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This article explores the strategic and sometimes subversive appropriations of Wisconsin Folklore by citizens at the 2011 Wisconsin labor protests. These protest events critically played with the ethos of "progressive Wisconsin" and created, for a time, plural political spaces that seriously challenged mainstream discourses and allowed citizens to speak and listen to one another in the public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses topics within the issue, including the challenges facing universities in encouraging civic engagement, the relationship between folklorists and social justice, and the history and common themes of Wisconsin folklore.

This article explores the tensions between acknowledgment and recognition in performances by progressive South Asian American activists at the Minnesota Festival of Nations in the year 2000. Focusing on specific South Asian American folk performances that take place within the context of an "India" cultural booth, I argue performers are enjoined to enact cultural practices in ways that foreground a reified sense of "Indian-ness" that is at odds with the multicultural vision of their progressive grassroots school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]