Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage

The Center for Folklife & Cultural Heritage (CFCH) is one of three cultural centers within the Smithsonian Institution. With a motto of “culture of, by, and for the people”, its expressed role is to act as steward and ambassador to cultures around the world. It does this by encouraging understanding and cultural sustainability through research, education, and community engagement. The CFCH differs in important aspects from the more conventional museums within the Smithsonian complex. Although it contains (numerically) the largest collection in the Smithsonian, it is not outward facing to the public. Its budget comes primarily from grants, trust monies, federal appropriations, and gifts, with only a small percentage coming out the main Smithsonian budget.

The center is composed of three distinct units. The Smithsonian Folklife Festival is planned and implemented annually by the Festival staff at the Folklife center. The Smithsonian Folkways Record label comprises a second team working at the center; they produce this non-profit music label with the goal of promoting and supporting the cultural diversity of sound. The third team at CFCH manages and curates the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. While the archive, filled with paper documentation and other memorabilia, is traditionally considered to be museum material, the other two sections exemplify more accurately the direction CFCH is headed, with a “shift from reified and ossified discourses of ‘preservation’ to more dynamic and ecological models of sustainability”. Instead of collecting and curating objects (items, stuff), both the Festival and the Folkways units at CFCH collect, research, and produce experiences.

The compound name, Center for Folklife & Cultural Heritage, epitomizes an ongoing transition within the field of cultural studies. In concatenated form, it documents the shift from folklore to cultural heritage that has taken place in academics and in fieldwork within the last 15 years.

The CFCH is just one of several federal institutions to have related mandates. The American Folklife Center, just down the street at the Library of Congress, limits its scope to American Folklife in contrast to the international scope of the CFCH. The National Endowment for the Arts, also headquartered in Washington, D.C., offers support and funding to both new and established art media. As such, it overlaps with topical arts programs brought to the National Mall each summer during the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. The National Park Service has as one of its objectives the preservation of historic sites, partnering with CFCH in their concerns for the cultural sustainability of both tangible and natural cultural resources.

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