Euphemisms--Reflecting on the Monologue of Signifiers

Revisiting Paredes was a double-edged sword.  I am reminded of the qualities of story-telling that comprised the medicine and the talents of my father.  I am also reminded of my detachment from Spanish...akin to what Paredes critiques of folklorists and anthropologists who know the language but remain ignorant to the tongue.  My Grandfather's first language was Purepecha.  My fathers became Spanish, mine was English.  As Michael Kearney's understanding of the Zapotec's  of Ixtepeji was linguistically flawed with incorrect interpretations of the people and as social scientists miss the humor and translation of chistes and dichos, I know well, so do I.  That being said, I choose as a scholar, not to indulge myself in cultural components of my Father's language that I cannot accurately convey in analysis.  However, from an Indigenous perspective, as a Purepecha, I can examine and appreciate wholly the wonder and multiplicity of mine and other's sense of story, ceremony and text.

Let me comment also on the source of what Kelly refers to as "bricolage", a term I was unfamiliar with prior to the reading.  My concern is on the approach used by all folklorists, anthropologists, etc that strive to seminally impact the value of cultural studies.  It seems that the incorporation of "various cultural forms" that are "categorized in a racially or ethnically coded aesthetic hierarchy" becomes problematic on so many levels. On the questions of what can be done to improve the ethnographic methods in the study of minorities---well, let's get rid of the bias by eliminating the semantical signifiers that insinuate human beings are a half-step less than a perfect triad.  I am referring to the word "minority" as in minor, less than.  If we augment our perspectives of marginality, we might see the folly in Kant's creation of the imaginary concept of race, which of course did not scientifically take hold as an empirical (still fallacious) gospel until the latter part of the 1800's.  As a result of these signifiers, the Other ( Kelly) is always outside of the dialogue.  In fact, the Other is without representation in the discussion of the "Deconstructing the Folk".  Ironic, but not surprising.  The Other becomes subjugated under the weight of the monologue.  The Other has no voice in the discussion of cultural production or explanation of self...the Other exists only in the role of "folk"...a nameless, vague and varied category subject to definition only by the scholar, ethnographer, anthroplogist, folklorist.  I would say the latter are the oppressive "other".