What Do People have to Do with Sport? Folklore/Ethnology in the Kinesiology Classroom‪?‬

For today's presentation I will speak to the idea that as folklorists/ ethnologists we have tremendous relevancy outside of out discipline. I say this now, despite teaching in fields where folklore/ethnology as a discipline was/is not only unknown, but of little or no consequence. In applying for jobs, I have made a concerted effort to downplay my identity as a folklorist/ethnologist for fear of hot being taken seriously, and instead have emphasized what I do in terms of my research. This should strike people as odd, since out research is made possible because of out training as folklorists/ethnologists; and if out research is appealing, than so should be out discipline from which it derives. Part of the problem here is that academic disciplines continue to function as parochial bodies only claiming to endorse interdisciplinarity when their own specific disciplinary agendas, in terms of funding or hiring, are secure. Therefore there remains a challenge for newly minted folklorists/ethnologists wishing to gain employment in Canadian university settings, because we are, aside from a few institutions, disciplinarily destitute. I have not come to suggest solutions to this dilemma, but instead wish to illustrate why this is a dilemma and how out training is of great value to academic departments, and more importantly, to the students who take out classes.