Folkways of the Lost Lands
Maida Owens leads the way in preserving Louisiana culture in the age of the climate crisis
Many people have a general understanding of what folklife is—an idea of tradition and “culture” as experienced by the everyday individual. Maida Owens, the director of the Louisiana Folklife Program, identifies it more formally as cultural practices passed down within a group. The group can be ethnic, occupational, geographical, or united by any other commonality: folklife is the traditions shared among and taught to members. Songs, stories, crafts, recipes, and countless other expressions of identity, belonging, and heritage fall under the rubric of folklife—and onto Owens’ plate as a preserver, promoter, and friend of these traditions in Louisiana. In her nearly forty years working in Louisiana folklife, Owens has faced hell (metaphorically) and high water (all too literally) in her efforts to encourage these traditions to thrive and their bearers to cherish and teach them—and she’s not done.
The Louisiana Folklife Program emerged from a mandate the National Endowment for the Arts gave to its state-level affiliates: thou shalt include folklife. Culture-heavy Louisiana was among the first states to assemble a relevant program in the early 1980s; Owens became its head in 1988 and has been the state’s “folklife lady” ever since. Support for folklife as part of a state office makes a certain amount of practical sense: Louisiana’s mighty tourism industry relies heavily on the cuisines, music, stories, and other cultural expressions that draw people here to experience them firsthand. Being under the state’s aegis has not been a consistent blessing, however. Owens’ budget and staff have waxed and waned according to the state’s fiscal whims and budgetary priorities, and currently, Owens herself is the program’s only full-time employee. Fortunately, she can do more on a shoestring than many could accomplish with an army of graduate students.
Owens has faced hell (metaphorically) and high water (all too literally) in her efforts to encourage these traditions to thrive and their bearers to cherish and teach them—and she’s not done.
Owens maximizes her projects’ effects by thinking critically about where she can do the most good. For example, she won’t be working on Cajun music anytime soon—“plenty of people are working on that,” and her good offices are needed elsewhere. Over the course of her time with the Louisiana Folklife Program, Owens has produced work on the cultures and folklife of immigrant communities; her hometown of Baton Rouge, neglected between cultural-oxygen-hogging Acadiana and New Orleans; the Florida Parishes; Northeast Louisiana’s Delta parishes; and more. This eye for areas that need attention is matched with an ability to find good partners. Tasked in 1990 with helping the state tourism department connect storytellers with festivals at which they could perform, Owens said yes—if she could record the stories. Over ten years later, these recordings led to a book (Swapping Stories: Folktales from Louisiana, edited by Owens, Carl Lindahl, and C. Renee Harvison), a documentary by Pat Mire, and a titanic archive in the care of LSU’s memorial library preserving the voices and stories for descendants, researchers, and those who merely want to hear a good tale.
Any conversation about the last forty years will turn minds to the next forty years, and the prospect of these coming decades provokes anxiety in many Louisianans who live near the coast, love someone who does, or understand the enormous value of the cultures and landscapes that have traditionally thrived in the space where the state trails off into the sea. Storms and land loss have increased their toll on the region, thinning the southernmost tier of parishes into an ever-lacier patchwork of strips of land menaced by open water. As people decamp inland, what will become of their culture—can traditions thrive in new soil? Owens is ready for these conversations. She cites 2016 as a personal turning point: that year’s floods were the first time the lifelong Capital Region resident thought she might have to evacuate.
The conversations are difficult. Some people resist discussion of climate change and projections, whether for political reasons or simply because of the bleakness of the topic. Certain terms can be more loaded than outsiders initially realize—no one wants to be a “climate refugee” from a “dying community,” “managed retreat” sounds as depressing as it is, and nearly everyone is tired of being resilient. Local governments and stakeholders don’t want to plan for a time when their roles might be obsolete. “And I do the same thing,” says Owens: “I’m trying to talk people into staying in Louisiana when they move.” But the harrowing maps of flood risk in 2030 and 2050 indicate a serious need for action, which Owens is working to address.
[Read about American Routes host Nick Spitzer's career documenting Louisiana music, here.]
Owens is one of the driving forces behind the Bayou Culture Collaborative, a group addressing the cultural issues facing coastal populations. The BCC holds and facilitates programs aimed at sustaining cultural practices, as well as training others to hold these workshops themselves. “Sense of Place—and Loss” workshops, which address needs largely of people in sending communities (née “threatened communities”) but also speak to the challenges receiving communities face in welcoming newcomers, as well as preparing people to think about the role of culture in their lives and what they can travel with. For people rooted in place, as many Louisianans are—especially the rural people on the front lines of the changing coast—migration can be especially challenging, both practically and emotionally. People leave ancestors’ graves and familiar landscapes, the places and vistas that provoke memory; they also leave networks and supports that offer real help. (Owens notes that barter networks can be vitally important: “I know people who grow tomatoes who don’t like them because they’re such a high-value trade item.”) The workshops acknowledge these losses while noting what can travel: stories, crafts, fiber art, recipes. Additionally, and not limited to the coastal areas, “Passing It On” workshops allow culture bearers to teach their crafts to future practitioners, ensuring transmission into new hands: a recent five-day workshop on split-oak basket making, which Owens feared was a big ask for the public, filled up in a few days.
Storms and land loss have increased their toll on the region, thinning the southernmost tier of parishes into an ever-lacier patchwork of strips of land menaced by open water. As people decamp inland, what will become of their culture—can traditions thrive in new soil? Owens is ready for these conversations.
Owens identifies the Bayou Culture Collaborative as a source of hope in a landscape that can seem saturated with grim news. In about a year, the mailing list for the group has swelled to nearly a thousand, with several working groups emerging and a sense of momentum behind their work for the coast. For Owens, this energy comes from interested parties coming out of their silos and recognizing that it’s possible to help. “We’re finally talking about the people, and that’s important.” With abstractions and projections so central to the conversation about the coast—“if this, then this,” and so many Rhode Islands of wetland becoming just wet—the addition of the human element galvanizes concerned parties and shows them a way forward beyond hand-wringing. Owens, with her keen understanding of the building blocks of identity and community, is in her element here. Practical and realistic without being grim or despairing, empathetic to the fears of her audience, Owens’s calm demeanor and warm understanding could give the dourest cynic hope that Louisiana’s folk traditions will carry forward.
Learn more about Owens's work with the Louisiana Folklife Program at louisianafolklife.org.