Studies on the limitations of folklore and the reach of traditional popular culture in Cuba.

The different discourses on the claim for national and regional cultural values in face of the increasing invasion of foreignizing messages through manipulative information multinationals, have mobilized many scholars in Latin America and the Caribbean to question the etymological root of terms and concepts from other latitudes, so as to adapt them to a permanently changing reality. That is, to graft them onto the trunk of the republics of Our America, as proposed by José Martí in his historical text. One of such discourses involved the discussion of whether the disciplinary field devoted to the study of popular traditions should or should not continue to be called folklore and its necessary replacement by a more operative category, close to the reality of Latin America and the Caribbean. In the case of Cuba, prestigious authors such as Carolina Poncet y de Cárdenas (1879-1969), Fernando Ortiz (1881-1969) and José Luciano Franco (1891-1989), to name a few, had used the term folklore in its positive sense, as referent for the study and dissemination of different aspects of Cuba’s popular traditions. This term was subsequently used by other renowned authors such as María Teresa Linares (1920-), Rogelio Agustín Martínez Furé (1937-) and Miguel Barnet (1940-), among others, who contributed important thoughts on the heritage value of folklore and as a substantive factor of national identity.En Estudos Avançados, (Dossiê Cuba) volumen 25, no. 72, USP, maio/agosto 2011: 117-130