity, providing insight into the inner lives of our forebears in a way that official, administrative, or bureaucratic records do not. Jonny Dillon writes on his role as a “proactive archivist,” utilizing NFC’s podcast as an inclusive way to speak, listen, and see, for a broad and diverse public. This piece will give practical insights into how this form of storytelling fosters connections—not to romanticize the past, but instead to root and inform our present and guide our future, enabling us to navigate the humors, joys, sorrows, and tragedies of life in a way that is meaningful, insightful, and, ultimately, uplifting and consoling. By coming to know our forebears, their dreams and hopes, their struggles and modes of living, their beliefs and customs, and their rituals and crafts, we come to know ourselves.
