Usually hearing that a national newspaper wants to cover your research is a cause for pride and celebration. But given we were told the article would claim our project was “a large waste of taxpayer money” and showed “the ideological capture of universities”, it didn’t feel likely that we were going to get a fair hearing.
As we would find, when the article was published two days later.
Access Folk ended up at the centre of culture wars rhetoric in an ongoing campaign to attack the UK Research & Innovation (UKRI – our funding body) for supporting academic work related to decolonisation. The content of the article drew only from our initial application and reports to UKRI, and did not account for our actual activities and the ways in which our project has responded to input from across the folk singing scene that we’ve reported on our website and in other public forums.
As was to be expected (and by design), the article prompted discussion across different social media platforms. Some of the comments were knee-jerk responses to a well-worn debate, but many people also asked reasonable questions. While we have not engaged with any individual posts relating to the article, we recognise that some of the feelings, questions, and themes they rehearse may be shared more widely. We recognise there are important questions to be asked about the validity of all major funded projects, and, in this case, concerns about research that potentially affects those involved in the folk scene.
Several months have passed since the article was published and we felt now was the right time to set out what the project is – and isn’t – trying to to achieve.
‘They are trying to stop white people from singing English folk songs’
This is fundamentally untrue. We value and celebrate the wealth of folk song material available and have great respect for the people singing all over England. We recognise positive experiences associated with singing folk songs and want to ensure those experiences are widely available in as many communities as possible.
[We need to understand] why patterns of participation haven’t altered in 40 years.
From our national survey of folk singers, it’s clear that the people who remain most involved haven’t changed significantly since the 1980s – they’ve simply grown older. The folk scene is dominated by people of similar age, socioeconomic status, dis/abilities, political and religious affiliations, and racial groups. We, like the people who are most active in this scene, are passionate about seeing folk singing continue into the future. That means understanding why patterns of participation haven’t altered in 40 years.
Part of the answer lies in the historical development of the scene, its many revivals, and the (incomplete) records of folk singing that we have. 19th century collectors tended to focus on preserving songs from mainly white, rural singers. Mid-20th century collectors and commercial singers tended to have ties to the working class and left-wing politics. Throughout all of these times, people from different classes, political and religious affiliations, and racial groups have persistently contributed to the cultural heritage of England. Our research isn’t about telling white people they can’t sing English songs, but about recognising the wider contributions of many people who have contributed to English folk culture over time.
‘The main focus of the research is white-centricity and the decolonisation of folk music’
Although addressing issues around race is a part of widening access, it is not our sole focus. Access Folk is about widening access to folk singing. That means understanding how various issues influence why and how people participate in folk singing (read our initial findings here).
In order to address issues faced by people who are marginalised in different ways, we have been inspired by the framework of protected characteristics as outlined in the Equalities Act 2010. Race (including nationality, ethnicity and skin colour) is just one of nine protected characteristics in the act and we have also considered things such as socio-economic status and politics which are not protected characteristics.
Our focus is on exploring what makes people able and willing to participate in folk singing so understanding barriers is key to the research. We found that addressing some of these barriers helped people from a wide range of backgrounds and not only the primary target group.
‘There is no problem and nobody asked academics to get involved’
I am a folk singer and researcher with a lifetime of participating in the folk scene as a social singer, five albums released as a professional performer and long time director of Soundpost, a folk education organisation based in Sheffield. This research is informed by countless encounters with singers and organisers and over 15 years of academic research. This experience shows that people within the folk scene are concerned about diminishing participants and audiences, especially for social singing.
The folk scene has a tremendous variety of people involved with many different ideas about priorities. In order to represent as broad a cross section as possible we rely on participatory methods – that means that the people most directly affected by the research are involved in designing the research questions and methods, gathering data and analysing and sharing the findings.
This happens in many different ways throughout the project, including being overseen by a board of 13 people involved in relevant areas of the folk scene and representing marginalised people. Our methods are built on participatory activity to ensure we are not working in an academic bubble, and that knowledge can be held by diverse people within the scene once the project has ended.
‘The “Ask a Friend” method is perpetuating bias by just asking our friends for answers’
This is in fact the complete opposite. “Ask A Friend” (a form of peer-to-peer interviewing e.g. Payne-Gifford et al, 2021) is an innovative method designed by the Access Folk team to engage participants we would have had difficulty reaching alone as academics. By inviting co-researchers from within the folk scene to interview people they know who are not involved with folk singing, we were able to gain insights from people ‘one step removed’ from the scene to better understand their experiences and opinions on folk singing.
The method produced 61 interviews (which we would not have had capacity to deliver) and had the added benefit of showing what the folk-experienced co-researchers learnt from their interviewees, illuminating common misapprehensions held within the scene. Findings from this method can be found in this report.
Ultimately, the Telegraph failed to grasp that we are not carrying out this work from our academic ivory towers. Our research group is made up of people, like myself, who live and breathe folk music, and we are involving people through participatory methods wherever possible – we are not meddling outsiders.
I am sure that many people agree that folk has a participation problem; both in numbers and the kinds of people involved. The stats presented earlier in the piece show this. Just this year, several folk festivals have closed, citing a range of factors. Without sustainable audience numbers – which includes a younger, more diverse range of attendees – more are likely to follow suit, to the detriment of us all.
Academic research is one way to help find solutions to these challenges. My passion for folk music and position within academia presents a rare opportunity and I make no apology for leading research into how the folk scene in England can thrive in the 21st Century.
If you would like to know more about Access Folk and our work, please visit the website or email us your questions or comments.
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Typical Torygraph shite. Well done for doing what you do – keep up the good work rattling their cage. 👍✊
Just calling something “Torygraph shite” isn’t a very convincing argument. Ive seen Fay solo and with other musicians a few times down in my neck of the woods and enjoyed her musical ability. However, the trend for “decolonising” things (music or anything else) is a very negative thing IMO. It’s basically a politically left-wing ruse for trashing British history and contributing to our younger generation feeling no pride in our society/culture. (In your terminology it’s Guardianista shite”).
Excellent reply to a thorny topic. I participated in the Access Folk project but am a white male in his 60s, fully aware of the demographic implications of this. But I also have a background in academic sociology, and am a full-time professional folk musician. My personal feeling is that we shouldn’t worry too much about the demographic cohort of folk attendees. There is another generation of musicians and followers coming up behind us and folk music in this country has never been healthier. The fact that some festivals are closing has more to say about the economic climate and the saturation of UK festivals than it does about demographics. A final thought: we celebrate and encourage cultural expressions from different ethnicities in the UK and would be horrified to suggest that they are poorer for the lack of ‘inclusion’ from us. So why not simply keep the door open, welcome additional inputs to the folk canon, but not beat ourselves up over who walks through that door.
Power to your elbow, Fay. You are doing great work!